For Immediate Release
November 19, 2007 |
Contact: Steve Ellis
202-546-8500 x126 |
DEFENSE SPENDING BILL EARMARKS JUST SHY OF $8 BILLION
Click Here for Complete Database of Defense Earmarks
Washington, D.C. – Now that the conference report for the 2008 Defense Department Appropriations bill is in, we can see whether Congress lived up to its “cut earmarks in half” promise for the federal government’s largest discretionary spending bill. The answer, unsurprisingly, is no.
The final 2008 Defense bill contains 2,161 earmarks worth $7,913,250,000. This is a reduction of 19% in total number of earmarks from 2653 earmarks in 2007 and a 30% reduction from the $11,289,645,000 total.
This includes 25 earmarks worth $60 million that were inserted during conference proceedings, meaning they did not undergo any of the disclosure weathered by requests contained in the House or Senate bills. Some of the projects funded by these earmarks include $20 million for historically black colleges from Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA); $4 million for an “integrated health monitoring system for UAVs” from Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Hillary Clinton (D-NY and Chuck Schumer (D-NY); and two earmarks worth $3 million for robotic surgery and tissue repair research at the University of Kentucky from Ben Chandler (D-KY). The legislation also includes 20 intelligence earmarks worth over $45 million. The House had originally kept the total cost of the earmarks classified.
Several large additions that were undisclosed as earmarks in the original House Defense Appropriations bill, but disclosed by the Senate were absorbed disclosure-free into the conference bill. For example, the House added $588 million for an additional Virginia Class submarine for the Navy, but did not list the increase as an earmark. The Senate requested $470 million for the same program, but disclosed it as an earmark sponsored by nine senators including Jack Reed (D-RI) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). The combined bill allocates $588 million, but does not include the program or its sponsors among the chart of earmarks at the end of the conference report. Another big program disclosed in the Senate but not the House was an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. The House added $240 million for the program, while two $240 million earmarks were sponsored in the Senate by six lawmakers including Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA). The conference bill includes a $240 million addition, but no information about its sponsors in the House or Senate. |
