Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Pork in Emergency Military Spending Bill

As the Senate began to debate President Bush's request for more than $80 billion in supplemental military spending on Monday, senators seized a chance to pack pet projects into an unstoppable bill, adding provisions dealing with oil drilling, forest services, a new baseball stadium for Washington and economic assistance to Palestinians.
On Monday night, others were seeking to incorporate changes to immigration laws as well.
Senator Thad Cochran, the Mississippi Republican who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the draft "a straightforward bill" that "meets the needs of our fighting forces overseas" and "addresses emergency requirements here at home."
His own addition to the spending bill was a measure giving Mississippi control of the mineral rights and the ability to permit certain drilling below the Gulf Islands National Seashore in the Gulf of Mexico. Some environmental groups have opposed the measure.
..."It is just horrifying," said James Carifano, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. "It's only a couple of million here and a couple of million there, but it takes a couple of million to buy body armor for our troops, and we didn't do it because we couldn't afford it."

No comments: