Pork Alert: Homeland Insecurity

CAGW's Pork Patrol(SM) takes a closer look at fiscal 2009 Homeland
Security pork
WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its
preliminary analysis of the Senate version of the Fiscal 2009
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Act. There are 17
projects for a total of $133 million in this year's Senate DHS bill.
To paraphrase an earlier classic quote by Senate appropriator Ted
Stevens (R-Alaska), the Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security made
out "like a bandit" on this bill; 92 percent of the total appropriated
funds, or nearly $123 million, went to members of the Subcommittee.

The following are some outrageous examples of pork that senators
added to the Homeland Security bill:

-- $39.7 million for the Advanced Training Center, which trains
border agents, by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman
Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), although the Bush Administration has
not requested funding to expand the center. Sen. Byrd
requested and received the same amount for the project in
fiscal year 2008.

-- $27 million by Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Senate Homeland Security
Appropriations Subcommittee member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.),
and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) for the Southeast Region
Research Initiative in Tennessee. The website for this program
has no white papers or reports of their research available,
only project descriptions.

-- $22.3 million by Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking
Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) for the National Center for
Critical Information Processing and Storage in Mississippi,
which "seeks to consolidate and safely store information
critical to the operations of the federal government."

-- $4.5 million by Senate Homeland Security Appropriations
Subcommittee member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) for the 2010
Olympics Coordination Center in Bellingham, Washington.
According to Sen. Murray's website, the Center "would allow
federal, state, and local officials to meet, prepare and
coordinate a response to any incident from one location."
Although the Olympics will be held in Vancouver, Canada, "the
Center would only be twenty-three miles away from the Canadian
border, as opposed to 110 miles to Seattle or 155 miles to the
Washington State Military Department."

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

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
Leslie K. Paige, 202-467-5334
or
Alexa Moutevelis, 202-467-5318

Copyright Business Wire 2008