WASHINGTON — Congress will vote on a spending package this week that, if approved, would avert a partial government shutdown — and send millions of dollars in special projects to Minnesota.
Lawmakers increased their requests for money for local projects, known as earmarks, this year.
But those earmarks have been threatened by the inability of Congress to approve a budget. Instead, the federal government has been funded by short-term continuing resolutions — or CRs — that don’t contain earmarks. There have been four of these short-term measures since the end of the last federal fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Now Congress is trying to pass six spending bills as a package, each funding one or several government agencies — including the Agriculture Department and the Justice Department — to avoid a federal government shutdown this weekend. Those appropriations bills have hundreds of earmarks attached.
Many of those special projects were requested by Minnesota’s members of the U.S. House and Senate.
For instance, Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, with the help of Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, requested $2.5 million for a new runway at the airport in his hometown — New Ulm Municipal Airport.
Finstad also secured about $9 million for several water and wastewater treatment projects in his southern Minnesota district.
Rep. Pete Stauber requested funding for several infrastructure projects in his 8th District, including $5 million for U.S. Highway 8 reconstruction and $2.8 million for a bridge replacement over the Snake River.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, secured nearly $1.7 million for the renovation of a fire station in St. Paul and $1 million for the renovation of the Riverview Library and the Hayden Heights Library in that city, among other local projects.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, won approval for about a dozen local projects, including $1 million for an emergency tornado shelter in Hilltop. She teamed up with Rep. Dean Phillips, D-3rd District, to secure $750,000 for a Hennepin County Emergency Shelter Program.
And Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, has more than $6 million in earmarks in the spending bill to fund rural broadband, several infrastructure projects and other initiatives, including new cameras for the Woodbury Police Department.
Even Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-7th District, who had opposed earmarks until this year, won approval for $300,000 for an addition to a firehouse in Fulda.
Klobuchar and Smith supported most of the earmarks sought by Minnesota U.S. House members, and had their own requests, including $5.5 million for an overpass over the railroad tracks in Mahnomen and nearly $4.9 million for completion of the Cross Range Expressway.
Earmarks were banned in 2011, victims of a series of scandals and an anti-spending movement fueled by the Tea Party, which considered such projects wasteful “pork.” But proponents pushed for their return, arguing that they account for a tiny fraction of the federal budget, help fund much-needed projects and foster consensus-building and bipartisanship in Congress as lawmakers across the political spectrum work toward common goals.
So, earmarks were resurrected in 2022, in a limited way. Renamed “community funding projects,” each House member was allowed to put in a request for as many as 10 projects. That number was later raised to 15. Members were required to certify that neither they nor their immediate families have any financial interest in projects they requested and to make their requests public.
Voting ‘no’ and hoping ‘yes’
The package Congress will consider this week totals $460 billion but does not fund the entire federal government. A larger package must be negotiated by congressional leaders to avert the shutdown of the rest of the government on March 22.
If a deal is struck, that package will contain even more earmarks than the first.
It’s likely the U.S. House will approve the first spending package on Wednesday. But a group of House Republicans have rejected the legislation because it fails to include conservative policy riders considered “poison pills” by Democrats and could block consideration of the legislation. Many of the riders aimed at restricting abortion access.
So, House Speaker Mike Johnson will have to try to pass the measure in a way that requires two-thirds of the House — and a significant number of Democrats — to support it.
Yet even those conservative lawmakers expected to vote “no” on the spending bill have earmarks in the legislation.
“A ‘no’ vote satisfies a Republican member’s conservative base,” said E.J. Dionne, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Touting the projects the bill contains nonetheless helps an incumbent with the rest of his or her electorate.”
Dionne also said, “I think there are strong incentives on the GOP side to vote no and hope yes.”
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, is likely to be among the Republicans who support the bill because as House Majority Whip his job is to round up votes for Johnson. His office did not respond to an inquiry about how the lawmaker would vote.
Emmer considers himself a fiscal conservative and the slogan on one of his social media sites says he’s “Working to balance the budget and rein in government spending.”
Still, Emmer has more than $24 million in the spending package, most of it for water treatment and road construction projects.
Both Democrats and Republicans have claimed victory in the spending package. Democrats were able to fend off an attempt by the GOP to reduce funding for the Women, Infants and Children food assistance program and even boosted the program’s budget by $1 billion.Meanwhile, Republicans procured a 6% cut in the funding of the FBI, which has been targeted by GOP lawmakers who claim it has been “weaponized” against the right. And the budget for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — criticized by the GOP for regulating guns too much — would be cut by about 7%.
Ana Radelat
Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.
