Thompson: $23 Million for Tougaloo

Roll Call - Thompson’s College Scores - Chairman Seeks $23M Earmark

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is seeking earmarks worth millions of dollars for homeland security projects at the small Mississippi college that he attended, though the school could not explain what the earmarks are for and does not yet appear to have the capacity to provide the services that Thompson wants to fund.

In an earmark request for 2010 appropriations, Thompson’s Web site indicates that he is seeking $23 million for the “National Institute for Education and Training” at Tougaloo College for “an Operational Test and Evaluation Activity (OTEA) in Vicksburg, Mississippi.”

Tougaloo is a historically black college north of Jackson, Miss., with an enrollment of just less than 1,000 students and an annual budget of around $28 million, according to its most recent available tax records. Thompson was on the board of trustees until 2005 and is now listed as a “trustee emeritus.”

Thompson’s chief of staff, Lanier Avant, said the earmark is actually for a consortium of institutions “to develop engineering capacity in the region ... for all kinds of engineering,” including civil and electrical engineering. Avant said the request includes Tougaloo, the Army Corps of Engineers facility at Vicksburg, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Jackson State University, Avant’s alma mater. It would be up to the four institutions to divvy up the funding and figure out the roles that each will play in implementing the earmark, he said.

The money would be “an addition to existing programs” at the institutions, Avant said. Tougaloo “has one of the most renowned engineering programs of all the [historically black colleges and universities] in the country. ... It’s not like Tougaloo is some kind of new kid on the block,” he said.

But Tougaloo does not offer an engineering major. The school’s course catalog indicates that there is not a single engineering class being taught at Tougaloo this semester. The school does have a joint program with the Georgia Institute of Technology that allows students to transfer there to get their engineering degree after finishing their liberal arts coursework at Tougaloo.

George Armstrong, a chemistry professor who serves as the interim director of Tougaloo’s National Institute for Education and Training in Transportation Security, said he had heard about the earmark but had no details about it.

“That is something just coming out,” Armstrong said. “I wouldn’t have known about it except I just happened to be in a meeting” where the project was mentioned, he said last week. “It hasn’t been fully defined ... [though] I know our name is associated with that.”

He asked a reporter to e-mail whatever documentation was available about the earmark request and referred calls to the school’s provost, Abdul Turay, who did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment on the project.

Avant said, “We’ve been communicating with the [college] president’s office for months” about the earmark, adding, “we do think they are capable ... otherwise the Congressman never would have requested it.”

Tougaloo President Beverly Hogan did not return a call requesting information about the project.

A spokesman at Oak Ridge said the lab has a running agreement with the Army Corps facility in Vicksburg to cooperate on a broad range of technical issues and has collaborated with local colleges as well. But he said the lab had no specific information about Thompson’s earmark request. An Army Corps spokesman had no information about the earmark, and the public affairs office at Jackson State did not return a message requesting comment.

Tougaloo’s national training center is a year-old project stemming from the 2007 legislation that Thompson shepherded through Congress to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The bill required the Department of Homeland Security to establish the transportation security center of excellence with Tougaloo and five other institutions, including more established programs at San Jose State University and Rutgers University.

Armstrong said the center has thus far conducted two training exercises — one in Jackson and one at the Port Authority terminal in New York — for transit employees to increase their awareness of suspicious behaviors.

But Tougaloo did not run those programs, Armstrong said. “We went outside and hired a vendor who is approved by Homeland Security who carried out these trainings.”

Thompson has also requested an additional $3 million for the Tougaloo training center to establish a new “state and local cyber security training program.”

In March, Thompson also hosted a committee event at Tougaloo to help contractors learn how to do business with the DHS.

The agenda for the event included presentations by DHS Centers of Excellence, but only Tougaloo, Jackson State and one other historically black college were listed as presenters at that session.

Earmarking, Bennie Thompson Style

Y'all Politics and Majority in Mississippi have these posts about a Kosciusko Star Herald report:

City of Kosciusko Ward 2 Alderman Henry Daniel submitted a list of possible streets to be paved with funds from the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users at the Tuesday, March 3, meeting. The funds were awarded to the city by Congressman Bennie Thompson.

The $250,000 was first awarded to Ward 3 and later changed to Ward 2.

At an earlier board meeting, Daniel said the funds were designated to his ward because he serves as Thompson’s campaign manager.

A letter has been sent to Thompson regarding the confusion over the funds.

Apparently, this has been an ongoing project for Henry Daniel as we read from this report from the Star Herald last month:

Paving roads in Ward 2 became a little more complex at the Kosciusko Mayor and Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday, Feb. 3.

The $200,000 in federal funds was first awarded to Ward 3 in 2005 through the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users and later changed to Ward 2 according to paperwork from Congressmen Bennie Thompson‘s office.

Mayor Jimmy Cockroft said there were several issues to resolve concerning the matter.

The paving project for Ward 3 was already under way and there are now an estimated $30,000 in engineering fees to be paid.

“State Aid needs to know how we intend to pay (city engineer Christian Gardner) for work he has already done in Ward 3,” he said.

Cockroft also said State Aid needed a letter from Thompson about the change in wards.

Ward 3 Aldermen Robert Ellis, who still wants answers on why the change was made, said, “It has killed Ward 3 but it’s fixing to hit the city of Kosciusko.”

“This is going to cost us money in the long run,” Alderman At-Large Tim Kyle said.

Ward 3 Aldermen Henry Daniel’s attempts to think of ways to by the funding didn’t pan out.

“As mayor, what am I suppose to do, you (Daniel) say it’s your money but Aldermen Ellis has the letter,” Cockroft said.

Daniel said the point is that Thompson gave this money to the city of Kosciusko.

“We paved streets in Ward 2 with the bond issue that didn’t get done in Ward 3 because we were going to use the grant funds,” Cockroft said. A $2.5-million bond issue was passed for paving and park improvements in the summer.

Cockroft asked Daniel to speak with Thompson on the matter and Daniel wouldn’t comment.

Kyle made a motion for Cockroft to draft a letter to Thompson asking for the funds to be moved back to Ward 3 and that both Cockroft and Daniel sign the letter.

“I can’t sign off on that,” Daniel said.

Finally, the board resolved that Cockroft would write a letter on the confusion over the moving of funds and he would also attach a list of streets in need in both Ward 2 and 3.

When asked by Ellis, why wouldn’t he sign off on the letter, Daniel replied, “I won't let you put me on the spot like that. I won’t answer that."

So Daniel says that is his money. He wouldn't comment on a discussion with Thompson. And he wouldn't sign a letter to Thompson asking to transfer the funds nor would he explain why. Sounds shady.

For the record, according to a Federal Election Committee report, Thompson's campaign committee, "Friends of Bennie Thompson," paid Daniels $5650 in October 2008 for salary and expenses including canvassing, gas, and food.

Earmarks: Taylor, Childers

Hattiesburg American - Plenty of local earmarks for Pine Belt

Don't sing the funeral dirge for the golden age of earmarks just yet. It's alive and well, as evidenced by a $410 billion House appropriations bill passed Wednesday.

The bill featured $7.7 billion spread over about 9,000 earmarks - all pet projects handpicked by congressmen to receive taxpayer dollars.

Southern Miss will be well cared for under the current bill, gaining at least $6.2 million that includes $1 million each for forensics research and equipment for the Innovation and Commercialization Park, according to a press release from Sen. Thad Cochran's office.

Other earmarks for the Pine Belt include $31.5 million for the Richton Strategic Petroleum Reserve site and $1.9 million for Fourth Street construction.

The presence of so many earmarks in the bill has rekindled an ongoing debate about the ethicacy of such earmarks however.

"Earmarks are corrupting, even if not all earmarks are corrupt," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

Steve Ellis, vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based, non-partisan watchdog, said that while he does not flatly oppose earmarks, he believes the system is "fundamentally broken."

"The system has become more about political muscle than program merit," he said.

But local legislators disagree, citing that they champion the interests of their constituents.

Rep. Gene Taylor, a blue-dog Democrat who brought home $57 million in earmarks in 2007, said the powerful economic presence of defense contractors in his district makes him particularly sensitive to their interests.

"I know more about South Mississippi than President Obama, and I also know more than some faceless bureaucrat," he said.

He said he champions their requests only upon measuring them against military needs.

"I'm willing to go bat for the right program in the right place at the right time," he said.

The University of Southern Mississippi Earmarks

School of Nursing, $1.522 million
Forensics/DNA research and education enhancement, $1 million
Innovation and Commercialization Park, $1 million
Alternative fuel cell membranes for energy independence, $951,150
Early Stage Entrepreneur Development, $570,000
Mississippi rural law enforcement training, $400,000
Math and Science Literacy Enhancement Project, $285,000
Marine Composite Workshop Development, $238,000
Karnes Center for Gifted Studies, $238,000

Pine Belt Earmarks

Hattiesburg Fourth Street construction, $1.9 million
Richton Strategic Petroleum Reserve site, $31.5 million

DeSoto Commercial Appeal - Childers lands $8 million for district; DeSoto misses out because of no request

Rep. Travis Childers, though still a newcomer to the congressional funding game, appears to have learned well based on the $8 million secured for his district in the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill approved by the House Wednesday night.

Missing from the list of district-wide projects on the list, however, are any from DeSoto County.

Still, the House bill includes $8 million for a host of projects throughout Mississippi's sprawling First District, ranging from $3.49 million for the second phase of construction at the National Center for Natural Products Research to $38,000 for improvements to the community center in the city of Amory.

Nowhere on the list, though, is money for projects in populous DeSoto County.

Childers spokesman Dana Edelstein said Thursday the explanation is simple: Childers didn't receive any funding requests from DeSoto County.

Earmarks; NRA endores Childers

DeSoto Times Tribune - Davis: End federal earmarks, Childers says earmarks "not necessarily bad"

Davis said the time has come to end earmarks as a means of getting federal spending under control. "We would sign a bill that would ban earmarks," Davis said Friday, echoing comments he made in a televised debate with Childers at the University of Mississippi on Wednesday.

Childers said he does not want North Mississippi to miss out on federal funds for badly needed projects, and therefore is not inclined to categorically ban them. "If every member of Congress were willing to join a pact saying that they wouldn't take earmark appropriations, then I would be the first one to sign on. But if big states throughout the country continue to accept these funds, I'm not going to sit idly by while North Mississippi falls behind. There are legitimate projects in this district that need funding, and I'm going to fight for what's best for this district."

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Commercial Appeal - NRA endorses Rep. Childers

Daily Journal - Few watching the House race

DeSoto Times Tribune - Southaven to host Veterans Day luncheon

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Just for kicks. Clarion Ledger - Custom of civility goes missing in Senate race