enlarge 2003 photo by John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Pemaquid Point Light is one of three Maine lighthouses that would benefit from a $380,000 earmark for the American Lighthouse Foundation, which helps maintain them. GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe requested the funding.

enlarge 2008 photo by John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Rusted rails stretch through Portland’s Bayside neighborhood. An earmark of $760,000 will help pay for construction of the Bayside Trail through the area.

Maine earmarks
A list of the Maine projects funded with earmarks in the omnibus spending bill under debate in the U.S. Senate today.

EARMARKED FOR MAINE

SOME OF THE SPECIAL PROJECTS known as "earmarks" funded at the request of Maine's U.S. senators in the Senate spending bill:

$2.25 MILLION to operate the Agriculture Department's New England Plant, Soil and Water Lab in Orono.

$173,000 for University of Maine research on wild blueberries

$500,000 for Acadia Partners for Science and Learning, a student and teacher training program in Winter Harbor.

$100,000 for the Seals as Sentinels program at the Marine Environmental Research Institute's, which studies toxic contamination in seal blubber as an environmental indicator.

$951,500 for the Maine Tidal Power Initiative, a project of the University of Maine and Maine Maritime Academy to develop tidal power in the Gulf of Maine.

$750,000 to buy land to add to Acadia National Park.

$333,000 to buy videoconferencing, podcasting and other communications technologies for the Wishcamper Center at the University of Southern Maine

$190,000 to help support the 2-1-1 Maine system, a telephone service that connects callers with health and social services programs.

SEE A COMPLETE LIST of proposed projects in the Senate bill.

The $410 billion spending bill debated by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday includes about $21 million for some 45 projects in Maine, ranging from potato research to buying land for conservation.

It also encourages the Army Corps of Engineers to give funding priority to several projects along the Maine coast, including a $27 million jetty restoration at Camp Ellis in Saco.

The so-called earmarks, tucked into the spending bill by members of the state's congressional delegation, are viewed by some as prudent investments in economic development or environmental protection.

But others dismiss the spending as pure pork, designed to return political favors and secure constituent support at the expense of taxpayers.

"Each earmark can be justified individually, and it ends up being death by a thousand cuts," said Tarren Bradgon, chief executive officer at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative research and public policy group in Portland. "If we're going to bring the federal budget under control, we need restraint by all parties and all members of Congress in all states."

The Senate bill combines nine spending measures for various nondefense agencies that were not approved during the last session of Congress. Democratic leaders hope to bring the bill to a vote today or Friday, when an interim funding bill expires.

President Obama has said he hopes to sign the bill by Friday. The House passed its version of the legislation last week.

The largest items for Maine in the Senate bill include $3.45 million to acquire land for conservation along the Machias River; $2.2 million for an Agriculture Department research laboratory in Orono; and $951,500 for the Maine Tidal Power Initiative, a public-private effort to harness tidal power in Cobscook Bay.

Smaller projects include $760,000 toward construction of a trail through Portland's Bayside neighborhood; $475,000 to buy new buses for Metro, the greater Portland bus system; $618,000 to help the University of New England buy equipment for dental education; and $380,000 for the American Lighthouse Foundation, which maintains historic and still-operating lighthouses at Owls Head, Pemaquid and Wood Island.

Maine and several other states will share in other appropriations, including $4.5 million in funding for grants on new uses for wood and $1 million for potato research grants.

Because the bill would increase spending by 8 percent over the previous year, it came under attack this week from critics who argued for more fiscal restraint. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a vocal critic of earmarks, led the charge but failed in his effort to derail the bill.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins worked together to request spending projects for Maine. In a joint statement Wednesday, they said the projects are "an appropriate exercise of congressional budget authority" that offers significant benefits to Maine.

"Rather than unelected government bureaucrats deciding how to allocate taxpayer dollars, we believe that decision should be made by elected officials who, operating under an entirely open process, are held directly accountable by their constituencies," they said.

Bragdon, at Maine Heritage Policy Center, said the state will receive nearly $1 billion from the recently passed economic stimulus package, and that this spending bill is unjustified.

"I think it's wasteful, and it really undermines appropriate priority setting for federal spending," he said.

Kittery businessman Dean Scontras, who ran an unsuccessful campaign in the GOP 1st District congressional primary last year, said he couldn't see the economic benefits in some of the projects, including $100,000 for lobster research by the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation.

"It's frustrating because there's a way to truly stimulate the economy here in Maine, and I don't think it's through the earmark process," he said.

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