Cap and Trade: Got Earmarks?

I know lots of people are saying "Get off the cap and trade thing already!" I won't. It's poised to be voted on in the Senate, and that is our only hope of this monstrosity being killed. If people stay angry, maybe the pressure will be put on the Senate.

Eight House Republicans voted for the Waxman-Markey bill (shall henceforth be the Wacky-Marxist bill) despite what the constituency wanted. The following is a list of the earmarks those eight put into the legislation they voted in favor of. Grab a cup of coffee and get ready. Duct tape is also recommended.

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful bill..."

1. Mary Bono-Mack (R-CA) -- It seems Mary secured a $500,000 earmark (that's your money, folks) through the Bureau of Land Management for land acquisition. The project? The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. But this had nothing to do with her voting "yea", did it? She also had ANOTHER half-million dollar earmark for groundwater protection in Cathedral City, CA. That earmark goes through the EPA.
   
2. Mike Castle (R-DE) -- From the spreadsheet I saw, he didn't put in any earmarks. That doesn't make him any smarter for voting for it.
3. Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL) -- No earmarks listed, but still a chucklehead. Co-chairman of the moderate GOP Tuesday Group.
4. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) -- Lenny got $500,000 for the city of Califon, NJ, for stormwater improvments, also acquired through the EPA. Where's my thank you note for the money, Lenny?
5. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) -- Mr. LoBiondo did not get any congressionally-directed earmarks. Instead, he got a presidentially-directed earmark of $2 million for the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge for land acquisition. Evidently, we have to protect the wildlife. They'll be running the treadmills to power this nation should cap and trade become law.
   
6. John McHugh (R-NY) -- The folks at Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, Canton, NY, are probably just oozing mush from their ears due to the $150,000 earmark McHugh got them. The money is going for restoration of Village Park. The National Park Service will be cutting the check. This has to do with energy how???
7. Dave Reichert (R-WA) -- Dave got lucky. He received a $333,000 congressional-directed earmark through the EPA for the City of Buckley to get a new emergency intertie booster station, and he also prostituted himself to Dear Leader for $2.15 million of our dollars to go to Mt. Ranier.
8. Chris Smith (R-NJ) -- Evidently, there are no conservatives in New Jersey. The National Park Service was nice enough to give Mr. Smith a $200,000 earmark for Georgian Court University in Lakewood, NJ, to restore the Georgian Court Mansion. You would think that for what a college education costs that taxpayer funding wouldn't be needed. Go figure!!!

These are earmarks that came through the House Interior and Environment Appropriations bill. I'm going to try to break down and organize all the other earmarks by who got what. The spreadsheet is 276 lines long on the congressionally-directed side and 189 lines on the presidentially-directed side, so please bear with me.

We all wondered what the promises were.... This is just the beginning.