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Water bond offers nearly $2 billion in ‘pork’

Posted by: Maven on November 15, 2009 at 10:08 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“The $11 billion water bond that California voters will be asked to approve next year contains nearly $2 billion in earmarks that lawmakers candidly acknowledge were included in the proposal to win the votes that were needed to pass the plan out of the Legislature.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of those earmarks – which some lawmakers are calling wasteful pork – would go to projects that would do little, if anything, to increase the state’s supply of clean and reliable water.

They include $100 million for Lake Tahoe, which has perhaps the highest-quality water in the state, and $40 million for projects in Los Angeles and Orange counties to educate the public about California’s water.

Backers of the bond say they hope that the earmarked projects will compel voters from those parts of the state that would benefit from them to support the ballot proposition next November.

“I think you can look at any bond that has been brought forward the last few years and probably find pork in it, but at the end of the day it really becomes a necessity in order to get something like this through the Legislature,” said state Sen. Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto, who authored the bond bill, which was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday. “You’ve got to be able to convince the majority of the people in the state that there’s something in there for them.” …”

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

November 15, 2009 · Filed Under Legislation - State & Federal

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