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twitterearmarks:
When in doubt, whip Las Vegas
This time it’s McCain, ranting against money sought by UNLV
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., right, take part in a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday.
Friday, March 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.
WHAT McCAIN CRITICIZED
THE PROGRAM: UNLV’s Urban Sustainability Initiative promotes research on challenges facing Las Vegas and the southwest region — including Arizona and California — such as water supply and cleanliness, energy, health care and transportation.
HOW IRONIC: UNLV’s project is modeled in part on the nationally recognized Global Sustainability Institute based in the Arizona senator’s state.
Sun Archives
- From receiving end, earmarks look good (3-1-2009)
- Stimulus scroogery was fated for state (3-1-2009)
- Las Vegas: Leader in sustainability? (10-29-2007)
Beyond the Sun
Railing this week against “pork barrel corruption” in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill, Arizona Republican John McCain called the more than 8,500 earmarks in it an “outrageous insult to the American people.”
Among the dozen examples he ticked off while venting on the Senate floor was one that, of course, mentions Las Vegas — specifically, $951,000 for a “sustainable Las Vegas” project.
“What does that mean? What does sustainable Las Vegas mean?” the senator huffed, incredulous.
Maybe he was play acting because, really, McCain should know what it means. His own state is home to the Global Sustainability Institute which, granted, sounds much more ambitious.
The Las Vegas earmark called out by McCain is for UNLV’s Urban Sustainability Initiative, which promotes multidisciplinary research on water, energy, health care and transportation challenges facing the city and the region, including Arizona and California.
UNLV’s project is modeled in part on the nationally recognized Global Sustainability Institute at Arizona State University.
McCain is the latest to poke at Las Vegas in recent weeks, provoking the ire of the Nevada delegation, sensitive to the city’s status as favorite “whipping boy,” as Rep. Shelley Berkley put it.
It started with the mob museum being ridiculed as an example of wasteful spending when Congress was debating the stimulus package. President Barack Obama then remarked that companies receiving federal bailout money shouldn’t authorize corporate trips to Las Vegas or the Super Bowl. And most recently, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal claimed wrongly on national TV that there was an earmark in the stimulus bill for a maglev line from Las Vegas to Disneyland.
So let’s take a look at the earmark for UNLV that McCain found so offensive:
The Urban Sustainability Initiative started in 2007 with 11 professors who wanted to engage the campus on the issues of sustainability.
“The most widely used definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of today while still being able to meet the needs of future generations,” said Thomas Piechota, director of Sustainability & Multidisciplinary Research at UNLV.
The initiative is intended to foster collaboration among departments in researching the broader goals of sustainability — tackling climate change, for example — that require balancing environmental, economic and cultural considerations.
Take the electric car. It might be environmentally friendly, but is it cost-effective? And will anybody actually buy one? So chemists work with economists and sociologists in tackling the questions.
So, too, architects are working with engineers to create a model solar home they will monitor for energy savings.
Because the issues facing Nevada are similar to those confronting Arizona and Southern California, UNLV is partnering with the Global Sustainability Institute at ASU and hopes to develop relationships with other universities in the region to build a consortium for research and grant application.
The earmark process began when Piechota wrote a three-page proposal to the division of research and graduate studies, pitching how the project would contribute to UNLV’s educational mission. It ended up on UNLV’s list of priorities the school presented to the Nevada delegation in Washington, and Sen. Harry Reid and Berkley put in a request for the $951,000.
About $500,000 will be used as seed money for faculty research, to be dished out competitively; $400,000 will go to hiring graduate students for fellowships to assist the professors, and the rest will be used to pay for conferences, guest speakers and workshops, Piechota said.
Last year the project and a life sciences professor won a $450,000 federal grant to research water conservation, but this is the first time the sustainability initiative has received federal earmark money.
UNLV officials say they hope to rely on grants, not additional earmarks, to continue the work of the sustainability initiative.
Besides that one, McCain poked fun at a $143,000 earmark to Nevada Humanities to expand its online encyclopedia of the state’s history. Using the social networking tool Twitter, he said: “Anyone hear of Wikipedia?” referring to the not-always-reliable Web site.
The state’s online effort, created by an academic curator, offers students a rich database of information, including virtual tours of Nevada and three-dimensional presentations, according to Christina Barr, executive director of Nevada Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment of the Humanities.
The organization sought the earmark, she said, because the nonprofit had been cut out of the state budget and private resources have dried up.
Barr and other executive directors from across the country — including Arizona — were on the Hill this week lobbying for federal support.
Discussion: 22 comments so far…
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I think that $100,000 should be granted to do a complete study of mccains brain. I am sure that 100% of it would be air. What a gasbag.
John McCain like his wife is an air head... And too think more than 40% of the state voted for this "maverick" hahahahahaha... John McCain hates Nevada and more so totally dislikes gaming...
Yeh, remember that McDope wanted to ban college betting, which would have killed us here. Luckily, he's so old, Jay Leno says that he hits the buffet at 4:30, and is in bed by 7. Not sure where his cutie wife is at 7....
The UNLV sustainability initiative is a joke, but for a different reason. The idea is legit, but UNLV cannot even do basic programs right - most remain mediocre at best through the years. To tackle a new initiative like sustainability is folly - UNLV simply does not have the intellectual chops or leadership to pull it off. The sustainability initiative was just "me too!" bandwagon jumping after watching ASU do it right, but the difference is that ASU had excellent leadership and revenue to recruit, retain and replace excellent faculty into world-class facilities. UNLV has none of that. But as long as UNLV's sustainability dreamers are in charge, other more legit programs will at UNLV will be starved of the precious little resources that are available.
Might John be a little less bitter towards UNLV had the Rebels not put a whipping on his Mildcats last fall?
How is giving federal money to a mob museum NOT a waste of money?
If McCain says it you hate it, if the democrats say it you love it? I seem to remember the same BS when you all were supporting the Invasion of Iraq in 2003. Just that the roles were reversed. People let the media decide how they should think. Don't fall for these political media tricks. They sure make Americans look pretty stupid.
cz_pcr: It is grossly inaccurate to say that UNLV "does not have the intellectual chops". UNLV faculty are world-class. President David Ashley has four college degrees from Stanford and MIT.
Check out the bios of UNLV staff in any college and you will see a collection of professors that are loaded with PhD's from the world's best universities, as well as research and accomplishments that are very impressive, certainly with more than enough resources to lead a sustainability project. I can only imagine that anyone who questions the intellect of UNLV staff has not spent much time with these incredibly bright men and women.
This is not to say UNLV is a perfect place, or that we should not demand more from the university, but to generically bash the entire university with no basis because of some grudge you may have is ignorant and irresponsible.
I now live in the DC area and unfortunately Las Vegas is not looked upon too favorably in this area. They really think the housing speculators in Las Vegas started many of the problems (notice Obama didn't make his housing speech in Las Vegas), not to mention the "sinful" nature of the city (hypocritical isn't it?), so anything out of Las Vegas in their eyes is frowned upon. They just aren't directly saying it.
McCain needs to get his head out of his oatmeal and educate himself on the issues before opposing them just because they are introduced by Democrats. Done well, Sustainable Las Vegas could be a great program, helping find ways to conserve and properly allocate resources in not only Southern Nevada, but also SoCal and Arizona. Maybe they should've kept Las Vegas out of the name and called it Sustainable Southwest?
It's too bad that the name Las Vegas has such a negative connotation. Sure the "What happens in Vegas" promotion was fun for a while, but now it has backfired. Those of us who live here know the good, the bad, the ugly and the crazy of our city, but unfortunately, the rest of the country doesn't know about the good.
Ya, Washington looking 'down' at Vegas is like pot meet kettle.
Looks like someone got clobbered at the craps table during their last Vegas excursion.
McCain is a jerk who makes an ass of himself when he is gambking in Las Vegas and consequently the employees who have to deal with this ugly little old man despise him.
Anyone who thinks UNLV is a world class university has not gotten out of Las Vegas and experienced the real world. Why do you think the most gifted and intelligent high school graduates leave Vegas to attened other universities? I know of employeers who discard resumes of UNLV graduates when they recieve them.Thanks but no thanks to joke that Tark built on Maryland Parkway.
You should have voted for this idiot. You think it is bad right now, just imagine the crap this guy would have put on us if he would've won.
These earmark programs, like for the UNLV's Urban Sustainability Initiative, are really state projects.
The states should find the money for these projects if they believe they are important.
Why are charging these projects to our children's credit cards? It is taking their quality of life and consuming it today.
It is shameful.
Federal earmarks should end.
The states should fund these projects on their own. I doubt many would get funded because most are wasteful.
As usual, this is wasteful spending-nothing new with Reid and UNLV though. No doubt most, if not all, of this money will go towards lining the pockets of UNLV staff and their friends. No outside bidding will be done. I bet that former Director of the Research Foundation, Bud Pittinger, will be one lining his pockets with Dirty Harry's money. Shame on UNLV for accepting this money knowing full well they will be wasting it!!! If this was done through the State they would not be getting this money. Dirty Harry strikes again. I wonder what UNLV will do when Reid loses his next election.
Nightmare,
Trust me when I say the current batch of administrators leaves much to be desired in the area of leadership.
You are not in higher ed, so I'll share one of the dirty little secrets with you. Just because you have a PhD does not mean you are a good leader, it just means that for one period in your life you were an effective learner and communicator. Many UNLV administrators fall squarely in this category. Furthermore, just because you earned a PhD from a reputable university in the past does not automatically make you a reputable, productive scholar now. Ever heard the term "dead wood"? There are some very good faculty and administrators at UNLV, but they scattered across campus. In some departments upwards of 1/2 the faculty are tenure denial castoffs from other universities.
The crap McCain would have put us through...hmmm. Has anyone noticed America won't be America much longer if this crap continues? Has anyone read or heard the president's comments a month or two ago when he said no more earmarks?! This omnibus bill has close to, if not more, 9,000! Do earmarks mean a big jolt to help the construction industry get up and going again? Doubt it. (And no I'm not a republican.)
People act as if we are a wealthy nation. We are a broke, debtor nation and we can't sustain this wasteful spending. How is it even sane to borrow money form China for a "sustainment" project at UNLV? Over 900K for a few grad students and a couple meetings... What a joke. History will not judge this lunacy well.
OK ANYONE WHO THINKS ALL THIS "PORK IS BAD" THIS IS CREATING JOBS AS FAST AS WE CAN PEOPLE NEED TO WORK ON THOSE PORK JOBS DONT THEY???
THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THE REPUBLICANS WANT THE "FREE MARKET" TO DECIDE IS SO THEY CAN MAKE MONEY OFF IT AS WELL. AND FOR ALL YOU UNEDUCATED MASSES OUT THERE AMERICA IS ALREADY A SOCIALIST COUNTRY WE HAVE SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICAID, MEDICARE ETC... AND LASTLY FOR THE PEOPLE MAKING 100,000 AND DONT WANT TO PAY ANOTHER 1,000 IN TAXES BC YOUR TOO FIN GREEDY...I SAY GO ROT IN HELL
PAY IN THE COUNTRY IS BACKWARDS THE HARDEST WORKERS MAKE THE LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY MEANWHILE THE WHITE COLLAR WORKERS DO HALF THE WORK, SWINDLE THE WORKING MAN AND THEN THEY WINE WHEN THEY HAVE TO PAY A LITTLE MORE IN TAXES
PATHETIC
To anyone who is challenging McCain...it was not him who bashed Las Vegas, it was Obama. He is simply pointing out the fact that the pork barrel spending that Obama was so vehemently against is strong as ever. This country would be heading in the right direction had McCain won. Democrats keep stealing from those who have earned and worked to gie to lazy single mothers of 5 with 5 different daddies, who didn't graduate from high school. Don't fool yourselves folks, and stop blaming those who have worked for everything they have earned for your shortcomings.
Fannie Mae, Freddie MAC, AIG, Citicorp!! What does who won the Presidency or who didn't, have anything to do with unethical money management which we as taxpayers are now paying for? I didn't go through anyone of the FM's to buy my home, neither Citicorp or AIG is a vendor in my home, but my hard-earned money went to bail them out!! Listen to your own advice, lasvegasmedic, don't fool yourself and stop blaming those who have worked for everything.