lawmakers names appear next to the requested project. the letters of request identify where and why money will be spent and also the group points that now there s eliminated earmarks named after sitting member of the house. that has had some affect, clearly, not a massive affect. we re still talking billions an billions of your taxpayer dollars out there. plenty of examples of ridiculous pet projects, $.6 million for potato research. $693,000 for beef improvement research. $4.8 million for wood utilization research. several republican lawmakers spoke after the release of the pig book and call for an end to pork praump. here s one. so many members of congress are saying, our debt is unsustainable. we have to do something, but then turn around and say i need $1 million for a local sewer project. tells you how irrational this spending cull cherry become that s driven by earmarks.
government waste, some of the biggest earmarked projects in all of congress, and they have this event where they actually bring pigs to the announcement and actually show the pigs, and actually go ahead and make their announcement. i ll show a few examples of the pork barrel projects in the fiscal year 2010 project starting off with potato research. $2.6 million. put aside for potato research. $693,000 for beef improvement research. and $4.8 million for wood utilization research. the kind of examples this group talked about. lawmakers managed to get pet projects in, bring money them to support companies back at home, or group, whatever it is, in any given example. and along with this, they also had some senators who say this needs to stop. here s one senator who spoke. so many members of congress are saying, our debt is unsustainable. we have to do something, but then turn around and say i need
there s one texas pointed to. $693,000 for beef improvement research. this just came out within the hour. so, tony, what we re looking at here, the merits, or not, of these projects, keep in mind. they ve create jobs often through this money and people can come up with various justifications. this group is confident this is pork. so earmarks and pork as one man stimulus program? how does this group decide and i took you right back to the stimulus desk. how does this group decide what counts as pork, josh? they look at a handful of criteria, how it was put in, only put in by one person, have to go through an approval process, was it an announce? in every single one they re listing in this report which now has washington talking that they re confidence every single things meets one criteria if not more. throughout the newsroom this afternoon today, tony, i ll be camped out here following more. it s stimulus.
crisis. her interview with cnn. you ll see it here in the situation room . as the shuttle program nears the end, could it mean the loss of thousands of jobs? this is a cnn exclusive we have for you. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. more than $16 billion, that s how much a watch dog group says members of congress lavished this year on their pet projects known as earmarks, commonly called, though, pork barrel spending. all that pork is served up in the group s annual big book, as it s called. our congressional correspondent brianna keilar has gone through the pig book. she s here to tell us what she found. this is the pig book right here. we found very cute, a silly atmosphere around the revealing of the pig book. there s beef improvement research. there s wool research, of course, swine research. members of congress securing billions in earmarks.
billion from about $20 billion. these tend to be things that are in a bill that really don t have something to do with the bill. exactly. basically we re talking about lawmakers that get their own pet projects into it. okay. we have some examples. the graphics department had a lot of fun with it. the first one is the potato. the citizens against government waste calls it do you want fries for with that award. $2.6 million for potato research, and beef improvement research. $4.8 million for wood utilization research. the crazy ones that they are saying, look, outside it might be nice for some people out there, but we don t think this is an appropriate use of taxpayer funds. i feel like we ve been utilizing wood for a long time. i feel we re good at it. you can chom it ap it and use i build your house. the idea is really more about the system, right? you re right. it doesn t go through the entire budget process. it doesn t have the scrutiny that it otherwise would, that