For Immediate Release                                      Contact: Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334 
September 30, 2009

Pork Alert:  Senate Defense Shrouded in Mystery

(Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the Senate version of the fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. 

There are 809 projects worth $9.3 billion, including:

• $6,570,269,000 added anonymously for 16 projects.  This figure equates to 71 percent of the dollar amount included for earmarks in the bill.  According to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, signed into law on September 14, 2007 by President George W. Bush, senators are required to add their name to each earmark.  However, they continue to violate this law by adding anonymous earmarks to fund projects often big-ticket items at the expense of taxpayers.    
  
• $2,500,000,000 added anonymously for ten additional C-17 aircraft.  An amendment to eliminate funding for the additional aircraft offered by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was to be brought to a vote on September 30, 2009.  In a floor statement posted on his website, Sen. McCain explained that “[w]hat we would do in this bill is effectively fund the purchase of new aircraft that we neither need nor can afford with critical sustainment money.  That would have a significant impact on our ability to provide the day-to-day operational funding that our servicemen and women and their families deserve.”.
  
• $1,737,733,000 added anonymously for production of an additional DDG-51 destroyer.  According to a September 29, 2009 Associated Press article, the DDG-51 destroyer is “to be built in Pascagoula, Miss., home to Republican Sen. Thad Cochran….”  In the portion of the bill reserved for disclosed earmarks, Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) added $8,100,000 for a hybrid drive system for the DDG-51 destroyer.
  
• $9,500,000 by Senate appropriator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for the MARIAH Hypersonic Wind Tunnel Development Program.  According to Sen. McCain, “The Air Force, leader in hypersonic testing and technology, lost interest in 2004, so appropriators moved the program to the Army.  The Army has no official requirement for this capability and published a report in 2005 stating their disinterest in the program.  To date, the Army has no plans to fund the MARIAH wind tunnel effort, as they have stated in their budget documents.  That hasn’t kept Congress from pouring more than $70 million into it, with no discernable return.  One group has made out well in the deal however.  Of course, I’m referring to lobbyists, including Gage LLC, whose CEO, coincidentally, had been a senior staffer to an appropriator from Montana.” 

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

                                                                   -###-