Marin earns nearly $7 million in earmarks in new federal spending bill

Marin stands to gain nearly $7 million in budget earmarks as part of a new federal spending bill.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which President Biden is poised to sign, contains earmarks that allow members of Congress to direct federal funds for specific projects to their states and districts.

Specifically, the omnibus spending bill approved by Congress on Friday contains $6.95 million in earmarks for Marin projects. The single biggest beneficiary will be MCE, formerly known as Marin Clean Energy, which received funding for three projects totaling $3.25 million.

“We are thrilled to learn that all three requests were included in the federal spending package,” Jamie Tuckey, MCE’s chief of staff, said in an email.

The biggest chunk, $2 million, will be used to install over 700 electric-vehicle charging stations and promote the use of electric vehicles. MCE also received $750,000 for a program that provides rebates to low-income households to remove health risks such as pests and mold that triggers asthma. The agency also was allotted $500,000 to expand an energy storage program benefitting vulnerable communities in Marin.

The single largest allocation, $1.8 million, went to the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District.

“The $1.8 million in federal funding for the design of the SMART Rail Extension to Healdsburg– which U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman nominated for community project funding – is a strong step towards expanding commuter rail service and increasing climate-friendly transportation alternatives in the North Bay,” Julia Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for SMART, said in an email.

Homeward Bound of Marin will receive $750,000, which it will use to help it create 50 units of housing for veterans at the decommissioned Hamilton Army Airfield in Novato. Huffman requested $1.5 million for the project, but the House Committee on Appropriations, which makes the final call on which projects get funded, cut the amount in half.

“We’re thrilled to receive this. We’re very happy,” said Homeward Bound co-executive director Paul Fordham. “We weren’t sure that the $1.5 million request was realistic in the first place.”

Marin County and the Marin Housing Authority were successful in securing a $650,000 allocation to perform energy efficiency upgrades to the lighting and power infrastructure at Marin City’s Golden Gate Village. The project is expected to result in energy savings, carbon emission reductions and annual cost savings from lower utility bills and reduced maintenance.

The spending bill contained a $500,000 earmark to fund the second phase of a Hamilton wetlands restoration project that will allow the Army Corps to initiate design and permitting work for dredged sediment delivery at Bel Marin Keys.

Earmarks were done away with in 2011 after several high-profile scandals. The Democrat-controlled Congress reinstated them in spring of 2022, referring to them as “community project funding.” Under the new system instituted by Democrats, constituents are invited to submit funding requests to their legislators.

“We do a public process requesting proposals from all over the district,” Huffman said. “We got way more requests than we could include.”

Members of the House of Representatives are now allowed to submit just 15 requests. No single request may exceed 1% of discretionary spending. The appropriation committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives make the final decision on which projects to fund. Not all requests are approved.

For example, Sen. Dianne Feinstein requested a $1 million allocation for Marin Community Clinics, which was not granted.

In all, Huffman got 14 earmarks approved totaling over $12 million for his district.

“Our internal standard was we wanted to have broad geographical equity in the district because I represent six different counties,” Huffman said. “And we wanted projects where a little bit of federal money can be a difference maker.”

“If you look at the projects that got funded from my district, almost all of these are projects that don’t fit squarely within any existing government funding programs,” Huffman said. “They’re things that wouldn’t get funded otherwise.”

Not everyone is a fan of earmarks, however.

“It’s just an excuse to grab power and distribute the money as a select few members of Congress decide,” said Thomas Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, based in Washington D.C.

According to the New York Times, the new spending bill contains 7,200 earmarks totaling $15 billion, up from 4,962 earmarks totaling $9 billion in the spending package passed in April.

Schatz said not surprisingly members of the appropriation committees get a disproportionate amount of the earmark money, since they get to make the final decision on allocations. Schatz said in fiscal 2022, the 89 House and Senate members serving on appropriations committees received 41% of the earmarks and 29% of the earmark money.

One defense of earmarks is that it gives lawmakers who may be at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum an incentive to cut deals, particularly when it comes to passing the budget and avoiding a federal shutdown.

Shatz, however, doesn’t think this is always a good thing.

“The earmarks become an enticement, or as we call it legalized bribery,” he said, “to get senators to vote for big spending bills in exchange for the earmarks.”