What happened behind the closed doors of that Senate caucus room last week to provoke three particular, desperately needed Republican Senators to cross the aisle and pledge their votes in favor of the Nelson-Collins compromise version of the Senate's stimulus bill? Buried deep in the middle of the measure, under Title VI, Homeland Security, is a $450 million appropriation for construction of land side facilities in support of a new Coast Guard icebreaker. The legislation does not specify, but I'm willing to wager dollars to doughnuts that this new seaport will be built somewhere along the rocky coast of Maine [Senators Collins and Snowe], and though there is nothing in this bill for construction of the icebreaker vessel itself, my money says it will be built in the Philadelphia shipyard [Senator Specter]. So much for President Obama's "no earmarks" pledge.
As for the ultimate outcome of politics as the art of the possible, we will have to await the conference committee version of the bill later this week, but it seems certain that no matter what other tweaking the conferees may do to the particulars of the measure, the Coast Guard is going to be getting a new icebreaker based in Maine.
As for the ultimate outcome of politics as the art of the possible, we will have to await the conference committee version of the bill later this week, but it seems certain that no matter what other tweaking the conferees may do to the particulars of the measure, the Coast Guard is going to be getting a new icebreaker based in Maine.
If you are interested in the changes made to the House version of the appropriations by the Nelson-Collins compromise, this link will take you to Senator Nelson's detailed spreadsheet: http://bennelson.senate.gov/documents/Nelson-Collins Stimulus Final.xls
