The Senate recently passed a bill authorizing money for the Army Corps of Engineers with a price tag of about $14 billion. The House version of the Water Resources Development Act passed at $15 billion. In a conference committee, lawmakers from both chambers hammered out the differences, and in the end came to a compromise: $23 billion.
While not that unusual, this bill’s growth behind closed doors certainly defies the civics-textbook explanation of how a bill becomes a law. The 450 earmarks in the final bill, including many that appeared only in the final version, also don’t quite reflect the promises Democrats made after passing their “ethics reform” bill earlier this year. Looking closely at this legislation — and who stands to get rich off of it — gives a good education in the way Washington really works.
President Bush has threatened to veto the bill. But having garnered 81 votes in the Senate and 381 votes in the House, Democratic leaders have enough votes to override a veto — and they are being lobbied hard to do so.
The chief lobbyist for this bill has been Waterways Council Inc., a trade group based inside the Beltway with a diverse group of member companies that all rely on the nation’s rivers, canals and ports. Members include influential agri-business lobbyist (and ethanol champion) National Corn Growers Association, as well as big players in the oil and shipping industries.
Ingram Barge Co., a Nashville, Tenn.-based shipper, is a member of Waterways Council that has a lot to gain from a veto override. The final version of the bill contained a $10 million earmark for Army Corps of Engineers work in Nashville’s ports. While Ingram has long been agitating for federal funding of this port — its political action committee has given $130,000 to federal candidates in the past two election cycles, including $30,000 in the first six months of this year — it didn’t get its earmark in the House bill or the Senate bill.
Luckily for Ingram, the conference committee inserted the earmark, drafted by Tennessee Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, who received $9,000 and $7,500, respectively, from Ingram Barge.
To lobby on this bill, Waterways Council retained the Livingston Group, headed by former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston of Louisiana. Its lobbyists also include John Moran, a former commissioner on the Federal Maritime Commission.
Other backdoor earmarks included Sen. Barbara Boxer’s $1.8 billion for flood control around the Santa Ana River. Sen. Jim DeMint, a chief Capitol Hill critic of porking, argues that even if one agrees this project is needed, and even if one agrees that taxpayers in Iowa and Maine ought to be footing the bill for the people of Orange County, one has to ask why Boxer, the chairwoman of one of the committees that produced the bill, didn’t insert her earmark earlier in the process.
Sen. Hillary Clinton won a $10 million earmark in conference committee for revitalizing the Port of Rochester, which the city is trying to turn into a tourist destination and an entertainment district. Tourism and downtown revitalization is not part of the Army Corps of Engineer’s responsibilities, but the bill was full of such projects.
Congress’ ethics reform bill, passed this year, was supposed to stop this sort of thing. If lawmakers were going to win earmarks, they were supposed to win them in the light of day — in committee or in the full House or Senate — where their special projects could be debated and voted on one at a time. But Ingram Barge’s $10 million earmark, like Boxer’s $1.8 billion one, were inserted in conference committee and not subject to either amendment or scrutiny. The porkers got their way because WRDA is an authorization bill, while the ethics legislation only impacted appropriations measures.
It’s fitting that this lesson on lobbying, spending and “reform” comes via a water bill. Just as water will always find its way to the lowest point, lobbyists with money will always find their way to the lawmakers, and the lawmakers will always find a way to help their friends to taxpayers’ dollars.
Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney is senior reporter for the Evans & Novak Political Report. He can be reached at [email protected].
