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TCS Statement on Emergency Supplemental Bill
Washington,
D.C. – The following is a written
statement by Keith Ashdown, Vice-President of Policy
at Taxpayers for Common Sense on the Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act for Defense, The Global War on
Terror And Tsunami Relief of 2005:
As
the supplemental spending bill nears passage, Senators
should be ashamed
by the presence of dozens of supposedly ‘urgent’ spending
provisions unrelated to the Iraq war that are piggy-backing
on the patriotic fervor that is sure to propel this
bill to passage. By not keeping this legislation clean,
Senators are opening a Pandora’s Box of pork
for any pet project lawmakers will request as a payoff
for their final vote. This legislation demonstrates
just how meaningless it has become to designate something
as an "emergency” except for the purpose
of keeping the spending off-budget and beyond public
scrutiny.
The Senate version of the bill proposes $80.6 billion
in spending, which is about $1.5 billion less that
the legislation proposed by the administration. It
may look smaller, but in reality, the legislation robs
our troops to pay for pork by cutting defense funds
and replacing them with local projects that are not
emergencies.
According to the Congressional Research Service, when
this supplemental is passed the cost of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars will have surpassed $275 billion.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, future
costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are steep, with military
operations projected to cost $458 billion from FY2005
through FY2014.
The
bill appropriates, authorizes, or transfers funds
for
the following ‘urgent’ projects:
$26 million - Senator Domenici (R-NM) was busy. He
got $26 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA) to move nuclear material from the Los Alamos
National Laboratory to the Device Assembly Facility
in Nevada.
$4
million – Senator
Domenici also earmarked $4 million in previously
appropriated Department of
Energy funds to clean up Los Alamos County land that
was formally owned by the NNSA.
$10 million - And finally, he got a $10 million transfer
from one NNSA account to the Office of the Administrator
to support the Pajarito Plateau Homesteaders Compensation
Fund. This was language that Senator Domenici with
Senator Bingaman had added last year in the FY2005
Defense Authorization Act. It is related to the settlement
of two lawsuits that derive from acquisition of land
for the 1940s Manhattan Project in Los Alamos County.
$23
million – This is a great bill for baseball.
There’s $23 million in the bill for the Architect
of the Capitol to build an off-site delivery facility
that will replace an existing facility that needs to
be moved to make room for the new Nationals’ baseball
stadium.
$10
million - At the request of Senator Specter (R-PA)
for the
expansion and improvement of the wastewater
facilities in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania. The money will
enable Sanofi Pasteur to increase its domestic production
of flu vaccine. Senator Specter stated that "The
expansion of Sanofi Pasteur’s production facility
in Northeastern Pennsylvania will be a tremendous benefit
not only to the Commonwealth but also the nation.”
$42
million - For Fort Wainwright to get a new aircraft
hangar.
The former, 50 year-old hangar for the 68th
Medical Company was destroyed in August 2004 several
months before passage of the final military construction
spending bill. The military construction bill, through
which such projects are traditionally funded, had already
passed the House last year when the hangar burned,
but the Senate passed its version of the bill about
a month after the fire, and the final version of the
bill didn’t become law until mid-October.
$35
million – This
provision reaches way back and changes language passed
in 1992 that authorized
$20 million for a wastewater treatment project in DeSoto
County, Mississippi and changes the authorization to
$55 million.
$15
million – Prevent future flooding damage
to the Manoa watershed in Hawaii. Hawaii also got $14.8
million for recent flood damage to the University of
Hawaii in Manoa, but while that spending may have indeed
been urgent, it’s hard to understand why we absolutely
can’t wait to battle a catastrophe that hasn’t
yet happened.
$32 million - For maintenance of forest roads in California
following hard rains earlier in the year.
$2
million – Earmarked
for the Southeast Regional Cooling, Heating and Power
and Bio-Fuel Application
Center out of previously appropriated funds.
$3
million – Earmarked
for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center out of previously
appropriated funds.
$500,000 – Earmarked
for the desalination plant at the University of Nevada-Reno
out of previously
appropriated funds.
$500,000 – Earmarked
for the Oral history of the negotiated settlement
project at the University
of Reno out of previously appropriated funds.
$4
million – Earmarked
for the Fire Sciences Academy in Elk Nevada out of
previously appropriated
funds.
$5
million – Changes
a previous authorization to allow an additional $5
million to be spent on the
Fort Peck Fish Hatchery in Montana. The authorized
increases the cost of the project from $20 million
to $25 million.
In
addition to these appropriations and authorizations,
the bill
also includes these ‘urgent’ pieces
of legislative language:
A study to determine the viability of establishing
an off-channel sanctuary for Silvery Minnows in the
Middle Rio Grande Valley
Senator
Thad Cochran (R-MS), Senate Appropriations Chairman
got a provision that protects Mississippi-based
Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula by
forcing the Pentagon to build it’s new DD(X)
destroyer in both Mississippi and Maine, rather than
picking just one, a move that the military estimates
could save $300 million per ship produced.
Authorizes
the construction of an expansion to the Yellowstone
visitors’ information center.
And
finally, the bill includes language that would require
reports
on the Palestinian Authority’s
cooperation in investigating the late Yasser Arafat’s
finances. |
