The FY09 Senate appropriations bill providing money for transportation and Housing and Urban Development projects contains 609 earmarks worth more than $954 million (click here for the database). This represents a cut of more than one-quarter in the value of earmarks from the Senate-passed bill for FY08 and a significant reduction in the overall number of earmarks. The FY08 Senate bill contained 799 earmarks worth approximately $1.38 billion. In both bills, the average earmark remained about the same, at $1.6 million.

One possible explanation for this decrease is that Congress is grappling with a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) that will reach $5 billion or more by the end of FY09. The HTF is the account where the gasoline taxes we all pay are deposited to pay for transportation projects. A meager $420 million cut in earmarks (not all of which are even transportation-related), however, falls far short of filling the hole in the HTF. The solution in the bill is to take $8 billion out of the Treasury to backfill the HTF. In the face of such a deficit, however, a more drastic cut in earmarks would appear to be in order.

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for writing the bill, secured more than $65 million in earmarks (including earmarks requested in conjunction with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)). Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), the ranking member, secured more than $30 million in earmarks. The 21 members of the subcommittee that wrote the bill garnered 23.2% of the bill’s earmarks by value—closely in line with the percentage of the Senate they make up—if only solo earmarks are counted. However, when you factor in the earmarks where a subcommittee member and the other Senator from their state requested the same earmark, those 37 members garnered 53% of the earmarks in the bill, a much wider disparity.

A small sample of the earmarks in this bill:

• $200,000 for the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, MA for renovation and revitalization of the Berkshire Theatre Festival's facilities and grounds, sponsored by Sens. Kennedy (D-MA) and Kerry (D-MA)
• $10,000,000 for Corridor H in West Virginia, sponsored by Sen. Byrd (D-WV)
• $950,000 for Tunica, MS to combine the visitors center, blues exhibit and gift shop into a Blues Gateway in the Mississippi Delta, sponsored by Sen. Cochran (R-MS)
• $600,000 for a Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, Townsend, TN for expansion and improvements to the Heritage Center, sponsored by Sen. Alexander (R-TN)