If this truly is a nation of laws, lawmakers better investigate how a $10 million highway boon for some political donors in Florida could be rejected by both chambers of Congress then made law by a House clerk’s simple jotting. Errors can happen, but this turnabout is especially suspicious since it involves a malodorous piece of road pork originally sought by Representative Don Young, the fabled House porkmeister.
When he headed the transportation committee, Mr. Young journeyed from his home state, Alaska (where his Bridge to Nowhere boondoggle ignited the Congressional earmark scandal), to look after Florida’s needs. He received $40,000 in campaign donations from land developers during his visit. He requited by tailoring an earmark in the 2005 transportation bill for their pet project: a cross-wetlands connection to the interstate, known as the Coconut Road Interchange, that would boost development values while abusing the environment.
Local officials voted repeatedly to reject the money, asking that the $10 million be used for more legitimate needs along the interstate. The gift project was believed dead until the recent discovery of the clerical sleight of hand. The “widening and improvements” for the interstate specified in the final bill had morphed in the post-vote text into “Coconut Road Interchange.”
News reports traced the miraculous change to a clerk, prodded by unidentified staffers on the transportation committee. Mr. Young denies this was his work, insisting that local officials and their congressman, Connie Mack, wanted the switch. Mr. Mack flatly says, not true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/opinion/07sun3.html?ref=opinion
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