Re: [CPEO-MEF] FUNDING: Earmarks questioned

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

In my view, there are earmarks and there are earmarks. Some are good, 
and some are bad.

CPEO, when it began as the California Economic Recovery and 
Environmental Restoration Project at San Francisco State University, was 
funded through a base-closure-related earmark proposed by Congresswoman 
Pelosi. Congress specified numerous base-closure-related earmarks that 
year, and it appropriated only half the money necessary to cover those 
earmarks. So we still had to compete to get the money, which was 
significantly less than Pelosi originally proposed. (Remember, she was 
not so powerful in the early/mid 1990s.)

On the whole, these earmarks stimulated the development of valuable 
recovery and environmental programs that might have taken years to 
incubate within the Pentagon.

I am somewhat familiar with two of the earmarks attributed to 
Congresswoman Lofgren in the Washington Post article:

The money for the former Almaden Air Force Station is to carry out 
building demolition and debris removal (BDDR) at this Formerly Used 
Defense Site. By policy, the Army chooses not to use environmental 
restoration funding for BDDR, so for many years the Midpeninsula 
Regional Open Space District, the current owner, has been stuck with 
deteriorating, hazardous structures on its parkland.

If I remember correctly, Stanford's research into paraffin-based solid 
rocket fuel might provide an alternative to ammonium-perchlorate-based 
fuel. In addition to the threat perchlorate poses to drinking water when 
improperly handled, ammonium-perchlorate-based rocket fuel releases 
large quantities of hydrogen chloride by design, not an an unintended 
byproduct. This leads to hydrochloric acid precipitation at lower 
altitudes, and it directly delivers ozone-depleting chlorine to the 
upper atmosphere. The Defense Department has been slow to research 
alternatives to ammonium-perchlorate-based rocket fuel, so this earmark 
has a valid policy objective.

To be sure, Lofgren's earmarks are designed to benefit entities in or 
near her district, but their objectives are reasonable.

Lenny




Lenny Siegel wrote:
> Earmarks of Committee Members Probing Defense Earmarks Questioned
>
> By Carol D. Leonnig
> Washington Post
> July 30, 2009
>
> Members of the House ethics committee, who are investigating a pattern 
> of lawmakers steering federal funds to generous defense contractors, are 
> all set to have their pet military projects funded by the same committee 
> whose activities they are probing.
>
> The 10 committee members together would get 29 earmarks -- or $59 
> million in federal funding for projects they requested in their 
> districts or states -- under a proposed House military spending bill up 
> for a vote today or tomorrow. The details were approved last week by the 
> House defense appropriations subcommittee, whose practice of steering 
> earmarks to a well-connected lobby firm close to the chairman, Rep. John 
> P. Murtha (D-Pa.), is the subject of the ethics committee's investigation.
>
> Ethics committee chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) would receive $9.5 
> million in three earmarks under Murtha's bill. That includes $4 million 
> to clean up contamination at the former Almaden (Calif.) Air Force 
> Station, $2 million for "printed and conformal electronics" research, 
> and $3.5 million to help Stanford University aeronautical research into 
> the use of parafin-based rocket fuel.
>
>
> ...
>
> For the entire article, see
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073001431.html 


--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org




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