NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/research/1381

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From: [e-mail] (Russel Shermer (R43))
Newsgroups: sci.research
Subject: fyi #160: Authorizers Battle Against Pork Projects
Keywords: science, funding, pork-barrel.
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Date: 29 Dec 92 22:33:13 GMT
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Posted for:
Public Information Division
American Institute of Physics
Contact:  Audrey T. Leath
Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]




Authorizers Battle Against Pork Projects

FYI No. 160, December 28, 1992

"But is this any way to spend precious taxpayer dollars, by letting
a small handful of members of the appropriations committees of the
House and Senate specify which academic institutions should be the
recipients each year of their largesse?"
     -- Rep. George Brown

Skirmishes continue in the ongoing power struggle between
congressional authorizing and appropriating committees.  The battle
is fought over who determines what programs receive federal
funding.  In theory, it is the role of the authorizing committees
to determine how funds should be allocated, by holding public
hearings and listening to expert witnesses.  The appropriations
committees are then supposed to provide funds for the authorized
agencies and programs.

Traditionally, federal agencies that sponsor academic research are
given discretion by the authorizers in determining what research
they fund.  Research proposals are usually selected by merit-based
peer review.  However, it is becoming more common for appropriators
to specify, or earmark, specific programs to be funded, often in
their home state.  These programs usually have not been authorized
or passed any scientific review.  This "pork" is often added by
powerful appropriations committee members during the closed-door
House-Senate conferences.

The practice of pork-barreling, always common in public works
projects, has ballooned recently for academic research and
facilities, as the nation's academic infrastructure gradually
deteriorates.  In a September report produced for House science
committee chairman George Brown (D-California), the Congressional
Research Service (CRS) estimates that of the approximately $2.5
billion in academic earmarks over the period 1980-92, 48% were made
in the last two years.  Appropriators argue that earmarking
corrects for a "good-old-boy" bias in the peer review system that
steers most research funds to well-established institutions,
overlooking smaller schools.

The CRS report shows that the results of this attempt to
redistribute the wealth are mixed at best.  States and institutions
that do well by the peer review system are often also some of the
biggest recipients of earmarking.  CRS reports that over the
12-year period surveyed, "three of the top ten States benefitting
from earmarking, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, . . .
also ranked among the top ten State recipients of all Federal
academic R&D funds."

According to CRS, approximately one-third of earmarked funds during
that period went to only five states, and over half of the earmarks
went to only ten states.  Similarly, about one-third of earmarks
went to only ten institutions, and half went to only 20
institutions.  Of the nine geographical regions recognized by NSF,
the top region for all federal R&D funding in fiscal year 1990 (the
Pacific) was also the top region for earmarks during the 12-year
period.  The report concludes that "the distribution of earmarks
favored those regions receiving the largest amounts of Federal
research funds rather than those receiving the least."  "This does
not seem like spreading the wealth," Brown has said, "it seems like
double-dipping."

The power struggle between authorizers and appropriators continued
during this fall's appropriations process.  Brown, an avowed foe of
earmarking and defender of the role of authorizing committees, won
a fight against ten academic pork projects worth $95 million in the
fiscal 1993 Energy and Water appropriations report.  The House
voted 250-104 that the projects would have to be authorized before
being funded.

But on October 5, several weeks after Brown's victory,
appropriators inserted the same ten projects into the Department of
Defense appropriations report.  The report, 1,000 pages long, was
made available in limited numbers only two hours before it was
scheduled to be voted on.  Brown found the pork, but was unable to
convince House members, anxious to return to their home districts
to campaign, to oppose the bill.  It passed.

Earlier this month, several House authorizing committee chairmen
(including Brown and John Dingell (D-Michigan) offered proposals to
the Democratic Caucus to give authorizing committees more influence
in the appropriations process.  Appropriators refused to accept a
proposal that authorizing chairmen sit in on appropriations
conferences.  However, a compromise was reached which enables House
authorizers to disagree with Senate-added amendments, and allows 24
hours for consideration of reports before voting.

Another proposal aimed at muzzling pork-hungry appropriators is the
presidential line-item veto.  This would allow the new president to
veto individual projects without vetoing an entire bill.  Clinton
and the House both favor the proposal, but powerful members of the
Senate dislike it.  In particular, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West
Virginia), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and one
of the Senate's champion pork-barrelers, strongly opposes the idea.


###############
Public Information Division
American Institute of Physics
Contact:  Audrey T. Leath
[phone]
##END##########