There are nine projects in New York’s 23rd Congressional District that will receive financial support with the return of funding member items. U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, during his weekly conference call, noted that he voted in favor of the $1.5 trillion spending plan.

“The House passed the bipartisan omnibus bill which helped secure much-needed defense and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, deliver real results for the American people and avert a government shutdown,” he said. “We are also very proud of our work to ensure that this bill includes specific funding for priorities in our community.”

In the plan, Reed said there will be funding for a number of local projects.

“We have approximately nine direct funding lines that will go to projects for water and sewer primarily, for areas like the city of of Corning, the town of Cherry Creek, the town of Bradford, the town of Seneca Falls, the village of Portville, the village of Dundee, the village of Mayville, Elmira College, as well as the Dream It, Do It in New York job training program that’s in Jamestown. On top of that, we were able to negotiate and put in the bill additional funding for the U.S. Corp of Engineers that will specifically go to operations and maintenance of the Barcelona Harbor and Dunkirk Harbor. This is all things that we should be celebrating,” he said.

The Hill, a newspaper and digital media company based in Washington, D.C., was critical of the omnibus bill. In its criticism, it noted that some of the earmarks provide millions of dollars more than what the Biden administration requested. “The omnibus includes $5.9 million for Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, $5 million more than the $680,000 requested by the administration,” the Hill stated.

During the conference call, Reed defended bringing back member items. “I’m very happy with the return of these community funded projects, as they’ve been labeled now, because we communicate with the district.

We understand the priorities of the district, talking to folks across the district. To be able to weight in under our Constitutional oblications of spending money and authorizing that for Congress, we’re able to make sure that those priorities are achieved,” he said.

Reed said he believes all nine projects are worthwhile. “I would be happy to stand in front of any community with my community allies and local elected officials, to defending these projects as wise investments for our community,” he said.

The local funding projects had not been included in Congress for the last 11 years. Reed, who is not running for re-election, said he understands the need for community funded projects. “You’re never going to get a perfect bill, especially when you’re working in a bipartisan fashion. And now having the community directed funding line in these packages, it changes the calculations as to are these items strong enough to warrant something that’s not perfect legislation buy a pretty good bill that you can support at 80% instead of 100%,” he said.

According to The Hill, the $1.5 trillion, 2,741-page omnibus spending package includes more than 4,000 earmarks. “There’s been a decade of pent-up desire to get back to earmarks and you’re seeing some of that come to fruition, particularly those people who were writing the appropriations bills, dealing with all of those type of issues and then not getting the gravy they certainly did earlier in their career,” said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal spending.

Other local projects receiving funds included:

¯ $2 million for Environmental Protection Agency through the State and Tribal Assistance Grants Clean Water State Revolving Fund. This will allow the town of Cherry Creek to upgrade the Water Pollution Control Facility and the sanitary sewer collection system to meet new state DEC regulations.

¯ $2 million for Environmental Protection Agency through the State and Tribal Assistance Grants Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. This will allow Mayville to construct a new water well and associated treatment infrastructure that will replace existing contaminated wells.

¯ $250,000 for Department of Labor for Employment and Training Administration thourgh the Dream It, Do It in Jamestown. The funding will be used to invest in critical classroom and lab facilities.

¯ $1.15 million for Barcelona Harbor.