Senate passes wilderness bill packed with pork barrel spending
For all the talk of doing business differently in Washington, this sounds suspiciously like business as usual. In a rare Sunday session, the United States Senate has passed a wilderness protection bill that sets aside more than 2 million acres of land as wilderness protected by the federal government. On the surface, that doesn’t sound so bad and believe me, the environmentalists are jumping for joy, but there is much more to this bill than first meets the eye. My problem with this bill isn’t the fact that the land was set aside to be protected, it was what the Senate saw fit to include in the bill that had nothing to do with protecting our wilderness lands. U. S. Senator Tom Coburn feels the same way.
I’m disappointed the Senate Majority Leader has refused to allow Senators the opportunity to improve, amend or eliminate any of the questionable provisions in his omnibus lands bill. When the American people asked Congress to set a new tone, I don’t believe refusing to listen to the concerns of others was what they had in mind. The American people expect us hold open, civil and thorough debates on costly legislation, not ram through 1,300 page bills when few are watching. Blocking debate undermines the public’s trust in Congress and suggests that Senators have something to hide. If Senators want to load this bill with earmarks and deepen our dependence on foreign oil, they should defend those provisions on the floor of the Senate, not hide behind procedural roadblocks.
Back on January 7, Dr. Coburn released a statement, outlining some of his objections to the land bill. Most of them have to do with the billions of dollars that are being earmarked for pet projects and he makes a very good point when he says the Senate should be focused on stabilizing our economy, instead of wasting more money on projects that are not needed. Here are the projects that are included in the bill.
- A provision that takes about 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil out of production in Wyoming, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The energy resources walled off by this bill would nearly match the annual production levels of our two largest natural gas production states – Alaska and Texas.
- $3 million for a “road to nowhere” through a wildlife refuge in Alaska.
- $1 billion for a water project designed to save 500 salmon in California. At this price, each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold.
- $3.5 million to help celebrate the 450th birthday of St. Augustine Florida, in 2015.
- $4 million to protect livestock from wolves that Congress helped reintroduce into the wild.
- $250,000 to help bureaucrats decide how to designate Alexander Hamilton’s boyhood home.
- $5 million on botanical gardens in Hawaii and Florida.
Someone needs to explain to me what St. Augustine has to do with wilderness or how 500 salmon are worth $1 billion. People are losing their jobs to the tune of 500,000 per month and we want to spend $250,000 trying to figure out someone’s boyhood home? This kind of spending is what gives Congress a bad reputation and the problem is compounded when you have someone like Harry Reid trying to push legislation like this through the Senate, without the proper kind of debate and discussion. Can you imagine what he would try if left unchecked by people like Tom Coburn?
During his campaign against John McCain, Barack Obama said repeatedly that he wanted to change the way Washington did business and he has banned any kind of earmarks from being inserted into his upcoming economic stimulus package. That’s a good start, but if he wants to really stand up to the liberals in Congress, I can think of another good way to do it. When Congress sends him this land bill with these pet projects, he should veto it, tell them no thanks, and for them to send it back when they have removed the trash from the bill. That would be one sure way of getting the attention of the American people and to serve notice on Congress and the rest of Washington that business as usual is in the past.
I specifically recall Obama saying he would “go line by line” and do away with anything that was unnecessary. I think this “pork” is unnecessary. Of course, I am not so sure that Obama meant what we all took his statement to mean.
Anyway, the fact that Tom Coburn doesn’t like it tells me it isn’t good. Coburn is one of the good guys and he gives me hope that we can still turn things around.
One thing that may shock you, I don’t have a problem with the salmon. The billion price tag is obviously excessive but saving the salmon actually is a good thing. I hadn’t realized the danger we are in of losing the salmon population until I took a Environmental Science class while I was at ORU.
I so wish our elected officials would just let the states and we the people fix the problems we are confronted with and that they would just stay out of everything else. What is that saying…too many chefs ruin the soup! Well, we have too many chefs in Washington!
Dominique’s last blog post..PETITION ALERT: Petition to the U.N.calling for an investigation of HAMAS’ treatment of CHILDREN
Dominique,
I am not sure Obama meant what we took him to mean either. It remains to be seen how he will actually respond when faced with making the hard decisions he will have to make, if he tries to keep the promises he made.
My argument is not with saving the salmon, but with the $1 billion they want to use to do it. Considering the fact that the American citizens are much more important than salmon, I believe that is something we should be thinking about.
I understood your position on the salmon, Larry and I agree with what you have said about Obama. I so hope I am wrong and he does what he promised. This bill doesn’t bode well for me, however.
Dominique’s last blog post..PETITION ALERT: Petition to the U.N.calling for an investigation of HAMAS’ treatment of CHILDREN