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There’s One Earmark in Senate Highway Bill

Guess whose earmark is in the bill

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  February 15th, 2012 at 03:00 PM  | 

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If the House highway bill is an excrement sandwich, the Senate version is…well, it’s a lot worse.  The one saving grace of the bill was that it supposedly did not contain any earmarks.  Well, indeed there is one earmark in the bill, and it’s directed to Nevada.  The earmark is ensconced in the bill very cleverly.  On page 463 of the bill (lines 8-14), it states the following language:

(d) CERTAIN ALLOCATIONS.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any unobligated balances of amounts required to be allocated to a State by section 1307(d)(1) of the SAFETEA–LU (23 U.S.C. 322 note; 119 Stat. 1217; 122 Stat. 1577) shall instead be made available to such State for any purpose eligible under section 133(c) of title 23, United States Code.

In case you were wondering which “allocation” of SAFETEA-LU (the 2005 highway bill) is being directed to “such state,” you can look back into section 1307(d)(1) of that bill.  It contains the following provision:

(d) Allocation- Of the amounts made available to carry out this section for a fiscal year, the Secretary shall allocate 50 percent for the MAGLEV project between Las Vegas and Primm, Nevada, and 50 percent for a MAGLEV project located east of the Mississippi River.

The original earmark allocated $45 million for an environmental impact study of a magnetic train from Las Vegas to California.  That money, which was unspent, will be redirected to Nevada’s Department of Transportation instead of the federal government’s DOT.  This is a prime example of why all transportation authority -outlays and revenue – should be devolved to the states.  We should not be spreading around money from some states to others.

Senator Mike Johanns, who discovered this hidden earmark, is introducing an amendment to strip out the earmark.  Kudos to Senator Johanns for the diligent work in exposing Harry Reid’s duplicity.

Now we must focus on the broader problems of the bill.  S. 1813 will bankrupt the highway trust fund and raise taxes to pay for some of the deficit.  It’s nice to vote for the amendment to strip out the earmark.  But Republicans must vote down the underlying bill as well.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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  • Locked and Loaded

    that a MAGLEV from one casino to another is as crucial as any generic MAGLEV project east of the Mississippi River.

  • PubliusII

    and cowardly, too. A courageous earmarker would have made the earmark openly, instead of hiding it.

  • snowshooze

    There is no way a regular person would read that as an earmark without pulling the statutes to try to figure out what they were talking about. They certainy wouldn’t want to come right out and say something re-allocate Federal funds to the State of Nevada… oh no.. that would not look good.

    • kestrel

      of how lawmakers regularly and secretly plunder We the People through lengthy, obfuscatory legislation. If I could add a signature line in my commenting, it would be:

      “Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally?. tilting the field exquisitely toward some and away from others.? ?Angelo M. Codevilla

      This fact needs to become widely known.

      My first reaction to the House highway bill (to shift from one corrupt chamber to another) was why the heck is it 847 pages long? I am sick of this.

      And I am sick of politicians like Boehner pretending they are being “responsible” by attempting to commandeer new revenue sources for the Highway Trust Fund (like drilling royalties), instead of making the Fund live within its means.

      I hope Boehner’s big attempt at “trough fill” backfires into widespread calls for Highway maintenance to be devolved to the states, which is what should be happening. Of course, devolution provides yet another target for political obfuscation, as explained by Andy Roth of Club for Growth:

      House Speaker John Boehner and other supporters of the 2012 Highway bill claim that devolution takes time, and that this Highway Bill is a step in the right direction. This is standard politician-speak for slowing down the reform agenda so that business-as-usual can resume sometime in the near future when nobody is looking.

      http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2012/02/why-congress-should-reject-highway-bill/253041

  • http://conservativemountaineer.blogspot.com/ conservativemountaineer

    The reason I’m asking is that the MAGLEV company/project here in Pittsburgh declared bankruptcy in July 2011 and the assets will be auctioned off on March 6th. One of the reasons bandied about was that the highway transportation bill was stalled.

    From an article in the Tribune-Review..
    Maglev received nearly $23 million in federal money and $7 million in state tax dollars since the enterprise began in the early 1990s as a research and training facility. Another $28 million federal subsidy authorized in 2009 never materialized.

    “Their existence depended on federal money from the beginning,” said Don Smith, president of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., which leased Maglev a plant and office space and was owed $310,911 in back rent when Maglev filed for bankruptcy.

    Read more: Maglev assets headed to auction – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_781393.html#ixzz1mUs7msLE

    Read more: Maglev assets headed to auction – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_781393.html#ixzz1mUqYijd6

    • acat

      And how does MAGLEV deal with snow?

      I am a cat, so curiosity is sort of my thing.

      Mew

      • http://conservativemountaineer.blogspot.com/ conservativemountaineer

        was one of the routes. Greensburg is ~30 mi east of Pittsburgh, the Airport is ~15 mi west of the City.

        They also wanted to do a test project from around Oakland (where PITT is located) or the Hill District (just above the City) to downtown.

        Hills. Snow. Massive costs for right-of-ways. Pure insanity.

    • bobguzzardi

      I am from southeast Penna. I missed this one. It is whack a mole with these people.

      The Republican General Assembly and the Gov are not the taxpayers’ friends. The Democrats are worse. Limited Government is an idea whose time has to come soon.

  • bobguzzardi

    Thanks, Daniel Horowitz, for your usual informative posts. Depressing as they are. It is good to know someone is on the job.

  • lizaz

    his reelection and filling his own pocket is ensured by including pork for NV in any and all bills possible. I read recently where he was instrumental in the bridge construction across the Colorado River between Bullhead City, AZ and Laughlin, NV because he owns property in the area. Also, if you’ve ever driven through his hometown of Searchlight, NV, you will see a beautiful four-lane divided highway from Searchlight north to Las Vegas, and south of the town is a two-lane road with a few passing lanes which leads to Laughlin, NV and Interstate 40 in California. I’m sure there are a lot more examples of his corrupt behavior. Easy to see he’s in it for himself and has been for many years.