thebigp

-T***sportation, Housing, and Urban Development
The number of earmarks in the FY 2019 T***sportation, Housing, and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act increased by 350 percent, from two in FY 2018 to nine in FY 2019. The cost increased by 401.4 percent, from $36.2 million in FY 2018 to $181.5 million in FY 2019. This is the largest percentage cost increase in the 12 FY 2019 appropriations bills.
$127,475,000 for six earmarks for the Airport and Airways Trust Fund (AATF), through which the Federal Aviation Administration finances infrastructure improvements for airports. These include $82 million for payments to carriers, and $12.4 million for advanced materials/structural safety.
The $82 million is the largest earmark ever provided for the AATF, and the first to be supplied for payments to carriers. The $12.4 million earmark for advanced materials/structural safety represents a 100 percent increase over the $6.2 million earmarked for this purpose in FY 2018. Since FY 2005, members of Congress have added 10 earmarks for the AATF costing $141.8 million. The amount provided in the FY 2019 earmark represents 89.9 percent of this total.
$30,000,000 for capital and preventive maintenance for the Washington Metropolitan Area T***sit Authority (WMATA), a 6,215.8 percent increase from the $475,000 earmarked in FY 2009, the last time legislators added funding. Since FY 2002, members of Congress have added 11 earmarks costing $50 million for WMATA. The $30 million earmark in FY 2019, the largest ever provided, represents 60 percent of that total in earmarks for WMATA.
The Metrorail system in the nation’s capital has been in crisis for a decade. It has been labeled “the worst in the world,” and its financial situation has been characterized as a “death spiral.” The beleaguered system has become notorious for train derailments, track fires, disabled trains, long delays, and even fatalities.
The RSC’s budgets from FYs 2017 through 2020 proposed eliminating funding for WMATA. The FY 2020 RSC budget stated that the federal government “should not be directly subsidizing the public t***sit system of one of the most affluent metropolitan areas in the U.S.”
$3,000,000 for the Maritime Guaranteed Loan (Title XI) program, a 90 percent decrease from the $30 million in FY 2018. In 2001, then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels labeled the program as an “unwarranted corporate subsidy.” According to an August 8, 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek article, the program was suspended in 1987 following 129 loan defaults between FYs 1985 and 1987, and the Bush administration ceased issuing loans in 2005. However, Congress consistently resuscitated the program. In one high-profile failure, two ferries meant for Hawaii sat docked in Norfolk, Virginia, after the operating company defaulted on a $138 million loan in 2009. The Navy bought the ferries for $35 million in 2012.
A December 7, 2010 Department of T***sportation IG report found that between February 1998 and April 2002, nine borrowers defaulted on approximately $490 million in Title XI loans. Between August 2008 and January 2010, six additional borrowers defaulted on approximately $305 million. Loan information was not maintained properly and, therefore, “there is no assurance that information … need[ed] to effectively oversee the $2.3 billion Title XI program is readily accessible.”
In August 2011, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the program “an egregious example of pork-barrel spending.” The same can be said for the FY 2019 earmark.
The Title XI program did not receive a budget request, meaning 100 percent of the funding was provided with the earmark. While reducing the cost of Title XI is a positive step, legislators should do away with it entirely. Since FY 2006, legislators have added five earmarks totaling $43.8 million for the program.

source-2019 congressional pig book waste, wmata,