Nevada ‘earmarks’ have air of legitimacy

The $410 billion omnibus budget bill signed this week by President Obama contains about 8,000 so-called earmarks — funding allocations for specific programs and projects in each state. Critics such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., condemn the practice of attaching funding for lawmakers’ “pet projects” to such bills.

But while abuses do occur, the fact is that most earmarks are legitimate expenditures. A scan of the more than $100 million worth of earmarks for Nevada — the list is available here — suggests that most if not all of them are easily defended and ultimately beneficial to the state.

Many of the allocations are for research projects at UNLV and UNR, especially studies associated with renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Many of the earmarks are dedicated to providing health care and other social services to children, senior citizens and the poor.

Another handful provides funding for school systems, including money for counseling and dropout prevention.

Some of the funding is headed to law enforcement agencies to upgrade equipment, including technology to perform DNA testing.

Some of the funding will go toward protecting Lake Tahoe and other environmentally damaged or sensitive areas of the state.

Transportation projects, including money for Las Vegas beltway overpasses and to continue the widening of State Route 160 to Pahrump, are receiving quite a bit of money.

None of the projects, as they are briefly summarized on the list linked above, suggests a gross abuse of legislative power. Most if not all the money is going to relevant projects that would not be funded by the cash-strapped state or by the private sector. That’s not to say there won’t be waste or failure associated with a few of these earmarks, but to my eye, Nevada’s congressional delegation did not cross the line with this bill. Of course, I'm one of those crazy people who believe the government has an important role to play in our lives.