The federal spending package that cleared Congress will finance dozens of Washington projects ranging from a bridge replacement in Everett to rebuilding a sewer system in the Whitman County town of Malden, which was gutted by wildfire in 2020.
The bankrolling of specific projects marks a return of what was once known as earmarking but the Senate now calls “congressionally directed spending” and the House has described as “community project funding.”
This time around, Congress is funding nonprofits, governments or other public agencies but will not send money to private corporations, which was permitted under the earlier earmark process halted in 2011.
“The return of Congressionally directed spending is a great thing for Washington state — and I was proud to work with my colleagues to make that happen,” said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement released Friday. “I know our state better than any well-meaning bureaucrat in D.C.”
This directed spending in Washington and other states is a sliver of a much bigger $1.5 trillion spending package that passed the Senate on Thursday evening after earlier passing the House. The spending is spread across 12 appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Murray supported funding for more than 50 Washington projects totaling $113 million. They included $2.5 million for electrification of a Seattle ferry terminal, $1.975 million to construct an early learning center in Puyallup for the Samish Indian Nation and $2.5 million for a new municipal sewer and wastewater treatment center for Port Hadlock.
Other members of the Washington congressional delegation, Republicans as well as Democrats, also worked to secure funds. The total funding for these Washington projects is estimated to be more than $200 million, according to an analysis by the staff of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Cantwell supported funding for 40 projects totaling $51.7 million. They include $900,000 for the expansion of the Port Angeles Food Bank, $1.5 million to fund body cameras for the Vancouver Police Department, $750,000 for a University of Washington Bothell biotech training center and $2.6 million for Everett Transit’s acquisition of electric buses.
“These high-tech buses charge as they go … eliminating emissions and reducing maintenance needs,” Cantwell said.
U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Bellevue, backed $9 million for 10 community projects that included $600,000 for the African Diaspora Cultural Anchor Village in Tukwila to support the immigrant and refugee community in south King County and $1 million for the Africatown Community Land Trust in the Central District to support affordable rental housing and economic development.
U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Medina, reports securing $7 million for 10 projects, which included $1 million for a Nooksack Indian Tribe clinic and wellness facility and $1 million for an early learning center at the Lake Washington Institute of Technology in Kirkland.
Proponents of the new earmark system say it includes reforms to prevent some of the abuses of the past, which included influence-peddling schemes that sent U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California to prison and spurred controversy over pork-barrel projects.
Those differences between the new earmarks and the older version are “not solely semantic,” said U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, who advocated for a reformed earmark system as part of a larger effort to modernize Congress.
“What has been put forward here is something completely different because it has a level of accountability and transparency and limitation that didn’t exist previously,” he said last year.
Among the changes: Earmarks cannot be directed to for-profit entities, and lawmakers must certify that neither they nor family members have a financial interest in funded projects. In addition, the Government Accountability Office will audit a random sample of earmarks, and House Democratic leaders have said they’ll cap total earmarks at 1% of discretionary spending.
“This is a substantially reformed process that allows representatives to advocate for community projects,” said U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, in an earlier statement. Her list of projects includes $3.5 million for a water-replacement project in Airway Heights, an Eastern Washington community that has had well-contamination problems linked to the use of firefighting foams at Fairchild Air Force Base.
Murray’s office began soliciting input from communities throughout the state in April.
