St. Louis area reaps benefits from $447 billion spending bill
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
December 16, 2009
By Jacob Carpenter
WASHINGTON -- When the John Cochran Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Louis was built in the 1950s, engineers didn't foresee the scores of patients that would flood the facility a half-century later.
"We have some inpatient rooms that have upwards of four patients at a time," said Fabian Grabski, assistant chief of engineering at the Jefferson Barracks and John Cochran Veterans Affairs hospitals.
Help is on the way. A $44 million appropriation included in a new $447 billion spending bill approved by Congress this week will provide seed money for a 262,000-square-foot hospital tower for the midtown facility.
In addition, the medical center will receive nearly $20 million to start developing the first 10 acres of the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery's 30-acre expansion. The current 331-acre site could reach capacity in the next few years, Grabski said.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill, which passed the Senate Sunday with bipartisan support.
The veterans' hospital funding is the largest individual earmark in a long-delayed appropriations bill for the fiscal year that began last October. The catch-all legislation has spending for projects requested by members of the Missouri and Illinois congressional delegations, including:
-- $7.4 million to build a new medical evacuation facility for Scott Air Force Base near Belleville.
-- $5.2 million for rural Missouri airports in Lamar and Sikeston, as well as the Southern Illinois University Airport in Carbondale.
-- $3 million for the St. Louis County Economic Council to begin planning and construction of a child-care center near the Wellston MetroLink station.
-- $2 million for four southeast Missouri police agencies cracking down on meth production and use.
-- $500,000 for a new road connection to the western entrance of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
-- $400,000 for Missouri Baptist Hospital to expand its women's health screening project.
-- $300,000 for the development of a farmers' market in the Ville neighborhood.
-- $200,000 for the Great Rivers Greenway to connect the River des Peres Greenway from Interstate 55 through Carondelet Park.
The $447 billion funds six government agencies and leaves only one spending bill -- for the Department of Defense -- to be approved by Congress for the present fiscal year.
The legislation passed despite complaints by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and some senators about the prevalence of earmarks, often criticized as "pet projects" that balloon the federal budget.
Many of the Missouri projects were secured by Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., a senior appropriator in the Senate and an unabashed supporter of earmarks. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., takes the opposite approach, avoiding earmarks and seeking to change the system that allows them. McCaskill was one of three Democratic senators to vote against the broad spending bill Sunday.
The proposed VA medical center expansion will feature a larger emergency room, wings for spinal cord injury and mental health patients needing immediate medical treatment, more private bedrooms and better room structures for medical equipment and records.
At Scott Air Force Base, a five-decades-old medical evacuation facility with a leaking roof and an often-flooded basement will give way to a new two-story building. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, obtained the $7.4 million earmark for the facility.
The base is one of two Air Force facilities nationally that houses a permanent aeromedical evacuation team. The facility has been used for sending pilots and medical evacuation teams to Iraq and Afghanistan during the recent wars.
Two rural aviation earmarks, both secured by Bond, will help build a new $2.75 million runway at Lamar Municipal Airport and fund the $1.7 million relocation of a taxiway at Sikeston Memorial Municipal Airport. The Lamar airport services about a dozen airplanes per day, while the Sikeston hub sees nearly 30 flights per day, according to the Federal Aviation Administration's most recent data.
"Particularly in rural communities, these airports are often essential to continued business investment in the communities," said Shana Marchio, a spokeswoman for Bond, who obtained the two earmarks. "Often, they're the only airport within miles of these areas."
Bond's $3 million earmark for the St. Louis County Economic Council will fund about half of the total costs for completing the proposed Wellston Developmental Child Care Center, said Nancy Schnoebelen, the council's vice president of marketing and communications.
The nearly 20,000-square-foot center will be located adjacent to the Wellston MetroLink station so parents can drop off children before boarding mass transit for work, Schnoebelen said. The center's capacity is expected to be 164 children.
"There are a lot of families who would benefit from having a Wellston day-care center in the area with mass transit nearby," Schnoebelen said. "And it's not just a child-care or day-care center -- it's a developmental facility. It's going to have educational programs and learning tools that will help toddlers, instead of just throwing a ball around or watching a video."
In southeast Missouri, four separate earmarks will aid the continued crackdown on meth production and use. The Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department will get $1.5 million for its meth task force, while three drug task forces will receive between $200,000 and $250,000 each.
Missouri has led the nation in the number of meth lab busts each year since 2001, but authorities tend to seize smaller amounts of the drug per bust when compared to California and Texas, where meth often crosses the Mexico border, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data.
"Hopefully this won't be a problem forever," said Jeffrey Conner, top aide to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, who secured three of the earmarks. "These are local, state (and) federal partnerships, and they're highly effective and they relieve a tremendous burden."
