The Troops Wait While Washington Piles on the Pork

President Bush asked around two months ago for $82 million in emergency money for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the bill's hung up in the Senate where it's been described as a "Pandora's Box of pork."

Among the pet projects tucked into the bill so far:

• Sen Thad Cochran (R-MS) -- $35 million for a wastewater project in DeSoto County, Mississippi
• Sen Pete Domenici (R-NM) -- $40 million for three projects involving the National Nuclear Security Administration (with three sites in his home state)
• Sen Diane Feinstein (D-CA) -- $34.3 million to repair national forest roads in California damaged by winter flooding, $11 million for water projects in southern California
• Sen Harry Reid (D-NV) -- $4 million for the Fire Sciences Academy in Elk, Nevada, $500,000 for a University of Reno oral history project
• Sen Conrad Burns (R-MT) -- $5 million for a Fort Peck, Montana fish hatchery
• Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) -- $42 million for a new aircraft hangar in his home state
  

In all, the Senate has stripped $542 million from the President's request for defense requests and tsunami relief efforts and added $406 million for domestic projects. (LAT)