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tazzygirl -> McCaskill-led earmark probe finds $834 million in requests (12/12/2011 9:19:38 AM)
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A six-month study of this year’s defense authorization bill has identified 115 spending proposals as earmarks worth $834 million, including 20 by Republican freshmen who campaigned against the pet projects, according to a copy of the report provided to The Washington Post.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), whose staff produced the study, called the behavior a “bold flaunting” of the GOP-led moratorium on earmarks. She chastised Republican House members for removing documents about earmarks from their Web sites that would have made it easier to identify the practice.
“It was perplexing that so many Republicans had scrubbed their Web sites,” said McCaskill, who on Friday gave copies of the report to the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “If you are going to tout the earmarks you received, why not remain transparent? For me, the entire thing is disappointing. ”
In the analysis, McCaskill’s staff said it found 40 earmark requests from House Republicans and 75 from House Democrats, the report shows. The requests, which target spending to specific projects in a member’s district, were passed over the summer, largely en masse, without public debate.
The report found that 31 other items appeared to be earmarks, but the lack of documentation made it impossible to connect them to specific lawmakers.
On Monday, McCaskill will distribute copies of the 15-page report to the full Armed Services Committee, along with a spreadsheet that names each member who requested the funding.
McCaskill said Friday that she is asking that the conference committee strip out all of the earmarks, which were called “amendments” in the bill. If any remain, she will fight them on the floor of the Senate.
Last week, McCaskill and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) introduced a bill that would make earmarks illegal. She said her staff’s findings underscore the need for the legislation.
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McCaskill said some of the most brazen behavior came from freshmen who, just months before they sought funding for their pet projects, had been on the campaign trail denouncing them.
The report highlights a request from Rep. Robert T. Schilling (R-Ill.), one of the 13 freshmen who sought earmarks, McCaskill said.
The report says Schilling added a $2.5 million earmark for Quad City Manufacturing Lab at the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, Ill., for the “development of innovative manufacturing techniques and process for munitions and weapons systems.”
Schilling’s request matched the language in an earmark to the federal research facility by his predecessor, former representative Phil Hare (D), the report said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mccaskill-led-earmark-probe-finds-834-million-in-requests/2011/12/08/gIQAl0MrlO_story.html
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