Washington Post
The Senate yesterday requested a federal criminal investigation into changes to a $10 million earmark in 2005, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and top Republicans endorsed an ethics committee investigation of how the language governing the pet project was altered.
On a bipartisan 64 to 28 vote, the Senate approved a resolution asking the Justice Department to look into the circumstances surrounding the $10 million expenditure for a highway interchange in Florida backed by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Lawmakers and aides said they could not recall Congress previously requesting a criminal investigation into an earmark.
Young acknowledged this week that he requested the earmark, and an aide conceded that his staff changed its language after both the House and Senate had voted on a highway funding bill that contained the measure. But Young denied that he pushed the provision as a result of receiving $40,000 in campaign donations from developers who owned 4,000 acres of land next to the proposed interchange on Interstate-75 just east of Naples, Fla.
Young's office said that the earmark authorized money for a legitimate project and that aides corrected the legislation to specify that the money was for the interchange, not the general widening of I-75, as originally worded. Aides said a bipartisan collection of House and Senate staff members agreed to that correction before the highway bill was sent to the White House.
But Democratic and Republican senators this week said no substantive changes should ever be made to a bill after its final passage.......
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