WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON, D.C.

By Lisa Mascaro (contact)

Monday, Dec. 31, 2007 | 1:32 a.m.

WASHINGTON - In the end, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy got its $400,000 earmark. The old post office that will be home to a Las Vegas museum received $200,000. And dozens of other projects totaling tens of millions of dollars for Nevada were included in the massive year-end spending bill approved by Congress.

After sweeping into power last year, Democrats vowed to reel in spending that had proliferated when Republicans were in charge of the House and Senate. One of the Democrats' first orders of business was to strip the fiscal 2007 spending package of thousands of earmarks, leaving even some members of their own party grumbling as pet projects were eliminated.

Now, with passage of the 2008 spending package this month, Congress has approved nearly 9,000 earmarks valued at $7.4 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Add those to 2,100 earmarks worth $7.9 billion that were in the Pentagon budget, which was approved earlier.

Earmarks are special funding requests inserted into bills by lawmakers to provide money beyond what was initially set in the budget. Anti-pork crusaders have increasingly zeroed in on earmarks as a sign of the excesses of Washington.

The Agassi Academy and Las Vegas museum earmarks were spotlighted this year in attempts to embarrass lawmakers into cutting back.

But some lawmakers, including Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid, defend the earmark system as being as old as the Constitution, saying they know better than Washington bureaucrats the needs of their states. Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley has similarly stood behind her earmarks, saying the money she secures is for worthy projects. Her growing Las Vegas district, she adds, depends on federal assistance to keep up with its many needs.

Democrats did bring new rules to the earmarks game this year. The names of the lawmaker sponsoring each earmark must be revealed, so money cannot be slipped in anonymously. Further, no special requests were allowed to be inserted once the bill had passed either chamber. In the past, anonymous earmarks would be shoehorned in as House and Senate versions of legislation were being reconciled in conference committees, allowing little time for oversight by the broader chambers.

Still, the $15 billion in earmarks passed as lawmakers were heading home for the holidays drew a sharp rebuke from President Bush. He criticized Congress for not doing better to curtail spending.

But even Bush's own party was to blame. About 40 percent of all earmarks were granted to Republican lawmakers, according to the Associated Press, upholding the tradition of letting the minority party in on the action.

To be fair, fiscal 2008 brought fewer earmarks than in the past. Earmarking peaked at nearly 14,000, with a value exceeding $27 billion, in 2005, when Republicans controlled Congress.

Nevada's lawmakers sought millions of dollars worth of earmarks this year, from $400,000 for renovation and equipment at the Lou Ruvo institute sought by Republican Sen. John Ensign, to $300,000 for workforce training programs at Goodwill of Southern Nevada sought by Republican Rep. Jon Porter, according to earmarkwatch.org, a project of Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Sunlight Foundation.

Not all succeeded.

Berkley celebrated passage of her earmarks, including money for the Agassi school, which she and most of the delegation worked to secure, as well as the money for the Las Vegas museum.

Berkley also helped secure $1 million in freeway improvements along I-15 to the interchange with I-215, nearly $15 million in water district improvements and $150,000 for the North Las Vegas Senior Center.

Her biggest coup was securing $341 million for continued construction of the new Veterans Affairs medical facility - the Las Vegas Valley's first hospital for its sizable vet population.

The other lawmakers' offices have not announced the funding they secured.

In years past the ability of Reid, through his leadership position, to secure tens of millions of dollars for Nevada has put the state on the top-10 list of those nationwide receiving the most pork.

Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, issued a statement saying the reduction in earmarks under the Democratic Congress this year "is a good start for taxpayers, but Congress still has a long, long way to go before earmarks get to manageable levels."