$100 million spending bill for Utah blocked

WASHINGTON — Upset Democrats again blocked the Senate Tuesday from passing a huge, four-months-late, catchall spending bill — leaving in limbo more than $100 million of funding for Utah projects ranging from expanding TRAX light rail to upgrading local parks and fighting Mormon crickets.

The Senate voted 48-45 to cut off debate — but that was 12 votes short of the three-fifths majority needed. The $820 billion bill seeks to combine spending in seven of the 13 annual appropriations bills that Congress must usually pass before the fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

The federal government has been operating since Oct. 1 on a series of temporary resolutions funding most departments at 2003 levels. Those resolutions will expire Jan. 31 — and even Democrats predict the catchall bill will finally pass by then.

However, Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Democrats are delaying, hoping to reverse changes in it that now would disqualify more white-collar workers from receiving overtime pay, postpone country-of-origin labeling laws on meat and other goods and allow companies to own more TV stations in each market.

"Those things ought to be debated, and that's what we intend to do," Daschle told reporters. "Our desire is not to kill the bill. Our desire is to give them a chance to fix it."

Also, activist groups have attacked the bill as having too much pork-barrel spending — and have attacked Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, as one of the biggest porkers. Bennett, the only Utahn on an appropriations committee, however, defends the $100 million he obtained for Utah projects as needed and worthy.

The bill includes almost 60 projects from Utah that would share $100 million in earmarks, including:

• $30 million toward the TRAX light-rail line to the University of Utah Medical Center.

• $9 million to start planning for the Weber-Davis portion of the proposed Ogden-to-Provo commuter rail system.

• $6 million for buses for the Utah Transit Authority and transit agencies in Park City, Logan and St. George.

• $6 million for the completed I-15 reconstruction project from 10800 South to 600 North in Salt Lake County.

• $1.1 million for the Southeastern Utah Methamphetamine Project.

• $1 million for the Provo Pioneer Neighborhood Revitalization project.

• $1 million for the Ogden Central Neighborhood Redevelopment project.

• $1 million for Mormon cricket control.

• $600,000 to help Orem purchase an electronic records management system.

• $500,000 for Sandy crime lab enhancements.

• $500,000 to help Logan develop a new Northwest Public Park.

• Numerous research projects for local colleges, including $7.7 million alone for Utah State University-related labs and facilities ranging from research on poisonous plants to the study of bee pollen.

The overall bill included $328 billion nationally in "discretionary" funding and another $492 million in "mandatory" spending such as for Medicare and other automatically paid benefits for which no congressional decisionmaking is required.

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