For Immediate Release                            Contact: Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334
July 8, 2008                                                    Alexa Moutevelis 202-467-5318

Pork Alert:  Commerce/Justice/Science

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the Fiscal 2009 Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Act.  CAGW has documented 1,123 projects at a cost of $409.8 million.  The top five porkers are CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) with $9.95 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) with $9.7 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member C.A “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-Md.); with $8 million; CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) with $7.9 million and House appropriator Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) with $7.7 million.

The following are among the most egregious examples of pork-barreling in the bill:

• $1,350,000 for planetarium costs:  $900,000 by House appropriator Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), and Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Danny Davis (D-Ill.) for planetarium equipment; $250,000 by House appropriator Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) for the Lakeview Museum Planetarium; and $200,000 by CJS Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) for the County College of Morris Planetarium.
• $700,000 by House appropriator John Olver (D-Mass.) for a large millimeter telescope at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  According to its website <http://www.lmtgtm.org/>:  “The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) Project is the joint effort of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica, y Electrónica in Mexico.  The LMT is a 50m diameter millimeter-wave telescope designed for principal operation at wavelengths between 1mm and 4mm.”  The telescope is atop Sierra Negra, a volcanic peak in the state of Puebla, Mexico.  The project has received $18.9 million in pork since 2000.
• $400,000 by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) for horseshoe crab research at Virginia Tech.  According to a March 28, 2008 Richmond Times Dispatch article, “The horseshoe crab’s blood is useful in intravenous medications and has cancer-fighting properties.”  This is a crabby case of corporate welfare; companies that need the research should pay for it.
• $200,000 by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) for research at the American Museum of Natural History to advance environmental literacy through public education in New York.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government. 

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