Earmarks: $12-M Michigan Project Slashed From Spending Bill
Democrats controlling the Senate have abandoned a 1,924-page catchall spending measure that's laced with home-state pet projects known as earmarks and that would have provided another $158 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nevada Democrat Harry Reid gave up on the nearly $1.3 trillion bill after several Republicans who had been thinking of voting for the bill pulled back their support.
GOP leader Mitch McConnell threw his weight against the bill in recent days, saying it was in his words ``unbelievable'' that Democrats would try to muscle through in just a few days legislation that usually takes months to debate.
Senate Democrats' now-abandoned the lengthy omnibus spending bill that contained more than 6,700 pet projects known as earmarks. They include:
-$1 million for peanut research in Athens and Tifton, Ga.
-$3 million to restore oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay.
-$360,000 for the Buffalo, N.Y., police department to purchase surveillance cameras.
-$800,000 to develop advanced packaging for combat rations.
-$4.4 million to develop laser technology to counter roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices.
-$12 million for a replacement lock in Sault St. Marie, Mich., to guarantee a shipping passage to Lake Superior and Lake Huron.
-$125,000 to train welders in Portland, Ore.
-$750,000 to study flood risks in Cary, N.C.
-$3.7 million for water and sewer systems at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
-$700,000 to expand the emergency department at a hospital in Columbus, Ind.
-$810,000 to begin construction of an air traffic control tower at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.
-$500,000 for a proposed ferry between Berkeley and San Francisco, Calif.
(Copyright 2010 WWJ Newsradio 950. The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
