Billions in earmarks headed to states and cities

As part of the spending packages Congress passed last week to avoid a government shutdown, roughly $14 billion will be headed for nearly 7,000 state and local projects through earmarks, according to a tally by Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s office.

While those receiving the money say earmarks will help communities deal with an array of issues from increasing the number of salmon on Alaska’s coast to addressing urban blight in Detroit, they are strongly opposed by some conservatives, including Paul, who considers them  “wasteful spending.”

In part, Paul objects to spending tax dollars when the nation is $1.6 trillion in debt. He also argues that local governments, and not the federal government, should be covering the $1.2 million cost of Rhode Island’s bike path renovation.

“I'm a bike rider. I like bike paths as much as the next person,” Paul said during a debate over the first set of spending bills passed by the Senate on March 8. “But they should be funded locally. A bike path in Rhode Island is the business of Rhode Island,” he said. “Don't tax the rest of the people in the country to pay for a bike path in one state.”

Formally called Community Project Funding, earmarks come from a small portion of the federal budget that is set aside to fund projects requested by members of Congress, like the earmark secured by Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed to renovate the Washington Secondary Bike Path. 

This is just the latest dustup about earmarks.

In 2011, Congress banned earmarks in response to critics who cited them as an example of Washington’s “swamp” political culture. They pointed to a $223 million earmark Alaska’s congressional delegation secured to build a massive bridge for a city so small that the project was derided as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Two years ago, the Democratic-controlled Congress restored earmarks. Led by then-House Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, lawmakers instituted reforms, including barring earmarks from going to private companies.

But the earmarks are still going to projects the federal government shouldn’t be funding, according to Paul. Among his examples of the “worst earmarks” is $3.5 million that will go to a nonprofit that builds the floats for Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day parade to build a new headquarters.

Another is the $4 million that Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone will be sending to Woodbridge, New Jersey, to build a new waterfront walkway. Paul noted that the median annual income in the town is nearly $100,000. “You think maybe they could pay for their own boardwalk?” he said.

Pallone, though, said the funding will “help revitalize the area around the waterfront and bolster economic development in Woodbridge.” 

Paul also condemned sending $249,000 to the Baltimore Symphony, arguing that the government shouldn’t be picking a particular symphony to support. Given that the federal government can’t afford to pay for all symphonies, “we shouldn't be in the symphony business,” he said.

Another complaint comes from state water agencies who object to how earmarks are paid for. Money earmarked for water projects is taken from the federal funding states receive to improve the quality of drinking water and sewage treatment under the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. That means while all states get less funding for water projects, some receive more in earmarks than the amount of funding their they would be losing. 

However, the revival of earmarks meant that local governments received $2.7 billion for 1,874 projects in 2022, according to the Government Accountability Office. That’s on top of billions that states and localities are getting from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Reflecting the broad support in Congress for earmarks, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski defended allowing lawmakers to pick certain projects to fund in their communities. Speaking on the Senate floor, Murkowski said she considers securing the earmarks part of her responsibility in Congress.

“My constituents come to me. I have city leaders and state legislators come to me and say: ‘These are our priorities. These are where we would like to focus your energy on. This is how you can make a difference for our communities,’” Murkowski said.

“That’s why we are here. To advocate and stand up for the people that we represent,” she said. “These are not priorities that Lisa Murkowski has invented. These are priorities that have come to us from the communities that have debated and weighed and analyzed [their needs], and said, ‘We need help. Help us.’”

Without the earmarks, she said, state and local governments would have to go through the arduous process of competing for the money through grants from federal agencies. 

“I view this as my job because I don’t really feel comfortable telling my state legislators, the governor, my mayors, my city councils, ‘Thank you for letting us know what your priorities are, but in order for you to make sure you’re going to be included in the President's budget … you’ve got to go visit the [Bureau of Land Management]. You’ve got to visit the [Environmental Protection Agency]. You’ve got to petition. You’ve got to make your case.’”

Those receiving the funding stressed that Congress’ decision to restore the earmarks is benefiting their communities, despite concerns raised by lawmakers like Paul.

Tony Michaels, president and CEO of The Parade Company in Detroit, said in an interview the $3.5 million earmark Paul criticized will be used to end the blight in a neighborhood by renovating a former naval armory for its new headquarters. 

The earmark secured by Michigan Democratic Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow will restore a building that has “been empty for 21 to 22 years. There's holes in the roof and it sits right on Jefferson Avenue, which is a main thoroughfare along the river in Detroit,” he said..

The nonprofit doesn’t plan to only build floats at the site, Michaels said. Rather it will refurbish the front 37,000 square feet of the building ”right back to its original glory.” The rear part of the structure will be demolished and replaced with a two-story building with the first floor used to build the floats. The upper will have displays of the building’s history for tours. “We will hold summer camps for Detroit and other public school kids. We're going to have internships. We're going to have a veterans office in the building,” he said.

Michaels said that once the project is finished he will ask Paul to come see the building. “I want to invite him to see what happens and see the kids. To see everything that this does for so many. It really, really is a game changer.”

A $1.2 million earmark for Rhode Island will renovate a 19-mile bike path between Cranston and Coventry, which is the longest in the state, a spokesman for the state’s transportation department said. The bike path “provides a safe, entirely off-road alternative transportation corridor through four communities in central Rhode Island, serving cyclists and pedestrians for both recreational and commuting purposes,” the department said.

The path, though, needs “rehabilitation due to wear and tear and tree-root damage that requires extensive maintenance and resurfacing,” he said. Taxpayers around the country won’t pay for the entire project because the state will pay 20% of the cost.

A spokeswoman for the Baltimore Symphony said its earmark, secured by Maryland Democratic senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, would be used to “significantly expand and improve its inventory of musical instruments” for the city’s public school music program. 

Called OrchKids, the program provides music training to 1,850 students who cannot learn how to play instruments in their schools. Only 12% of the city’s public schools teach students how to play instruments, the spokeswoman said.

Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game, said the millions in earmarks Murkowski is sending his agency will help the state address a decline in salmon stock in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.

“It appears that the primary factor is changing oceanographic conditions,” he said in an email. The earmarks will help the state “unravel the factors impacting the lower growth and survival rates of salmon.” 

Among the earmarks is $1.2 million to fund coastal marine surveys so the agency can better “understand the marine factors that are influencing the survival rates of juvenile salmon in their first few months in sea,” Vincent-Lang said.

Another $2.5 million will allow the department to upgrade its research vehicles. An additional $4 million earmark will go toward juvenile Pacific salmon research.  “We know very little regarding the growth and survival of juvenile salmon in riverine environments,” he said. “This funding will begin to unravel these factors.”