Spending bill holds $353 million for state; Nuclear waste, asparagus

Washington state would get about $353 million for federal projects next year - paying for everything from nuclear waste cleanup and airport improvements to research for wiping out jointed goat grass and growing asparagus better.

Idaho would get about $100 million, to pay for such things as upgrading U.S. 95, studying grass seed and saving the Kootenai River burbot.

All are included in a massive spending bill approved by Congress last month.

Budget hawks already say the $388 billion spending package is laden with pet projects the government can't really afford, but finding specific instances of "pork" is difficult at this point.

"Pork is any project that does not go through the proper budgetary checks and balances," said David Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste. His and other groups say there were plenty of opportunities to sneak special projects into the budget when Congress recently rolled nine spending bills into a single measure with more than 3,000 pages.

The nationwide number of pork projects is expected to rise from 10,600 this year to as many as 14,000 for 2005, under Williams' definition.

Asparagus research at Washington State University often meets the group's definition of pork because it gets money in a different way than most agriculture research.

Asparagus farming has been cut in half in Washington - from about 32,000 acres to about 15,000 acres - since the United States began importing it from Peru where workers make in a week what Central Washington pickers make in an hour.

"They were just beating the socks off us," said Ray Folwell, who heads asparagus research at WSU.

The school will receive $250,000 in federal funding next year as part of continuing studies on more efficient ways to grow and harvest the plant.

Folwell acknowledges that the money could be seen as pork-barrel spending by some, but to him there's not really a choice: "We're about ready to lose an industry out here."

The omnibus spending bill is a small part of the nation's $2.4 trillion federal budget, which goes mainly for Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs, and defense. But critics still say too many federal tax dollars go to local projects.

Research on asparagus is among "the kinds of things that private firms ought to be able to do on their own," said Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union.

Some transportation money, like $5 million for the taxiway extension at Spokane International Airport or $2.5 million for a new air traffic control tower, should come from taxes on airlines and passengers, Sepp argues. But that money is often diverted to other things.

Many local infrastructure projects should be built with local money, he said.

But the spending does have its champions.

"That's government working for local communities," said Mike Spahn, a spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

But Murray and other members of the Northwest delegation are critical of the way the spending bills have been cobbled together in recent years.

"Oftentimes these things get thrown together pretty quickly toward the end," Spahn said.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, also has been concerned about the practice of rolling numerous spending bills into one giant measure at the end of the year, spokesman Mike Tracy said.

But Craig supports the projects he includes in them. Idaho will receive money for such things as grass seed research, electronic road signs and stage three of the City of Rocks Back Country Byway. About $15 million of the state's share will go to projects in North Idaho.

Idaho projects did well this year partially because Craig is a senior member of the committee, Tracy said.

The more senior a member is, the greater the opportunity to get money for his or her state, he said.

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