WASHINGTON — The city of Carver, once the last stop for steamboats traveling up the Minnesota River, wants to upgrade a levee that has kept the river from flooding the town.
So the city sought the help of Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, who has asked for more than $27 million for local transportation projects in the 2025 budget. Emmer put in an earmark request for $3.35 million to help the city of 7,000 people raise enough money to upgrade that 60-year-old levy to the standards set by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
But that request, as well as the rest of Emmer’s requests and hundreds of millions of dollars in earmark appeals from other Minnesota federal lawmakers, aren’t likely to be approved, having fallen victim to Congress’ inability to approve appropriations bills and the GOP’s determined efforts to cut federal spending.
That has dashed the hopes for federal money for local transportation projects, new firehouses, police stations, airports, recreation centers, wastewater treatment plans and money to non-profits that provide medical care and housing help.
Carver Mayor Courtney Johnson said she asked for the federal help because she was “trying to leave no stone unturned” in seeking the $13 million needed to fortify and modernize the city’s levee.
She said she was disappointed that the help won’t come — at least not this year. “We don’t ask for that much in Carver,’” Johnson said.
But the city has raised $9 million already and plans to start work on the levee next year anyway.
The reason Carver, and dozens of other towns in Minnesota, won’t receive hoped-for funding for special projects is complicated.
Since the appropriations process in Congress collapsed this year, federal agencies have been funded through a series of short-term, stop-gap spending bills that, unlike the appropriations bills, don’t have earmarks.
The latest one expires a minute after midnight Friday, setting up a partisan showdown over the shutdown of the federal government.
To avoid a shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a new stop-gap spending bill — a so-called “continuing resolution,” or CR — last weekend that would keep the federal government running until Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
The bill would save $13 billion by eliminating all earmarks from the federal budget, make moderate cuts to some domestic and foreign aid programs and increase the Pentagon’s spending by $6 billion. Most other federal programs and agencies would be funded at 2024 levels.
Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate have made it clear they are adamantly opposed to the stopgap bill. It may squeak through the narrowly divided House. Then it will be up to Senate Democrats whether to filibuster the bill or allow it to pass to avert a government shutdown.
“Republicans in Congress had eighteen months to finish their work on the Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations bills,” Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, said in a statement. “By putting forward a full year Continuing Resolution, Congressional Republicans have failed miserably. They have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities to fund the government to Donald Trump.”
Political ‘pork’?
Earmarks were banned in 2011, victims of a series of scandals and an anti-spending movement fueled by the Tea Party, which considered such projects wasteful “pork.”
But proponents pushed for their return, arguing that they account for a tiny fraction of the federal budget, help to fund much-needed projects and foster consensus-building and bipartisanship in Congress as lawmakers across the political spectrum work toward common goals.
So earmarks were resurrected in 2022, in a limited way. Renamed “community funding projects,” lawmakers were required to certify that neither they nor their immediate families have any financial interest in projects they requested and to make their requests public.
The C.A.R.E. Clinic in Red Wing, which provides fee-free medical and mental health care and dental services at nominal or no cost, made its first request for federal funding in this year’s budget.
The nonprofit health center asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to procure a $1.1 million grant so it could establish a permanent home and expand its dental clinic.
Julie Malyon, executive director of the clinic, said she is disappointed that the help won’t come through. But she said she is not completely surprised since federal funding for other types of grants have been pulled since Trump was inaugurated.
“We anticipated that this would be an unprecedented year,” Maylon said.
The abolition of earmarks puts Mankato Regional Airport in a special bind. It received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2022 for a new air control tower. But the FAA mandated that the tower, estimated to cost $18 million, be completed in five years, or by 2027, or begin the approval process all over again.
The airport put in a request through Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, for $2.5 million so it could begin design and engineering work on the tower. Now that money won’t come through.
“It’s a surprise,” said Shawn Schloesser, associate director for transportation planning services in Mankato. “Hopefully, the FAA prioritizes control towers and funds us through other money. Or we just wait.”
Other earmark requests that have been derailed include $5 million to help build a new water treatment plant in Eagle Lake, $2.4 million to replace a 70-year-old water main in Manchester, $4 million to reconstruct a library in St. Paul, $2.5 million to build a new police station in New Prague, $8.4 million for a new tribal court building for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and funding for dozens of other Minnesota-based projects.
“Not only does the Republican’s CR cut funding for our veterans and seniors, but it fails to fund community projects that we had previously negotiated,” said Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, who submitted the request for New Prague’s police station as well as funding for other projects.
Minnesota’s cities, towns and non-profits can submit their requests again in the 2026 federal budget.
But the clampdown on earmarks occurred as the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency seeks to make deep cuts in all of the federal agencies and Trump seeks cuts to the federal budget so he can fund his priorities, s0 the pressure to cut government spending may persist.
Ana Radelat
Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.
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