Senate to probe Alaska congressman's earmark

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday took the rare move of requesting a federal criminal investigation into an Alaska congressman's changes to a $10 million earmark in 2005, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and top Republicans endorsed an ethics committee investigation of how the language governing the pet project was altered.

The Senate's 64-28 vote calls on the Justice Department to look into the circumstances surrounding the earmark, which shifted $10 million from a project to widen Interstate 75 in southwest Florida to a study of a Coconut Road interchange that promised to benefit one of Rep. Don Young's campaign donors.

Lawmakers and aides said they could not recall Congress previously requesting a criminal investigation into one of its own earmarks.

Young, a Republican who took office in 1973, would not comment Thursday, but he has said he welcomes the scrutiny.

He acknowledged this week that he requested the earmark, and an aide said staff members changed its language after the House and Senate had voted on the highway-funding bill that contained the measure.

But Young denied that he pushed the provision as a result of receiving $40,000 in campaign donations from developers who owned 4,000 acres next to the proposed interchange on I-75 just east of Naples.

Young's office said the earmark authorized money for a legitimate project and aides corrected the legislation to specify that the money was for the interchange, not the general widening of I-75, as originally worded. Aides said a bipartisan collection of House and Senate staff agreed to that correction before the highway bill was sent to the White House.

But Democratic and Republican senators said no substantive changes should ever be made to a bill after its final passage.

"If these allegations are true, this is one more example of the corruption that permeated the Congress in recent years," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee in 2005, said his staff had no knowledge of the changed wording.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and 17 other Republicans supported the request for a Justice Department investigation. Both of Alaska's senators voted against the proposal, with Republican Sen. Ted Stevens calling it a "dangerous precedent."

A county planning board for the Naples area, which does not support the proposed interchange, has rejected the $10 million three times. As part of Thursday's action, the Senate also would allow Lee County officials to spend the money on general highway improvements, instead of the interchange. That provision is expected to pass the House and be signed by President Bush.

Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also said Thursday they would support an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is officially known.

The Justice Department and House ethics committee declined to comment.