Broad Bills Stuffed With Lawmakers' Pet Items:
"In public, members of Congress have spent hundreds of hours debating the future of Medicare and the need for a national energy policy. Behind the scenes, they have spent even more time working on little-known provisions of the legislation that would benefit specific health care providers and energy companies."

Tucked inside the Medicare bill is an assortment of provisions that have nothing to do with providing prescription drug benefits to the elderly. The energy bill and the annual spending bills for federal agencies are also stuffed with pet projects, intended to win votes for the legislation.

Congress gave final approval to the Medicare bill on Tuesday, but is still wrestling with the energy measure.

The two bills — top priorities for President Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress — provided convenient vehicles for spending narrowly focused on special interests. Hundreds of health care providers and colleges now receive such largess, and the numbers have soared in recent years.…

A provision benefiting a specific hospital in Tennessee was added to the Medicare bill at the last minute in an effort to get the vote of Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee.…

The Medicare bill also increases payments for doctors in Alaska for a cancer treatment known as brachytherapy and for health maintenance organizations that have been dropping out of the Medicare market.

The energy bill includes $1 billion for a new nuclear reactor in Idaho, $800 million in federal loan guarantees for a coal gasification plant in Minnesota and tens of millions of dollars in subsidies for timber companies to log national forests for energy production.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said "parochial projects" were siphoning money away from higher priorities at many agencies.

Timothy M. Westmoreland, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said: "Big bills become larded with whatever bait it takes to get a majority vote. A lot of money in the Medicare bill is spent on things that have nothing to do with a prescription drug benefit."

For decades, it has been common practice for lawmakers to designate money for specific military bases, post offices and waterways. In recent years, they have funneled increasing amounts to specific hospitals, medical schools and health care projects.

Data collected by The Chronicle of Higher Education shows that spending on pork barrel projects at colleges and universities topped $2 billion this year for the first time. In a recent report, the Democratic staff of the House Appropriations Committee said the number of projects designated for assistance under the health and education spending bill nearly quadrupled, to 1,850, in the last three years.…

Just before the Senate gave final approval to the Medicare bill on Tuesday, Dr. Frist displayed a chart listing 358 organizations that supported it.

Members of many of those groups stand to benefit from the bill and participated in a lobbying campaign coordinated by Susan B. Hirschmann, a former chief of staff to Tom DeLay of Texas, now the House Republican leader.

The push for special interest provisions to ensure passage of the Medicare and energy bills led, in some cases, to new variations on the traditional relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers.

Lobbyists have long tried to influence members of Congress. But increasingly members of Congress have put pressure on lobbyists to support their legislative priorities. E-mail messages obtained from recipients provide details of such reverse lobbying.

On Sept. 12, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee, sent a "wake-up call" to hospital executives around the country, asking for their help in fighting cuts proposed by the House.

"I met with Washington representatives from the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the Catholic Health Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Association of Public Hospitals," Mr. Grassley wrote. "I asked them to stand with me in opposing these cuts."

Senator Grassley was successful. Hospitals were spared, and rural hospitals received substantial increases in payments.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/politics/27LOBB.html?pagewanted=all&position=