The dinosaurs may be extinct, but pork-barrel politics are alive and well in the 104th Congress. Tucked away in next year’s NASA budget was $13 million in funding for New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. But this time the Congressional “Pork-Busters” Coalition and others weren’t about to let Congress get away with it.

Representatives George Brown, Jr. (D-CA), Edward Royce (R-CA), David Minge (D-MN) and Mark Neumann (R-WI) offered an amendment to the spending bill containing NASA appropriations to eliminate funding for the museum on the grounds that special earmarks are pure pork. The amendment passed by voice vote on June 26.

The pork-busting members protested that the museum money would be handed out as an earmark – special funding set aside for pet projects. Earmarks have long been a part of politics as usual for Congress. But with a new attitude on the Hill towards wasteful spending, these unauthorized projects are having a harder time slipping past the Appropriations process.

Funding for the $13 million museum earmark would come out of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth satellite program and was slipped in during the full committee mark-up of the bill. The funding was not requested by NASA, was completely unauthorized, was not the subject of proper hearings and was not competitively awarded.

The defeat of the museum earmark was particularly interesting in light of who requested it – avid dinosaur buff and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

Auburn Dam – Dead Again!

TC$ has won its top legislative victory for the year with yet another defeat of the ill-fated Auburn Dam. This was a major victory for the Green Scissors Coalition. The dam was up for authorization in the Water Resources Development Act and was killed during mark-up by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on June 27. The 35-28 vote was the culmination of intense lobbying by both sides.

House Goes Ape, Votes Bedtime for Bion

TC$ declared victory on June 26 after the House passed an amendment ending funding for NASA’s Bion project. TC$ helped engineer the 244-171 vote on the Roemer (D-IN)-Ganske (R-IA) amendment to block the use of $16 million in remaining funds for the program, which would have orbited Russian monkeys in space.

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