Kemp to Bar Funds for Pet Projects : Politics: He challenges funds that lawmakers added to HUD’s money bill. They hint at retaliatory cuts in the agency’s budget.

Housing Secretary Jack Kemp is about to risk the wrath of Congress by refusing to spend funds earmarked for pet projects in the home districts of powerful members of the Senate and House appropriations committees.

Kemp declared that it was “disgraceful” for Congress to allocate $91.7 million for 38 programs the Bush Administration never requested as part of the appropriations bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for this fiscal year.

The pet projects include a $440,000 downtown development plan for a town of 2,500 in the district of Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.). Another, at the behest of Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), provides $1.3 million to help two sugar cane mills in Hawaii.

Another $500,000 is earmarked for acquiring land and planning a shelter for battered women in the district of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands). A pet project instigated by Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah) provides $1 million for a revolving loan fund in his home state.

In a recent appearance on national television, Kemp noted that he had eliminated his own discretionary powers to allocate funds and was not about to let Congress use HUD funds in classic pork barrel schemes.

“I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Congress does not earmark monies, including asking the President to perhaps test, on a line-item veto, those programs that heretofore have just been shoved down our throat by the Congress,” Kemp declared.

Angry lawmakers--including some in Kemp’s own Republican Party--have demanded that Kemp accept the traditional earmarking of relatively small amounts at the request of those who review requests for billions of dollars for federal programs. They hinted that the HUD budget may suffer unless Kemp relents.

The confrontation came after a House Government Operations subcommittee exposed political favoritism to Republican consultants in the awarding of grants worth tens of millions of dollars during the tenure of Kemp’s predecessor, Samuel R. Pierce Jr.

Pierce and his top aides, according to the testimony, approved allocations from the secretary’s discretionary fund without any competitive selection or consideration of a project’s merit.

Although claiming the moral high ground, Kemp’s refusal to accept the widely used practice of earmarking could put him on a collision course with those members of Congress who have the most control over appropriations for his agency--lawmakers that Cabinet officers are usually eager to cultivate.

As a former member of the House Appropriations Committee, the annoyed lawmakers contend, Kemp should know from his own experience that earmarking has been going on for decades without serious challenge from the Executive Branch.

But the new HUD secretary--who got virtually everything he wanted from Congress on a measure designed to reform the agency and eliminate past abuses--appears determined to fight no matter what the cost.

“We can’t wait to reform HUD until next year,” his spokeswoman, Mary Burnette, said in an interview. “We hope Congress will not engage in threats or reprisals.”

The 38 projects listed in the conference report accompanying the HUD appropriations bill do not have the force of law, she contended, and therefore Kemp is not bound to fund them.

Housing funds should be allocated by formulas based on relative need or through a process of competition based on objective, not subjective, criteria, Kemp said.

But his former colleagues in Congress noted pointedly that they are always looking for places to cut the budget, and Kemp’s agency would be more vulnerable if he held to his line.

“I think there is developing here a confrontation,” said Lewis, the third-ranking Republican leader. “How serious a confrontation, I don’t know.”

Rep. Bob Traxler (D-Mich.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee who earmarked almost $2 million for community improvements in his district in the HUD money bill, was not available for comment Monday on Kemp’s decision to block the funding.

“But Mr. Traxler is confident that Congress’ directions will be abided by,” an aide to the powerful chairman said.