Senate pork battle keeps on sizzling

What was supposed to be a routine appropriations bill to keep the government running for the next seven months has turned into a high-stakes showdown over pork.

President Barack Obama pledged as a candidate to end earmark spending. But that will have to wait.

Senators have shown no interest in removing any of the $7.7 billion for pet projects included in the bill they will vote on by week’s end. And Obama has said he would sign the measure when it passed, earmarks and all.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., whose 56 earmarks in the bill total nearly $27 million, said Tuesday that earmarks make up just 1 percent of the $410 billion legislation and that “there is full transparency” because every earmark has a lawmaker’s name attached to it.

But some Republicans disagreed.

On Monday, the president’s former opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, criticized Obama on the Senate floor for failing to follow through with his pledge.

“So much for the promise of change,” McCain said.

And on Tuesday, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced amendments that would remove 10 earmarks, including $200,000 for tattoo removal in Mission Hills, Calif., and $1.7 million for swine manure odor research in Iowa.

“We are going to take federal money and say you can have this money to remove tattoos,” Coburn said in a Senate floor speech. “If you are responsible for having a tattoo put on, you ought to be responsible for having a tattoo taken off, and I don’t think our grandchildren should be responsible for paying for it.”

Coburn’s amendment will likely face a vote today, and many lawmakers may get on board. But many of Coburn and McCain’s Republican colleagues in the Senate have included billions of dollars in pet projects in the bill, though they might not label them as earmarks.

“I would not even call what you saw beside my name an earmark,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who sponsored one $760,000 appropriation for the construction of a research park in downtown Memphis, according to a compilation by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Corker said he believed earmark reform has been partly achieved by identifying which lawmaker asked for the money, but he added, “The fact is, there are far too many earmarks and the entire earmark process should be reformed.”

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, said he supported Coburn’s amendment to strip out some of the earmarks, but not his five projects, which would cost nearly $5 million.

“Anything I have in the bill, I have a reason for,” Kyl told The Examiner.

But Kyl conceded that “different people have different ideas” about what constitutes an earmark.

“This list is what Congress has disclosed as earmarks,” said Steve Ellis, spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense. “If they have a problem with that definition, they should take it up with their colleagues.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., added by herself 31 earmarks worth more than $10 million. She also joined other senators to include in the bill an additional 140 earmarks totaling $322 million — including $75 million to help Afghan women.

“If that is an earmark, I’m proud of it,” Landrieu said. “I sponsored several earmarks with purpose and with pride. I would challenge anyone to review them. They are all public. They are all fully disclosed.”