Editorial: The Road to Somewhere Shady

21 Apr 2008 // The Senate has taken the unusual step of proposing that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation of a long-running Congressional embarrassment known as the Coconut Road earmark. At issue is who slipped the $10 million boondoggle back into the transportation budget after it had been rejected by Congress.

This is no minor mystery. The way precedent creeps around the Capitol, a stealthy $10 million alteration can easily be followed by one worth $100 million.

From the first, the project was classic pork — an earmark that Representative Don Young of Alaska, then the powerful G.O.P. transportation committee chairman, tailored after visiting Florida and receiving $40,000 in developers’ campaign donations. Local officials objected, saying the proposed Coconut Road connection to the interstate would increase land values but abuse the environment by cutting across a valued wetland.

They requested that the $10 million go to more pressing interstate needs, an appropriation both houses finally approved. Yet, the bill arrived for President Bush’s signature with the Coconut interchange miraculously substituted for what Congress approved.

After months of Congressional chagrin about earmark corruption, Mr. Young’s office admitted that it may have been a staff member who altered the bill after the vote, but not to finagle it — only to somehow “correct” it. Representative Young is the porkmeister who championed the notorious Bridge to Nowhere. He remains incorrigible.

The latest transportation bill includes a high-speed rail link between Nevada casinos and California that Mr. Young sought. Yes, the rail link developers made a contribution to Mr. Young’s campaign fund, and they even hired the same lobbyist involved in the Coconut Road project, according to CQ Today.

All this may strike taxpayers as an investigative slam-dunk. The Senate’s call for help from the F.B.I. is commendable, but requires House concurrence. Speaker Nancy Pelosi prefers that the inquiry be assigned to the House ethics committee, a panel heretofore noted for interring, not illuminating, scandal. Both investigations should go forward. That may be what is needed to finally solve the mystery of Coconut Road.