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.

Contact: Keith Ashdown
(202) 546-8500 x110