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Military Bill Has High Pork Content

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By MARILYN W. THOMPSON and RON NIXON, The New York Times

Published: November 4, 2007

WASHINGTON - Even though members of Congress cut back their pork barrel spending this year, House lawmakers still tacked on to the military appropriations bill $1.8 billion to pay 580 private companies for projects the Pentagon did not request.

Twenty-one members were responsible for about $1 billion in earmarks, or financing for pet projects, according to data that lawmakers were required to disclose for the first time this year. Each asked for more than $20 million for businesses mostly in their districts, ranging from major military contractors to little-known startups.

The list is topped by the veteran earmark champions Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., who is the chairman of the powerful defense appropriations subcommittee, and Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, the top Republican on the panel, who asked for $166 million and $117 million respectively. It also includes $92 million in requests from Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., a committee member who is under federal investigation for his ties to a lobbying firm whose clients often benefited from his earmarks.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., requested $32 million in earmarks, while Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader, asked for $26 million for projects in the $459.6 billion defense bill, the largest of the appropriations bills that go through Congress.

As promised when they took control of Congress in January, House Democratic leaders cut in half from last year the value of earmarks in the bill, as they did in the other 11 agency spending measures. Some lawmakers, though, complained that the leadership failed to address what it had called a "culture of corruption" in which members seek earmarks to benefit corporate donors.

Earmarks have been a recurring issue in recent congressional scandals, most recently the 2005 conviction of Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., for accepting bribes from defense contractors.

Congressional earmarks, which are not competitively bid, have tripled during the past decade, amounting to $31 billion last year, and the Bush administration has complained they waste taxpayer dollars and skew priorities from critical military needs, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism.

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