Defense bill loses $700 million in special projects
By CHARLES HOSKINSON | 12/9/11 5:45 PM EST
House Armed Services Committee leaders stripped almost $700 million in special projects that opponents had slammed as earmarks from the annual defense policy bill before a House-Senate conference began work on a final version, a committee spokesman said Friday.
“The House Armed Services Committee long ago determined that we would not take the provisions to conference. As you know, it is a point of pride among the committees that we do not authorize hollow budget authority,” spokesman Claude Chafin said, explaining that since the annual Senate and House defense appropriations bills do not include money for them, they would have been moot in any case.
“There’s nothing even remotely resembling an earmark in there,” he said.
The projects – contained in the House version of the bill passed in May — had caught the attention of taxpayer groups and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who complained they were an effort to get around a two-year congressional ban on earmarks. McCaskill had said she would try to strip them out in the conference and at one point threatened to block the bill if they were included.
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