Light-rail funding becomes entangled in earmark battle

WASHINGTON - When Minnesota officials asked Congress to earmark $25 million for the Central Corridor light-rail project this month, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum's office insisted that Gov. Tim Pawlenty personally sign a statement backing "Congress' authority to direct project specific funding."

Translation: If the governor wants the money, he'll have to endorse Congress spending money on home-district projects, a process known as earmarking -- and one that's generated a lot of smoke in congressional and presidential politics this year.

Pawlenty, a co-chairman of the Republican presidential campaign of anti-earmark crusader Sen. John McCain of Arizona, balked at McCollum's request.

"The earmarking process," Pawlenty said in a letter back to her, "is in need of reform."

While there is little doubt that McCollum will still vouch for the $900 million rail project in the heart of her St. Paul district, analysts say her attempt to extract an earmark sign-off from Pawlenty raises the rhetorical heat in the congressional battle over so-called pork-barrel spending.

"They're politicizing a process that's already political," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, the group that coined the phrase "Bridge to Nowhere" to derail a multimillion-dollar bridge project in Alaska.

Under pressure from House Republicans, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering a freeze on earmarks, a move that would neutralize a GOP campaign issue but also jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in home-district projects across the nation.

Minnesota seeks $160 million

Minnesota alone has nearly $160 million in earmark requests before Congress, including $25 million for the Central Corridor Light Rail project connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Backers of the rail project, who include Pawlenty, say it hardly qualifies as pork. Nevertheless, they have been caught up in a tussle that has seen two GOP House members from Minnesota -- John Kline and Michele Bachmann -- pledge not to seek earmarks in their districts.

Meanwhile, two Minnesota Democrats -- McCollum and Rep. Keith Ellison -- have begun requiring all those who seek earmarks in their districts to submit letters supporting the congressional prerogative to secure the funding.

McCollum, in a letter to Pawlenty on Tuesday, called it an "accountability measure," given the political heat members of Congress have taken in recent weeks.

In particular, McCollum singled out Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, who called earmarks "the poster children of fiscal irresponsibility, the kissing cousin to unethical behavior, and an all too frequent enabler of unlawful acts."

President Bush has directed federal agencies to ignore congressional earmarks for the fiscal year that begins in October and not spend those funds.

McCain has suggested he would veto earmark-laden bills if he is elected president. Moreover, nearly 160 House Republicans, including Kline and Bachmann, have signed a resolution calling for an earmark moratorium.

"Minnesotans are tired of seeing Congress spend their hard-earned tax dollars as though it were Monopoly money," Bachmann said.

Democrats have bristled in the face of this onslaught, arguing that Republicans earmarked with record abandon and with less transparency during their 12 years in control of Congress. One of the state's biggest federal earmarks in the past year, they note, is for the Northstar commuter-rail line through Bachmann's district. She, however, did not request it.

Pawlenty a target

Meanwhile, Pawlenty's ties to McCain have made the governor a tempting target for Democrats. So, too, has his recent opposition to a state gas-tax hike.

"He can't have it both ways," Ellison said. "If the gas tax was so unnecessary, he wouldn't need to go to Congress for earmarks."

Pawlenty, in his letter to Ellison and McCollum, avoided the earmark tag altogether. He noted that all the state's funding requests in Congress have merit and "could withstand a competition for funds with other projects if the process is fair and administered as part of a sufficient general appropriation."

Moreover, Pawlenty argued, requiring him to personally certify the state's funding requests to Ellison and McCollum would create "a two-tier expectation between different states and even different members of Congress."

Said Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung: "These Minnesota projects should compete in a merit-based, general pool and if such a pool doesn't currently exist for these types of projects, Congress could create one."

But until then, McCollum said, legislators in Washington have to vouch for state projects under the system that they have.

"Every request for federal funding that I sponsor ... becomes my responsibility," she said. "I expect anyone requesting support for a project from this office to be held accountable, as well."