No teapot museums. No wood utilization research. No visitor’s center on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Instead, this year pork-barrel spending was dramatically reduced compared to recent years, as government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste announced last week with the release of its annual “Congressional Pig Book.” Only two of 11 appropriations bills, for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, were enacted by Congress last year, while the remaining nine were held because of a moratorium on earmarks.

CAGW this year found 2,658 projects it identified as pork at a cost of $13.2 billion, compared to $29 billion spent on 9,963 projects as outlined in last year’s “Pig Book.” The previous year it reported finding $27.3 billion spent on 13,997 projects.

“Although the Pig Book is leaner this year, there is still much to chew through,” said the president of Washington-based CAGW, Tom Schatz (video link). “Legislators only had two bills into which they could stuff their pork, but they still managed to bring home the bacon.”

CAGW identified only three projects in North Carolina as pork: $5 million for a Citizen Soldier Support Program; $1.35 million for a Navy “development test and evaluation”; and $1 million for Army “visualization for training and simulation in urban terrains.”

Last year CAGW noted 145 pork-barrel projects earmarked for North Carolina, down from the previous year’s 217 projects. Among the state earmarks last year was a $400,000 appropriation for the Sparta Teapot Museum, which Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, and Republican Sen. Richard Burr requested. The museum was the target of national ridicule in debates in the media and on the Internet about excessive earmarking among members of Congress.

CAGW this year singled out for ridicule some defense bill earmarks that included $1.2 billion for funding 20 F-22A fighter jets, which the Government Accountability Office said were unnecessary and outdated. Also doubted as appropriate defense authorizations were:

• $5.5 million for the Gallo Center to study the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain;

• $1.65 million to improve the shelf life of vegetables;

• $1 million for a telescope searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence;

• $1.35 million for the Obesity in the Military Research Program.

“We thought that was supposed to be taken care of in basic training,” Schatz said about the last item at Wednesday’s press conference.

Schatz credited Rep. David Obey and notorious earmarking Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., for instituting the moratorium on pork. He also credited Rep. Jeff Flake (video link), R-Ariz., and Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Jim DeMint (video link), R-S.C.; and John McCain (video link), R-Ariz., for their efforts to obstruct passage of appropriations bills that contained large amounts of pork-barrel spending. Still, the congressmen said they are wary that the earmark reduction is only temporary, with vigilance still needed by the public and the media.

“The notion that you have 2,000 earmarks in a Defense appropriations bill is still absurd,” Flake said at the CAGW press conference.

To be considered pork by CAGW, an appropriation must meet one of the following criteria:

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
• Not requested by the president;
• Greatly exceeds the president’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.

Paul Chesser ([email protected]) is associate editor of Carolina Journal.