Earmarks battle cast as good vs. evil

WASHINGTON — If you've watched "Lord of the Rings," you may have noticed a similarity between the movie and the congressional battle over earmarks. Like the Ring, earmarks bestow amazing power on their bearers.

Earmarks are also, to hear politicians and clean-government types complain, Satanic totems of incalculable evil. Thus, the new Congress is overrun by Frodos vowing to kill earmarks dead. Except they can't and won't. One person's earmark is another's lifeline.

The mobile mammogram bus for King County; the state methamphetamine initiative to care for meth babies and clean up meth labs; money for Indian health clinics locally; and the project to straighten Highway 2 between Snohomish and Skykomish — every one is an earmark.

Earmarks are appropriations for specific projects added anonymously to budget bills by lawmakers. They are sometimes abused by politicians to pay off their pals and can be a temptation to sin. Republicans denounced "hidden" earmarks last week in voting against in the Continuing Resolution bill, CR, to cover the remainder of the 2007 fiscal-year budget.

But the CR passed anyway, with a few GOP supporters — among them, Rep. Dave Reichert of Auburn. The CR included a needed $600 million extra funding for National Institutes of Health, he said.

"I don't oppose earmarks, just the secretive process by which they are allowed," he explained. His $750,000 earmark for the mobile mammogram program, which the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance desperately wants, was cut.

Now that he's not in the majority party, Reichert said, "I'm going to have to reach out to Democrats in the delegation, and get help to get that money, perhaps for next year."

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, is in the majority, but still faces a battle to fund his baby, the state's meth program. It started getting money in 2001, and received about $2 million as an earmark last fall. But it was cut from the pork-free budget Democrats announced in January.

"There are good earmarks and bad," he said.

The meth crisis costs the state millions. "Law-enforcement people from the state were in to see me yesterday about it," Dicks said.

The money is there, but it's in a Justice Department fund for local police. Dicks will have to wheedle it out of the bureaucracy, and has drafted a letter to the Justice Department, which he wants the whole delegation to support. Reichert, who pushed for the program as King County sheriff, said: "Show me where to sign."

Dicks and Reichert agree: They don't want unaccountable bureaucrats in federal agencies in D.C. deciding where money will go in the state for a medical clinic, a road or a drug program.

"People send us back here to D.C. to deal with these problems," Dicks said.

Two years ago, there was a showdown in Congress over an earmark for the state. A senator from the heartland demonized as wasteful some $500,000 for Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park. It opened last month to rave reviews, including praise for its positive impact on fish life and a dying part of the waterfront.

Next week, after the president's new budget is sent to Congress and politicians see what programs have been slashed, the battle over good and evil earmarks begins anew.

Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com

Letter from Washington is an examination of the culture of politics and power in the nation's capital. Alicia Mundy can be reached at 202-622-7457 or at amundy@seattletimes.com.