By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 4, 7:56 PM ET
WASHINGTON - President Bush is on a crusade against lawmakers' pet projects, but on Thursday he plans to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for a $100 million whopper that was slipped into a spending bill almost four years ago.
The new headquarters for the U.S. Institute of Peace will be a dramatic addition to the Washington skyline, designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. Additional privately-raised funds bring the total cost of the project to $185 million, institute spokesman Ian Larsen says.
Bush will be joined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who have a far more sympathetic view of Congress' parochial ways than does the president.
Also slated to attend were two less conspicuous but significantly more important players in getting the project its $100 million: former Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Jim Dyer, the former top Appropriations Committee aide who helped grease support in the House for the project.
The project — an "earmark" in congressional parlance — raised eyebrows when it was funded in November 2004 as part of a massive omnibus spending bill. It was unusually large, and unlike many earmarks, its top sponsors remained silent about their roles. Only later did it become clear that it was mostly Stevens' doing.
The earmark was one of the last items slipped into the catchall spending bill late at night in House-Senate negotiations, a practice advocates of earmark reform slam because any opponents of such pet projects are denied any chance to try to strip them out of a bill.
It was contained in a hastily-assembled miscellaneous title of the omnibus, studded with cross-outs and handwritten language, including one provision containing Dyer's name and fax number.
The White House calls the project "excellent and important" and dismisses any suggestion that appearing at the groundbreaking ceremony conflicts with the president's ongoing anti-earmark crusade.
"Even if this project were funded through a so-called earmark, it does not make it a bad project unworthy of the president," said White House budget office spokeswoman Corinne Hirsch. "Yes, it should have been funded through regular appropriations, but we can support a project and still disagree with the exact method in which it was funded."
The U.S. Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established by Congress. Its Web site says its "goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and development, and increase peacebuilding capacity."
The institute was the facilitating organization for the Iraq Study Group that was co-chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, D-Ind
