WASHINGTON — The omnibus budget bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday directs more than $219 million in earmarks to Colorado, the state’s slice of what critics say is the bill’s $7.7 billion earmark bonanza.
They include a few that might cock an eyebrow. Easter Seals, a private charity, will get $285,000 for a waste-treatment facility courtesy of Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden. Wayne Allard’s legacy lives on in a $1 million grant for the shipment and storage of oil shale core samples.
The Republican senator also teamed up with former Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar for a state research service grant to study the impact of global warming and UVB radiation: price tag of $1.4 million.
Still, that’s a relatively small share of the state’s total, most of which focuses on big- ticket transportation and water projects, including the largest line item — $60 million for the expansion of FasTracks in metro Denver.
And that total was compiled without help from then-Reps. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan, who pledged last year not to use earmarks.
In fact, for all the political brouhaha generated by the budget’s massive earmark list — there are 8,570 in all — none of Colorado’s has made the top of the budget hawks’ list of wasteful pork or egregious spending.
That restraint may be in part because of recent reforms, which require lawmakers to attach their names to every earmark and to publish the spending requests before lawmakers vote. (The 2009 budget is actually President George W. Bush’s last, carried over by continuing resolutions from last year.)
“Since we took office, we’ve had to attach our name to every funding request that we’ve made. The press, the public, anyone can find out what we’ve requested and for whom,” said Leslie Oliver, a spokeswoman for Perlmutter, who was responsible for nearly $12 million in earmarks in the 2009 budget. Oliver said the Easter Seals camp that serves 1,300 disabled children near Empire would not have been able to expand without her boss’ funding request.
But whether the Colorado earmarks look worthy misses the point, warned Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The federal budgeting process would be better served if all federal spending on dams, mass transit and museums had to compete based on merit, rather than rise to the top because of the political clout of lawmakers, he said.
