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Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., is proud that he secured $4 million to build a new parking garage in his home state's city of Bozeman. The third-term House member fought hard to ensure that funding for the parking garage would be among the 6,000 or so "earmarks" included in the $286.5 billion highway bill that Congress passed in late July.

But Tracy Velazquez, a Bozeman Democrat who ran against Rehberg in the 2004 election, contends that finding an easy parking space in downtown Bozeman pales in comparison with the task of rebuilding the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. "They need [money] so desperately down there," Velazquez said in an interview. So she has proposed giving the $4 million back to help New Orleans.

Rehberg is not amused. His chief of staff, Erik Iverson, decried Velazquez's proposal as "raw political opportunism" and noted that Bozeman officials believed that they need the new parking garage. "They asked," Iverson said. "We delivered."

The news media have picked up the story; National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal, and C-SPAN have all interviewed Velazquez. Her suggestion, however, is not a novel one. In the wake of Katrina, editorial pages, government watchdogs, and even a few members of Congress are saying, "Shame on pork." Sticker shock over the estimated cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast has prompted a flurry of demands that lawmakers give up their earmarked projects to help foot the bill.

"The overwhelming need of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, coupled with the nation's shock at government ineptitude, should inspire members of Congress to sober up and become something approaching responsible policy makers," The New York Times said in a September 8 editorial. "If they do decide to reform, there's an easy way to prove it. They could turn in their pork." In Florida, the St. Petersburg Times made a similar suggestion on September 10. Both newspapers offered up numerous highway bill projects that should be sacrificed, such as a $230 million bridge called "Don Young's Way" that critics have belittled as a "Bridge to Nowhere" because it will connect the Alaskan mainland to an island with few inhabitants.

Fiscal conservatives, always eager to beat the anti-pork drum, are making similar proposals. "One way to show such sacrifice and resolve would be to agree to shift [to Katrina relief] at least half of the $25 billion that the recently enacted highway bill dedicates to frivolous pork-barrel spending," Ronald Utt, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote recently.

Likewise, the House Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 conservative lawmakers, on September 21 outlined an "Operation Offset" plan to pay for federal relief and reconstruction spending in the Gulf Coast by, among other things, rescinding $25 billion worth of projects in the highway bill. "There is more than enough room in the federal budget to pay for Katrina," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the group's chairman, said at a news conference. Many of the proposals on the conservatives' wish list -- cutting foreign aid, arts and humanities endowments, and Amtrak subsidies -- have kicked around for a decade, but Pence emphasized that the budget climate has changed drastically, and that even cherished pork projects shouldn't be protected.

One man's pork, of course, is another man's bacon. And few congressional insiders actually expect members to give theirs up. But Katrina has prompted calls for lawmakers to at least become more thoughtful and accountable in doling out funds for infrastructure and homeland-security projects, so that obvious needs -- such as fortifying New Orleans against a hurricane -- are better met.

"Louisiana has received more money for Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects than any other state during the Bush administration -- about $1.9 billion," The Washington Post said in a September 12 editorial. "But much of that money has gone to navigation projects of benefit to oil companies and shipping interests, not for shoring up protection against flooding."

Indeed, long-standing complaints that Congress puts politics first when deciding which Army Corps navigation, flood-control, and other water-management projects to fund have had increased resonance since Katrina. In an interview, Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., said that any investigation of the hurricane must explore the question of whether lawmakers funded less-urgent Army Corps projects at the expense of the Louisiana levees. "What kind of funds were made available?" Sununu asked. "Did the Army Corps set the wrong priorities? Did Congress set the wrong priorities?"

And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in an interview that he may try to attach to an appropriations bill his plan to reform the Corps by increasing the amount of scientific research required as part of any project. "Clearly, you need more cost-benefit analysis," McCain said.

Such talk is music to the ears of some veteran Congress-watchers. "Congress has been known for spreading things around, rather than [putting money] where it would do the most good," said Don Wolfensberger, the director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Republican staff director of the House Rules Committee. "The Republicans, who once decried this, are taking it to new heights."

Still, the congressional system of allocating funds for specific member projects is well-entrenched. Many lawmakers and aides argue that it is the best way to distribute the money. "We think it's very appropriate for members to have a hand in the decision of how money is spent in their districts," said John Scofield, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a former governor, dismissed the assertion that members of Congress bring home money for wasteful or unnecessary projects. "I get a little incensed at times when a member or senator brings home a project and it's looked at differently than if some faceless bureaucrat makes the decision," Nelson said in an interview.

Moreover, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, contended that members of Congress seek money that has been requested by state and local officials. "When I take on a substantial project in my state, it is thoroughly vetted," Craig said. "That's the point of what we do. We look out for our own states." But having said that, Craig acknowledged that sacrifice -- even from Idaho -- is called for following Hurricane Katrina. "We have to establish priorities, and right now, we have a national priority in the Gulf," he said. "I'm willing to go tell Idahoans that."

Even conservative lawmakers who are the staunchest opponents of earmarks -- and who now want to rescind some of those projects to pay for Katrina relief -- don't hesitate to go after the money in normal times. "Uncle Sam takes so much money away from my constituents that I'm happy to try to get some of it back," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, a member of the Republican Study Committee. "When someone comes to me and asks what I want in the highway bill, I don't mind telling you what projects are important to the 5th District of Texas."

Proposals to reform the earmark tradition have floated around Congress for years. Some critics have suggested making the process more transparent, so that it's easier for members to identify and challenge earmarks during House and Senate debate.

Others favor giving the president "rescission" authority to strike specific funding allocations in bills and then require a congressional vote in order for the earmark to be restored. Such a process would "give a member the opportunity to defend his program," said former Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas.

If change is to come about, some lawmakers say, it must start at the top. "The leadership eventually has to put some controls on us," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. Likewise, Sununu said that appropriators must take some of the initiative. "Leadership and restraint by the members of the Appropriations Committee are the most important things," he said.

But one analyst argued that congressional leaders find the earmarking system so useful that they won't seek reforms. "Leaders use pork-barrel projects to assemble the votes," said Diana Evans, a political science professor at Trinity College in Connecticut and author of a 2004 book, Greasing the Wheels.

Amid the pork-bashing following Hurricane Katrina, a little-noticed debate has already been under way in Congress this year over whether the nation's most pressing local priorities are receiving adequate federal dollars. Congress has been mulling whether to adjust the formula used to distribute funding to "first responders" so that urban areas at greater risk of terrorist attack get more money. The debate follows reports of homeland-security funds being funneled to small rural towns to buy high-tech terrorism-fighting equipment that goes unused -- or going to pay for other items with no relation to homeland security, such as air-conditioned garbage trucks.

House-Senate negotiators are trying to decide how to adjust the first-responder funding formula as part of the fiscal 2006 Homeland Security appropriations bill. But the provision is so contentious -- pitting rural and urban colleagues against each other as they defend their states' needs -- that it may be dropped from the spending bill.

"I hope we rise to the occasion," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said during Senate debate on the first-responder funding formula in July. "To have Wyoming get $38.31 per capita, while New York gets only $5.47 per capita, doesn't look like a formula based on threat, but looks like a formula based on politics, to me."

Still, Schumer seemed to acknowledge that parochial interests might prevail. "I understand that every state has needs," he said. "How can I be sure that if I were from a small state, I would not want to favor a formula that had more for the small states?"

COMMENTS

• I read Mr. Bauman's piece "Spreading the Wealth" with some interest. As a career civil servant and a darn good one, I find it gut-wrenching when any writer or any publication uses overarching, condemnatory generalizations like as Mr. Bauman uses "government ineptitude." I understand that the article was for the National Journal and not for GovtExec.Com. Nonetheless, just out of consideration for what I think is probably the main readership of GovtExec.Com, I purpose that this publication inaugurate the use of MORE SPECIFIC TERMINOLOGY in any writings concerning the successes, failures and problems of the components of what is commonly and erronously termed "government." Richard Tedrow Posted September 26, 2005 8:04 AM