Price rerouted disaster funds

Congressman oversaw earmarks

WASHINGTON -- In his first year as chairman of a key congressional spending panel, Triangle congressman David Price helped steer more than $50 million away from a national competition to help communities stem the pain of natural disasters.

Instead, the money was directed to 96 projects in the districts of some of Congress' most powerful or most vulnerable members, according to a study of earmarks conducted by a fiscal watchdog group in Washington. There, money was set aside for school systems, cities and states across the country to build tornado sirens, retrofit shelters and protect neighborhoods against flooding.

"They were putting their own communities' needs ahead of more-vulnerable communities or communities that have done more to mitigate their risk," said Steve Ellis, vice president of the government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The group is releasing a database today that aims to detail every earmark in the massive omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last fall. The projects, which direct funding to specific congressional districts, are known as earmarks and have come under increasing scrutiny by Democratic leaders as well as President Bush.

Taxpayers for Common Sense said it found $18 billion in total congressional earmarks in its database research, including more than $600 million in congressional and presidential earmarks in the Homeland Security spending bill controlled by Price.

Price disputes that assertion, saying the bill has just $424 million in earmarks, and that the bill contains 40 percent less than the Republican-controlled bill in 2006. Still, every one of the earmarks had to go through Price. And to get a better understanding of how Congress works, it helps to take a close look at how a single program can be altered by the earmarking process.

This year, $51 million has been directed to specific projects to be managed by the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program within the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

The disaster mitigation program is usually competitive, and last year FEMA received requests worth $292 million.

"Every year, there have been more qualified projects than funds available, and this year will be no different," said David I. Maurstad, assistant administrator for mitigation at FEMA.

But Price defended the earmarked projects, saying FEMA has not done enough on its own to spread money to needy communities across the country.

"This was money not being effectively utilized," Price said in an interview Wednesday. "This is an area of great need."

Last year, Price said, Congress gave the agency $134 million for its Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program. It had spent just $71 million by the end of the year.

FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said the money has been assigned to projects and will be spent as soon as local recipients go through all the bureaucratic hoops to get their checks.

Price is chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, the only member of the North Carolina delegation on the powerful spending committee. As such, he holds the purse strings to the Homeland Security budget. It funds 22 agencies over issues as disparate as immigration, port security and natural disaster response. All earmarks must be approved by him.

The earmarks for the disaster program benefited both Democrats and Republicans on the homeland security subcommittee.

"It's the case of which member of Congress is best at getting earmarks for his or her district," said William Waugh, a professor and disaster expert at Georgia State University. "Is there a surprise there?"

In Pennsylvania, Republican Rep. John Peterson said his staff got a call one day last year saying there was $1 million available if he could find a worthy, ready-to-go project in his district. He found one: two unwieldy streams in Sandy Creek Township that flood repeatedly, threatening a local electrical salvaging company that sits near the streams.

"Opportunity met money, and we made it happen," Peterson said. "When someone gives me a million dollars, I find a place to invest it."

N.C. projects

In North Carolina, $6.4 million went to projects across the state. Among them: retrofitting an agriculture building to use as a storm shelter in the mountains, mapping flood plains along the coast and studying culverts near a low-lying school in the Piedmont.

Two projects, worth a total $5 million, were sponsored by Price. The others went to Reps. Heath Shuler, a freshman Democrat from Waynesville, and Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord. Both are considered vulnerable next election.