It is well established the Governor Palin took the funds appropriated for the Bridge to Nowhere and used them elsewhere. How is this allowed? If the federal governemnt gives money for a specific project, doesn’t the money have to be used for that project?
Highway funds are apportioned to states as just that: highway funds. If Congress voted to give Alaska $1bn (or whatever) to build a bridge to nowhere, the money would just be added to the Alaskan highway funding grant. Thus, the Alaskans can then do whatever they want with the money as long as it involves roadbuilding.
*I’m not 100% on this because I don’t know if bridge construction goes under some other Federal subsidy program (other than highways).
To expand on RNATB’s post: I’ve been involved in the Minnesota State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) that selects and ranks projects for Federal fund allocation. About 15 years ago earmark projects (then known as “demonstration projects”) were considered above and beyond the amount allocated to a state. (There is a formula that is used to help in determining how much money comes back to a state in Federal transportation dollars.) A state was assigned a certain amount, and any demonstration project approved by Congress was added money to the pot. This was deemed unfair (and I agree) and the process was changed so that earmarks were considered part of the total amount that was allocated to a state.
The “bridge to nowhere” project was part of the SAFTEA-LU* bill, (2005-2009). Once the project was deleted, the money remained with the state of Alaska for use on other federal eligible transportation projects.
So, in answer to your question, if this had been a demonstration project of old ISTEA days (pre 1998), the funds probably would have been lost if the project was canceled. With the revised way of looking at projects, the money was not lost to the state. This would happen with any other state that has an earmark project that is canceled during planning or design, and that does happen.
- I find it interesting that Alaska influence came into play with the naming of the SAFETEA-LU bill. It stands for Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, but the real interesting bit is with the “-LU” portion. It was mashed into the acronym at the request of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) as a nod to his wife, Lu Young. (One report, see second paragraph.)
I’ve seen the same thing happen in research - someone will write a grant and get money from the NIH (National Institutes of Health, i.e. your tax dollars) for a certain project, and then spend the money on a completely different project. A few years later they’ll still get funded again just fine…not sure why it’s allowed, I guess 1) it’d be near impossible to keep track of scientific progress and 2) the researcher could just say “I tried and failed so moved on”.
Maybe the same excuses are applied to highways - 1) who’s really keeping track of where the money goes and 2) even so, the state can just say “we decided to go in a different direction and fund another project”.
Can somebody explain the difference between the money for the ‘Bridge to nowhere’ and the money for the ‘road to nowhere’? It seems that the road is still being built to the empty beach were the bridge would have been because the road money would have had to be returned.
I don’t know about NIH, but I have reviewed NSF grants and it looks like the money from grant N is used to do the initial investigation required to get grant n+1 (with a little left over to finish off n). This process is bootstrapped by young investigator grants. It wasn’t that way when I was in grad school, but now money is so tight that only likely to succeed projects seem to get some.
I’m talking about relatively small grants, not major accelerator building ones.
Congress removed the earmark themselves after the furor erupted, but still gave the money to Alaska to build transportation infrastructure. Alaska still planned to use it to build the BtN, but in the end, Governor Palin announced that she was canceling the project.