Then consider the story of Latrobe Steel and Congressman Jack Murtha, as reported by the Coyote:
One final note: when challenged by the reporter from Congressional Quarterly working on this story about why the Defense Appropriations were organized as to make it almost impossible to trace pork back to specific legislators, Murtha's response: Tough shit.
Jack Murtha and the House leadership: Pork you can believe in
And this certainly is a feel-good story for those rooting for the government to re-engineer the American auto industry:Latrobe Specialty Steel of Latrobe, 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, makes specialty steel for aircraft parts.
In 2006, its parent company, Timken, spent $2.9 million lobbying Congress on various issues and persuaded lawmakers to ban the Defense Department from buying any products using foreign-made specialty steel. As the sole U.S. producer of certain kinds of specialty steel, Latrobe saw its orders climb. Timken then sold Latrobe to a group of investors in a $250 million deal.
But the buy-American restrictions for specialty steel caused serious problems for the Air Force, creating a 17-month lag in getting spare parts for aircraft used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In May 2007, Latrobe said it needed to expand but complained of high electric bills and publicly threatened to build a new plant in Virginia or West Virginia instead. Pennsylvania offered grants and tax credits to the company worth $1.2 million.
In Congress, lawmakers were quietly lining up a much sweeter package.
In the defense bill passed in December, someone had inserted language that ultimately directed $18.4 million for "domestic expansion of essential vacuum induction melting furnace capacity and vacuum arc remelting furnace capacity."
"Latrobe Specialty Steel is the only domestic producer of that steel," Army Lt. Gen. William Mortensen said at a hearing.
A month after the bill passed, Latrobe began a $62 million expansion in its home state.
No one in Congress has admitted sponsoring the Latrobe earmark.
One congressman's fingerprints, however, weren't so easy to conceal. Latrobe sits in the congressional district of Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat who chairs the subcommittee that drafts the defense bill and wields the most power over defense earmarks.
Latrobe's officials have given $5,000 to Murtha's re-election fund in the past two years.
Also, Murtha had talked about giving taxpayer dollars to Latrobe. "We're trying to get together to see how we can work out an increased capacity for that particular company," Murtha said at a subcommittee hearing in April 2007. "I've talked to that producer. And what I'd like to see is them put some money in, us put some money in, and reduce the time it takes to get those spare parts out."...
The company would not comment on any discussions it had with Murtha. A spokeswoman defended getting the grant, saying it had been competitively bid. Even so, she acknowledged that Latrobe is the sole U.S. producer of certain specialty steels, a requirement for getting the money.
One final note: when challenged by the reporter from Congressional Quarterly working on this story about why the Defense Appropriations were organized as to make it almost impossible to trace pork back to specific legislators, Murtha's response: Tough shit.
Jack Murtha and the House leadership: Pork you can believe in
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