Congressional budget negotiators wrangle over water spending

Budget negotiators are working on a congressional spending bill compromise to avoid an Oct. 1 government shutdown; however, the dollars aimed at clean drinking water and water pollution mitigation remain a sticky wicket for both parties, reports Kery Murakami of Route Fifty. "Even under the best-case scenario, Senate Democrats are only pushing to keep funding for two key water programs the same as this year, after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to keep spending flat as part of their deal to avoid a default on the nation’s debt in June."

House Republicans seek "to drastically cut the two programs, according to analyses by two separate associations representing state and local water agencies," Murakami reports. "Though the funding would come on top of the separate nearly $4.8 billion for the water programs in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, associations representing water agencies say even the Senate’s proposal isn’t nearly enough."

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition said, "When cities are living with unsafe drinking water, the federal government needs to be doing more—not less—to ensure access to clean drinking water," reports Lester Graham of Michigan Radio. "The organization criticized a House budget proposal that makes cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, cuts to funds for water infrastructure and eliminates programs to help communities dealing with pollution threatening water sources."

The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations' plan "would keep spending at $1.2 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides low-interest loans to local water districts to fund clean water projects," Murakami writes. "But the House GOP proposal would send states only a tiny fraction of that, about $62 million, according to the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities, an association representing state water agencies. . . . A separate analysis by the American Business Water Coalition of several local water districts puts the figure at roughly the same amount—$61 million, or 5% of the Senate’s proposal."

Wesley Sydnor, chief of government and public affairs for the Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District, "said cutting the funding would impact ratepayers. . . . [The district] has a $1 billion capital plan over the next five years to replace pumps on the Ohio River that were built in the 1950s and upgrade the district’s largest water treatment plant," Murakami reports. "Should funding for low-interest loans through the programs be cut," Sydnor said, the district have to issue bonds with higher interest rates. 

Looking for your earmark? Here's the request list

Does the big, catch-all spending bill hanging fire in Congress have an earmark for your community or region? You can get an idea by downloading a database of the nearly 40,000 requested earmarks, totaling $130 billion, here. It's a zipped, 12 MB Excel spreadsheet.

"It is impossible to know ahead of time which earmarks will appear in the Continuing Resolution finally enacted," the Society of Environmental Journalists notes. The database was produced by Taxpayers for Common Sense, WashingtonWatch.com, and Taxpayers Against Earmarks. While most Republcians in the Senate recently joined those in the House in opposing earmarks, they have not applied that policy to earmarks they requested earlier this year.

Paul downplays E. Ky. drug problem, draws fire

After being taken to task recently for comments on farm subsidies and mine safety, Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul has again taken a stand that may prove controversial for Kentucky voters. Paul told The Associated Press that the drug problem in Eastern Kentucky was not "a real pressing issue." The comment in late July "expands on his previously stated position in favor of cutting federal funding for undercover drug investigations and drug treatment programs," the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "Many officials say both are badly needed in Appalachia, a hotbed for marijuana growers and drug dealers selling prescription pills and methamphetamines."

Democratic nominee Jack Conway favors using federal money to tackle the region's drug problem, as Republican U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers has done. Paul told AP that Eastern Kentucky voters are more concerned about fiscal and social issues. "They're socially conservative out there, so am I. Jack's not. They're fiscally conservative. I am. Jack's not. ... I think we'll swamp him." In 21 Eastern and Southern Kentucky counties, local officials reported 114 overdose deaths during the first two months of this year, Karen Engle, head of the Operation UNITE anti-drug task force, said recently.

Operation UNITE was started  in 2003 by Rogers, who has endorsed Paul. It is funded by $2 million from the state and $4.3 million from the federal government, largely through Rogers' earmarks. "Paul has pledged not to request earmarks, and he said he isn't worried that voters would be upset about losing Operation UNITE," the Herald-Leader reports. Paul said of UNITE, "I don't think most people in Kentucky have heard of it." Jackson County Judge-Executive Tommy Slone, a Republican, said while many local voters are worried about socially and fiscally conservative issues, Paul's comments discredit their concerns about drugs. "Apparently [Paul] just doesn't know, or he wouldn't make that statement" about drugs not being a pressing issue, Slone said. "It'll hurt him if he says that because there's a lot of people up here that's been affected by these drugs." (Read more)

UPDATE, Aug. 14: Paul's campaign tells the Herald-Leader's Bill Estep that he does consider drugs a serious problem. Here is the story.

Milk security system among projects stemming from rural Ky. congressman's hometown earmarks

A University of Kentucky food engineer stands to benefit from the investment in homeland security as his high-tech "milk-transport security system" nears completion. Fred Payne, who has started a company, TranSecurity Systems Inc. to market his system, began his research with $2.67 million in federal grants from the National Institute for Hometown Security, established by Kentucky Republican Rep. Hal Rogers in his hometown of Somerset, John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "Other NIHS-funded projects have included research on face recognition, disaster prediction, pedestrian surveillance and trying to reduce the explosiveness of ammonium nitrate fertilizer," Cheves writes.

Payne's idea arose after many food scientists began questioning the safety of the nation's food supply following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Payne and his partners, "including dairy expert Chris Thompson of the UK College of Agriculture, designed a hand-held wireless computer to record a truck's contents and send that information to remote locations; a global positioning system to identify a truck's whereabouts at all times; and secure locks on the dome lid and rear doors, with a key pad to enter access codes," Cheves writes. (Payne, left, and Thompson in Herald-Leader photo by Matt Goins)

NIHS was created when Rogers earmarked $52 million in federal funds for the project, in part to pay for anti-terrorism research at Kentucky universities. Rogers' critics have questioned the decision to establish "his own homeland security agency in a small town with no obvious terrorist targets," Cheves writes, and claim "Rogers is building an empire for himself in southeastern Kentucky using his so-called budget earmarks." NIHS chief executive Ewell Balltrip, a former newspaper editor and publisher in the region, told Cheves that "Politics doesn't have anything to do with what we do," and the organization provides a needed plug for a hole in national security. (Read more)

Utah town prefers U.S. 'pork' to Mormon crickets

Earmark spending in the $410 billion ominbus spending bill passed last week has been strongly criticized by members of both parties. But in many cases small rural communities have no other hope for dealing with problems facing their communities. That is the case in Grouse Creek, Utah, population 80. (Katie Madonia photo)

"Each of the past four summers, the hungry critters known as Mormon crickets have marched by the tens of thousands over grassy hillsides, past juniper trees, across dirt roads and through ranch houses," reports Philip Rucker of The Washington Post. "The noisy insects have devoured crops, frightened children and threatened families' livelihoods in the tranquil high desert." To view video of Mormon crickets invading Utah click here.

Grouse Creek is due to receive $1 million from an earmark to help kill the insects. Many have pointed to the budget line as "an egregious example of government spending, but to Grouse Creek, the earmark is salvation," writes Rucker. Earmark spending represented 2 percent of the onmibus spending bill. (Read more)

Congressional earmarks too much of a good thing?

Congressional earmarks have received much unfavorable attention lately, including some primarily rural ones in a '10 porkiest' list issued by Sen. John McCain. But the system has been reformed, become more transparent and "actually works better than much of what Washington does,” writes Jonathan Rauch in the National Journal.

"Getting an earmark now is a lot like applying for a grant," Rauch concludes, after explaining why that is so. "As transparency has taken over, the case against earmarks has melted away. Their budgetary impact is trivial in comparison with entitlements and other large programs. Obsessing about earmarks, indeed, has the perverse, if convenient, effect of distracting the country from its real spending problems, thus substituting indignation for discipline."

Rauch offers some useful history, paraphrasing former Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.): "Appropriators felt little need to write earmarks into law. Instead, subcommittee chairmen and ranking [minority] members just dropped money into program accounts. Then they called up executive branch bureaucrats with advice on how to spend it." Apparently, other appropriators started using earmarks, then other members followed. "Earmarks were often invisible, at least until after they were enacted," Rauch writes, noting that has changed. "Every earmark request now must be made public before Congress votes on it. The sponsoring member, the amount and nature of the request, and the name and address of the beneficiary must all be disclosed. You can find all this stuff online."

Rauch asks, "Provided that transparency is assured, shouldn't there be a place in government for elected officials to exercise judgment in the use of taxpayer money? ... The problem is not so much with earmarking as with Congress's and the public's obsession with it. He quotes Scott Lilly, a a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress and a former House Appropriations Committee staff director: "It just takes too damn much time. Congress is spending an inordinate amount of time on 1 percent of the budget and giving the executive branch much too free a rein on the other 99 percent."(Read more)

McCain's '10 porkiest' earmarks are mostly rural

Earmarks are coming under fresh fire, with Congress debating an omnibus spending bill to fund much of the government for the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. In an article for the Daily Yonder, Douglas Burns reports that six of the “10 porkiest” earmarks identified by Republican Sen. John McCain would benefit rural Americans.

Burns, of Carroll, Iowa, focuses on McCain's No.1: a $1.8 million project for swine odor and manure management at Iowa State University. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who helped secure the funding, says that while pig odor may seem amusing, it is a serious problem in Iowa. He says the state has 20 million pigs, which create eight times the amount of waste as people do. “That’s like having 160 million people in the state of Iowa with no kind of control over effluent,” Harkin said. “As you know we have problems with our rivers and our streams, with odor. This is legitimate research.”

Burns writes that other rural projects on McCain's list include "study of grape genetics; beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi; cricket control in Utah; a world trade center in Montana; and a honey bee factory in the ag-intensive Rio Grande Valley of Texas." (Read more)

Metro papers' cutbacks hurt coverage of Congress; smaller news outlets need to pick up the slack

As more metropolitan newspapers cut back on regional reporting, including Washington bureau reporters, smaller news outlets must bear more of the burden for holding elected officials accountable -- especially those who work away from home, in state capitals or Washington.

"Washington bureaus are hemorrhaging reporters or closing altogether," Bill Walsh, left, said in accepting the Robin Goldstein Award for Washington Regional Reporting from the National Press Club last week. Walsh is one of the latest examples; he left the New Orleans Times-Picayune in May to become a strategic adviser at AARP. "Given the state of the newspaper industry, I suspect that had I not left voluntarily I wouldn't have had a choice eventually," Walsh said. "The slot I left hasn't been filled."

Walsh's remarks were posted on the Web site of American Journalism Review. All are worth reading; here are some: "The number of bloggers commenting on the news out of Washington has exploded. The number of reporters actually digging up the news has dwindled. Washington bureaus are hemorrhaging reporters or closing altogether. In tight times, papers see their Washington operations as luxuries. That's misguided. The result is that members of Congress, except for the leaders, are getting less scrutiny than ever. Even before I left, I was so busy covering the daily stories that I had little time to do what I was sent here to do: Dig into what local members of Congress were up to, find out who was influencing them and figure out if they were truly representing the folks back home."

That erodes a fundamental element of democracy, Walsh said: "I see us, fundamentally, as explainers cutting through the complexities of Washington and telling our readers what it means to them. Lacking that, the public grows ever more cynical and detached from an increasingly complicated government they seem to understand less and less. At a time when members of Congress have gotten remarkably sophisticated at manipulating their images, there are fewer reporters around cutting through the spin, putting it in context, explaining it. . . . If I don't report that a senator has introduced legislation to curry favor with an influential constituent, or that FEMA has decided not to give hurricane assistance to college students, or that Democrats are using racially tinged comments to demean a rising star in the Republican Party, who happens to be non-white, it's as if those things never happened." (Read more)

Technology and Web sites of nonpartisan, non-profit groups offer opportunities for local reporters to do that kind of reporting. One example is the Sunlight Foundation, which says it was founded in 2006 to harness "the revolutionary power of the Internet to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens." Sunlight does its own research and creates databases and on subjects such as congressional earmarks, member schedules and hiring of spouses. It has begun a "comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents." For a list of its projects, click here.

McCain probably considering one-term pledge, Sen. Sam Brownback tells National Rural Assembly

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is probably thinking about announcing that he would serve only one term if elected, as a way to signal that he aims to resolve big issues without regard to re-election concerns, U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas told the National Rural Assembly and Stand Up for Rural America yesterday. (Photo by Shawn Poynter)

"He's probably even considering announcing that he would serve only one term, as a way of pushing the agenda on a bipartisan basis," said Brownback, who appeared before the rural advocates as a representative of the McCain campaign. Afterward, Brownback told reporters that he had heard the Arizona senator mention the one-term possibility, then said he had not.

Asked what basis he had for his statement to the assembly, Brownback said, "I heard him say that months ago." Asked if McCain had mentioned the possibility only to him, or if the conversation involved more than just the two of them, Brownback said McCain had not made such a statement. "This was just something that was rumored months ago," he said.

As he headed out of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, Brownback was asked if he thought a one-term pledge would be a good idea. He suggested that it might be, but not at this juncture: "It might be a time, but I don't know if it's the point for him to do now."

Both Brownback and former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, a close adviser to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, said their candidates could forge bipartisan consensus. Brownback suggested the dialogue between the candidates could begin the process. "We've got a presidential race where there's a chance to highlight rural issues and ... come together around some common causes and elevate them," he said, adding that McCain has a record "of getting things, big things, done in this town."

Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, said Obama "could be one of the most transformational political figures of my lifetime," like the Kennedys in the 1960s. "We've got to create more opportunities for meaningful bipartisanship so we can address the issues of the day."

Daschle was more specific on issues, contrasting the positions of Obama and McCain on congressional earmarks and health care. He said Obama wants to make health care accessible to all Americans by the end of his first term, and the familiar line that the U.S. has the world's best health-care system is a myth, since the nation ranks 29th in infant mortality, 31st in life expectancy and 35th in the world in overall health outcomes.

McCain has vowed to veto any bills with earmarks, or specific appropriations inserted by senators or House members. Daschle said the power has been abused, and "God knows there's need for reform," but he said eliminating earmarks entirely would be just as bad for rural America. He said they are "an ability for Congress to weigh in on what the priorities ought to be."

Brownback, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, did not mention the issue in his remarks but was questioned about it by an audience member who said earmarks funnel $10 billion to rural areas. "These have clearly gotten out of hand," Brownback said, undermining Americans' confidence in their government. He said the solution he prefers is requiring earmarks to be approved not just by the appropriations committees but by the authorizing committees, those that create and continue programs to which earmarks are added.

Congressional earmarks going through with little coverage, Novak says

Conservative political columnist Robert Novak writes in the latest Evans-Novak Political Report that the professed transparency of House Democrats when it comes to earmarks on appropriations bills is "a sham" because they routinely vote to approve each other's earmarks and that isn't being covered by the news media.

"Amendments to strike transparent earmarks are brought up for a floor vote, they are overwhelmingly defeated and the news media completely ignore the story," Novak writes. "Searches of Lexis-Nexis and Google News suggest that no one -- and we mean absolutely no one -- has picked up on the story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and the embarrassing fight he lost to keep an earmark in his district." We suppose Novak does not include in his definition of "news media" Politico.com, which reported June 28 and July 3 on the removal of McHenry's earmark for the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree in Spruce Pine, N.C.

McHenry blamed the 249-174 vote against his $129,000 earmark on his outspoken criticism of Democrats. "Since his election in 2004, McHenry has become one of the Democrats' most vocal critics on the House floor," Politico.com reported July 3. The earlier story noted that the vote marked the first time that Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has succeeded in removing an earmark. For the latest Politico.com story, click here. It notes, "Interestingly, four members of McHenry's own state delegation — usually tight-knit groupings — voted against him: Republicans Howard Coble, Robin Hayes and Sue Myrick and Democrat Brad Miller."

Novak may be more on point when it comes to traditional and local coverage. We checked the archives of the Morganton News-Herald, the daily newspaper closest to Spruce Pine, and the latest story on the matter was a June 21 report from Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press, which prominently noted McHenry's earnark, called him a "burr in the side of Democrats running the House" and said an unnamed "senior GOP member of the Appropriations Committee pointed McHenry's earmark out to reporters, calling it 'interesting.'" Sounds like the Democrats wanted at least one earmark they could defeat on the floor. (Read more)

We found nothing on the matter in the archives of the Asheville Citizen-Times, a larger paper almost as close to Spruce Pine but not in McHenry's 10th District. The Hickory Daily Record, largest paper in the 10th, noted the committee action in an editorial critical of earmarking but we found nothing in its archives on the floor vote. Both papers are owned by chains that have Washington reporters. But reporters don't have to be in Washington to write about such matters; there's plenty of information on the Web. Use it!