Group lists choice congressional pork

WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- A watchdog group Wednesday issued a list of $16.5 billion in federal spending projects in fiscal 2009 it says are examples of pork passed by the U.S. Congress.

Citizens Against Government Waste said its 2010 "Congressional Pig Book" contains 9,129 projects.

The number of projects and total dollar amount is an improvement from last year when there were 10,160 projects worth $19.6 billion, drops of 10.2 percent and 15.5 percent respectively, CAGW said on its Web site.

This year's totals compare with 546 projects worth $3.2 billion the group put on its first list in 1991.

The group said transparency in government spending is "far from perfect."

"The fiscal year 2010 Defense Appropriations Act contained 35 anonymous projects worth $6 billion, or 59 percent of the total pork in the bill," the group pointed out. Overall, it said there were 81 anonymous projects worth $6.5 billion.

In other spending categories, CAGW found $4.48 million spent on wood utilization research, $300,000 for Carnegie Hall in New York City and $200,000 for the Washington National Opera in the District of Columbia.

Hawaii led the nation in pork per capita at $251 ($326 million), followed by North Dakota at $197 ($127 million) and West Virginia at $146 ($265 million). It said Alaska fell from No. 1 to No. 4 following the departure of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

The projects had to meet at least one of the group's seven criteria, including being requested by only one chamber of Congress, not specifically authorized, not competitively awarded, not requested by the president, greatly exceeding the president's budget request or the previous year's funding, not the subject of congressional hearings or serving only a local or special interest.