Pork Alert: House Department of Defense

(Washington, D.C.) -Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. In this year’s version, there are 649 projects worth $3.2 billion. One bright spot in the bill is that the Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine program, which received $465 million in earmarks in fiscal year 2009, did not receive any earmarks. Some of the biggest porkers in the House authorization bill were Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), with 17 projects worth $51,646,000, Rep. David Loebsack (D-Iowa), with nine projects worth $48,200,000, and House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), with 11 projects worth $44,330,000.

The following are some egregious examples of pork that members of the House added to the Defense bill:

• $43,200,000 for three projects requested by Reps. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) to construct a chapel complex at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

• $33,550,000 requested toward developing or purchasing renewable, wave, and bio energy, divided among 11 projects, shared among 10 representatives and directed to seven states.

• $7,000,000 for two projects for the Marine Mammal Awareness, Alert and Response Systems: $3,500,000 by Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) for BAE Systems in Honolulu, Hawaii; and $3,500,000 by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) for Integrated Systems Solutions, Inc. in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

• $4,000,000 by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) for Open Source Research Centers intended for Radiance Technologies in Fairborn, Ohio.

• $2,550,000 by Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) for whale and dolphin hearing and echolocation projects for the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii.

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

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Link: Citizens Against Government Waste: Homepage

(This shows that there is money to be made from that sonar-is-killing-the-whales scam.  Correlate these projects with Abercrombie's out-of-state political donors -- many of which are defense contractors.)