Thompson, Woolsey defend federal earmarks

Reps. Mike Thompson and Lynn Woolsey brought home a combined $47 million for local projects this year, including money for private and nonprofit groups that contributed to their re-election campaigns, data from political watchdogs show.

The North Coast's two House members secured "earmarks" for 36 pet projects in fiscal 2008, a majority of which were run by public agencies for such things as flood control or research into agricultural pests.

But some of the funding extended to non-governmental outfits whose chief executives or political arms donated thousands of dollars to the lawmakers.

Woolsey, D-Petaluma, obtained a $470,000 earmark for San Rafael's Center Point Inc., a nonprofit health and rehabilitation center, according to data supplied by Washington-based Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Executives of the charity have given her more than $31,000 in individual campaign contributions over the past 11 years, including two donations last June from the CEO and a vice president worth $4,300, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, also based in Washington.

Thompson, D-St. Helena, secured $1 million for L-3 Communications Sonoma EO, a division of one of the country's largest military defense contractors with offices in Santa Rosa that is working on laser technology.

After that request was approved in the fall, Thompson got a check in February for $1,500 from the company's political action committee. Data show the PAC had given Thompson money at least one other time and company employees also have donated.

Federal watchdogs say the practice, while not necessarily improper, is helping to drive up the national debt, which stands at $9.5 trillion, while enforcing the notion that special interests control politicians.

"It's a tale we've heard all too often," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "There's no paperwork to document quid pro quo. This happened and then that happened. They may be related and they may not be. But here are the facts. And it's coming out of taxpayers' pockets."

Defending requests

Thompson and Woolsey defended their earmarks, saying they were accomplishing important objectives while bringing jobs and benefits to their constituents.

Thompson, who had a combined $33.9 million in approved earmarks, said the funding for L-3 Communications bolstered the local economy and provided a critical piece of technology needed by the military.

Woolsey, who arranged $12.9 million in earmarks, said funding for Center Point helps provide invaluable prisoner rehabilitation, community re-integration and job placement services, as well as alcohol and drug treatment services to the area.

Both denied campaign contributions played a role in their requests for federal money.

"When I support funding for a local project, it's 100 percent based on the benefits it will bring to our district and nothing else," Thompson said in a statement.

"Every year I receive nearly 100 earmark requests which are considered on their merit, not on political donations," Woolsey said in a statement.

The two lawmakers are hardly alone in pork-barrel spending, a tradition in Washington that has drawn scrutiny in recent years and generated calls to stop it.

In the fiscal year that runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, Congress mandated more than 12,000 earmarks for projects costing more than $18 billion. Of that total, California lawmakers brought home $929 million.

The state, with about 12 percent of the nation's population, is getting about 5 percent of the earmark spending.

Earmarks exist behind a veil of secrecy and sidestep the competitive bidding process under which federal agencies typically dispense funds.

Members of Congress are allowed to tuck allocation requests into often-unrelated appropriations bills and are required to disclose their participation only if the earmarks are funded.

Most elected officials observe the practice of nondisclosure, but momentum for change has been building.

About 100 members of the House and Senate, including Woolsey, now reveal their earmarks.

Earlier this year, Woolsey disclosed fiscal 2009 requests for 73 public and private projects totaling about $237 million. A brief description of each project was posted on her Web site.

Thompson has declined to release even general information about his requests, saying it could hurt potential recipients if the money fails to materialize.

However, changes last year in the law have allowed the public to glimpse some of the behind-the-scenes action and have given rise to groups like Taxpayers for Common Sense, which publishes databases of earmarks in appropriations bills.

Thompson's projects

According to their research, Thompson, in the current fiscal year, secured money for 23 projects. Public works projects on the Napa River and in West Sacramento topped the list at $10.8 million and $4.3 million, respectively.

He got $3.3 million for an office of the U.S. Agriculture Department in Florida to research Pierce's disease and the glassy winged sharpshooter, a pest to grape growers. Also on the list is $3 million to help fund the conversion of the former naval facility at Centerville Beach near Ferndale into a recreation area and about $2 million for environmental studies for a Sonoma-Marin commuter train.

Earmarks for private companies include $800,000 to Davis-based Arcadia Biosciences Inc., which is engineering crops with longer shelf lives to feed deployed military forces. He also got smaller amounts for other entities doing agricultural research.

L-3 Communications Sonoma EO, which got $1 million, is working with Navy researchers to make a highly stable aircraft-mounted telescope that can transmit images in the field, according to Thompson's office.

Thompson is on the House Ways and Means Committee and also serves on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is chairman of the subcommittee on terrorism, human intelligence, analysis and counterintelligence.

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, he has made numerous trips to the Mideast.

"I am pleased that I was able to secure funding that both protects our brave men and women in uniform and keep American families safe while simultaneously supporting a business important to our local economy," Thompson said.

The parent company, which reported net sales of $3.5 billion in the first quarter of 2008, is among the nation's top 10 government contractors.

Last year, it spent $4.3 million on lobbyists and has a PAC that so far this year has given $232,800 to federal candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Included was $1,500 to Thompson this year and $1,000 in the 2006 election cycle.

Individual donations totaling $1,000 have flowed to Thompson from company employees, including the mother of Sonoma EO president Che Voigt.

"I receive donations from more than 5,000 contributors, the overwhelming majority of whom are from our district and I'm extremely proud to have such a large group of people who support what I stand for," Thompson said. "They know that the only thing their support gets them is my promise to continue effectively representing our district as I always have."

Voigt did not return calls.

Woolsey's funding

Woolsey obtained money for 13 projects. The largest was $7.5 million for an ongoing Army Corps of Engineers project at Lake Sonoma. She got $1.6 million for flood control in Petaluma and $1 million for a project at the San Rafael Channel.

Private entities receiving money included Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, which got $380,000, and the Council on Aging of Sonoma County, which received $147,000.

For Woolsey, Center Point was the largest beneficiary among non-governmental entities.

Sushma Taylor, who heads the 37-year-old nonprofit agency with an annual budget of $22 million, said her group depends on earmarks because the services it offers do not fit neatly under one federal department. Also, she said, East Coast lawmakers have expressed an unwillingness to pay for regional programs.

"From time to time we have asked Lynn to help us with seed money that we leverage with other money to start a particular project," Taylor said.

She said she contributes to Woolsey's re-election campaign because she shares her views on policy, not because she expects a favor in return.

Records show she has given Woolsey about $17,000 since 1998. Information on any earmarks to Center Point before 2008 was unavailable.

"There is no impropriety with full disclosure," Taylor said. "What I am doing is exercising my constitutional right to support an elected official."

Perception of influence

Critics say such donations enforce a perception of a pay-to-play system in Washington, and raise questions about whether the earmarks are for worthy projects or just add up to more government waste.

"The money that flows in Washington buys access and influences lawmakers' thinking," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "If you can see where money comes from, you can understand how Washington works."

Several lawmakers have vowed not to make earmark requests, including Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said she would refuse donations from anyone who receives her earmarks.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said earmarks allow members to become ATM machines for their districts.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is hoping to someday end the practice altogether.

"It's a bad way of allocating our funding," Ellis said. "Instead of making decisions based on merit, we are making them on political muscle. It's a real cost to our government and democracy."

News researcher Michele Van Hoeck contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 762-7297 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com.