Where Fair Play Is Earmarked for Failure

A 73-year-old, cigar-chomping Democratic congressman with three decades of House service would seem perfectly positioned to snatch all kinds of legislative goodies for his constituents back home.

So when Rep. George E. Brown Jr. seized the reins of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in 1990, community leaders in his San Bernardino-Riverside district could be excused for counting on millions of dollars in federal high-tech facilities and thousands of jobs.

But Brown, a physicist by trade and a free spirit by nature, doesn’t operate like a traditional pol. He firmly believes in--get ready for this--”playing by the rules,” a motto Brown pursues with such vengeance that many colleagues have branded him a traitor and an enemy.

“George is kind of an enigma in Washington,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento). “He is an old curmudgeon but at the same time he has a lot of conviction. He has never let politics or the fear of any member interfere with what he truly believes in. He is a unique guy in that respect around here.”

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First elected to the House in 1962, Brown has been chastising colleagues for allocating federal funds to pet projects with little justification. This process, known as “earmarking,” is usually initiated by high-priced lobbyists and arranged behind closed doors without the knowledge of most members of Congress or any built-in safeguards to ensure that the money is well spent.

Earmarks, Brown says, “are like mushrooms--they grow best in the dark.”

For years, Brown watched in disgust as “a good friend,” Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.), the former Appropriations Committee chairman, manipulated the House spending process to win federal grants for his constituents and his friends on Capitol Hill.

When he took over as chairman of the Science Committee three years ago, Brown sought to halt awards of large science grants to the favorite college campuses of influential lawmakers.

He failed miserably. Academic earmarks more than doubled between 1990 and 1992, from $248 million for 252 projects to $708 million for 499 projects, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The list of the 10 universities that received the most academic earmarks was remarkably similar from year to year, Brown found. While California’s major research universities were shut out, the list included smaller campuses in the home state of influential Sen. Robert C. Byrd--tiny Wheeling Jesuit College and the University of West Virginia received $40 million in 1992.

Brown’s fight against earmarks has the full support of California university officials. They argue that California campuses will garner more federal funding if allowed to compete fairly.

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Brown was particularly infuriated by shenanigans he uncovered in the final months of the 1992 legislative session, when 10 members of a House-Senate conference committee inserted $95 million in an energy spending bill for projects in their own districts.

Brown led a successful fight on the House floor to let all universities and colleges compete for the $95 million. But his triumph was short-lived. Months later, during the last days of the legislative session, Brown discovered the same 10 projects buried in a 1,000-page defense spending bill.

An attempt to mount another challenge fell apart when the House leadership and rules committee sided against Brown. “It was all greased,” he said.

Last year Brown mustered support to pass House rules changes that require disclosure of earmarks in advance. He also held oversight hearings that exposed egregious cases.

These measures helped produce a 1994 federal budget that cut in half the $750 million in academic earmarks set aside the previous year, Brown said. At the same time, funding for authorized National Science Foundation programs jumped from $40 million to $100 million.

But Brown paid a political price for his war on earmarks, aides say. After being warned by House appropriators that any requests for his district would face harsh scrutiny, Brown saw $10 million in previously approved funding for improvements to Ontario International Airport scrapped from this year’s budget.

Such retaliation will not stop Brown from further embarrassing colleagues who engage in earmarking. “They have no support in principle for what they are doing, and they damn well know it,” he said.