The Earmark That Backfired

Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

In 2005 Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska championed a $10 million earmark for a highway interchange. The earmark appeared in an 835-page transportation bill called SAFETEA-LU. Rep. Young was the man behind Alaska's infamous $233 million "Bridge to Nowhere," so this sounds like nothing unusual for him, except that . . .
* The project wasn't in Alaska, but as far away as possible, in the Florida district of Republican Rep. Connie Mack.

* Mack and other local Republicans opposed the project. There were environmental concerns and higher priorities.

* But they were told that they had to accept the project or risk losing future federal funds.

Why? Because a local developer who owned 4,000 acres near the proposed interchange had raised $40,000 for Rep. Young's re-election campaign. The interchange would multiply the value of his land. When asked about it by a reporter for the New York Times Rep. Young responded with an obscene gesture.

But there's more:

* This earmark wasn't even in the 835-page bill passed by the House and Senate.

* The original earmark (#462) was for widening I-75, not for an interchange.

* After the bill passed, but before President Bush signed it, someone changed it to an interchange project.

* This was done during the "enrollment"process when punctuation and other technical corrections are made.

* But this was clearly a substantive change, not a "technical correction."

Incredibly, no one noticed the change for two years! Finally . . .

* In August, 2007, a former Department of Labor official, Darla Latourneau, reported that the interchange didn't appear in the original bill passed by the House and Senate.

* The Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization voted to return the money, asking that it be used for its original purpose.

* That change was included this year in H.R. 1195, which passed both the House and Senate.

* H.R. 1195 also includes a provision for the Justice Department to investigate the alteration of the earmark.

Little investigation is actually needed. Don Young's staff has admitted that they made the change, but no member of the House has filed an ethics complaint. Without a complaint, the House ethics committee can't investigate.

Have other House members done something similar? Is it common practice? Could this be why no one has complained to the ethics committee?....