March 12th, 2009 10:40 AM

Exploreum, USA projects funded in bill that cleared Congress

WASHINGTON — The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, bus service and a weather research program that is supposed to include the University of South Alabama are among the array of local projects in line for earmarked money in a $410 billion spending bill that received final congressional approval Tuesday night.
The Baldwin County bus system, for example, will receive $950,000 to install steel benches and coverings at new bus stops, according to a news release from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa.
The Exploreum in downtown Mobile will receive $500,000 toward construction of its Engineering Learning Center, a separate release said.

For Mobile and Baldwin county governments, the bill also furnishes $1 million each for flood studies, and the town of Dauphin Island will receive $400,000 to restore dunes and beaches on its east end.
Among other projects, the legislation contains almost $4.8 million for construction of a turning basin in Mobile Harbor.
The spending bill, which will pay for various government operations through the end of the fiscal year in September, passed the Senate on a voice vote Tuesday. Final approval had been delayed by objections from some senators that the measure contained too much money for earmarks, as lawmakers' pet projects are formally known.
Shelby had much at stake in the outcome. With $219.4 million in projects sought either on his own or with other lawmakers, he ranked ninth in Congress, according to a count by the watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Oxford, ranked first.
On a 62-35 procedural vote earlier Tuesday to end debate on the measure, Shelby, along with Cochran and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Tupelo, effectively voted in favor of the bill. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, was opposed.
One of the largest earmarks in the bill is $10.55 million for what Shelby's release described as a regional weather and hydrology center to be based at the University of Alabama.
According to Shelby and university administrators, the center will also include USA, Auburn and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Officials at those schools have had few details on their role in the proposed program. "I'm sort of out of the loop on this," Bill Williams, director of USA's Coastal Weather Research Center, said Wednesday.
Late last month, Shelby said participants would learn more as the bill moved forward. The center will now begin "to develop and acquire technology and equipment needed to study storms, improve rainfall estimates and provide citizens with state-of-the-art weather research and prediction capabilities," he said in this week's release.

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