Abstract
Otherwise referred to as “earmarks” (or pork barrel spending by detractors), special needs grants provided in the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) annual appropriations bills have mushroomed from 18, which amounted to $171.0 million in USEPA's fiscal year (FY) 1997 budget, to 494 amounting to $326.4 million in the agency's FY2003 budget, all of which comes at the expense of other agency programs. The totals since 1995 exceed 1,500 grants approaching $3 billion, nearly rivaling the $3.8 billion USEPA recently reported that states have delivered for 1,776 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) project loan agreements in its first five years of operation since Congress created it in 1996. Opposed by USEPA and states because they divert available funds from the state controlled DWSRF and Clean Water SRF (CWSRF) programs and their project prioritization processes and self‐sustaining natures, such earmarks nevertheless amount to an increasingly sought‐after source of attractive grants for infrastructure projects that run the gamut from multimillion‐dollar upgrades funded over several years to one‐shot grants as low as $22,500 for quick fixes.
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