Pork Alert: 2009 Military Construction

Business Wire, Oct 8, 2008

CAGW's Pork Patrol(SM) takes a closer look at fiscal 2009 Military Construction Pork

WASHINGTON -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the Fiscal Year 2009 Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act. The report included 172 projects worth $1.2 billion, compared to 191 projects worth the same amount in fiscal 2008. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) racked up $29.9 million in pork. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) led all representatives with three projects totaling $15.1 million. Although the number of earmarks decreased in this most recent edition of the bill, the amount of wasted money has not.

The military construction bill included the following earmarks:

* $30 million by Senate Appropriations Committee member Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) for an access road at Pohakuloa Training Area. Sen. Inouye requested $17 million for the same project in 2006.

* $27 million by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) for a fuel system/corrosion control hangar at Yeager Airport.

* $18.4 million by House Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Chet Edwards (D-Texas), including $17.5 million for a chapel and education center at Fort Hood.

* $12.5 million by Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) for the first phase of a medical parking garage at Fort Bliss.

* $3.9 million by Representatives Robert Scott (D-Va.) and Robert Wittman (R-Va.) for a vehicle paint facility at Fort Eustis.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.