Ann Arbor loses out on extra money for Stadium bridges, regional rail with death of federal budget bill

AnnArbor.com obtained a 1,117-page list of the earmarks in the bill, which shows the region lost out on millions of dollars for projects supported by U.S. Reps. John Dingell and John Conyers and U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow.

That includes $2 million in funding for the Ann Arbor-to-Detroit regional rail project, an earmark put in by Stabenow and Levin. Dingell also put in a $500,000 earmark for additional funding for the city of Ann Arbor's East Stadium bridges replacement project.

Ann Arbor already has $17.3 million in state and federal funding to put toward the $23 million bridge project. The funding it lost out on would have been additional money.

Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje said city officials hadn't been tracking the earmarks in the omnibus budget bill and hadn't had any contact with federal lawmakers on it.

Dingell's office earlier this year also announced $153.2 million in federal funding for high-speed rail improvements along the Detroit-to-Chicago corridor, including between Ann Arbor and Detroit. That funding is separate from the bill that failed to move forward Thursday, but it still awaits the approval of matching funds from the Michigan Legislature.

Another $550,000 earmark in Thursday's omnibus bill was put in by Dingell, Stabenow and Levin for the University of Michigan Health System for facilities and equipment.

A project to replace the East Stadium Boulevard bridge span over South State Street, shown here in this photo from last year, lost out on additional federal funding Thursday.

Angela Cesere | AnnArbor.com

Eastern Michigan University would have received $300,000 for an entrepreneurship education program for at-risk youth — an earmark put in by Dingell, Conyers, Levin and Stabenow. The same four lawmakers also tried to send EMU $500,000 for a biofuels laboratory.

EMU just completed an addition to its Mark Jefferson Science Complex, and the $500,000 earmark would have funded high-tech equipment to be used in a biofuels lab there, said Leigh Greden, EMU’s executive director of government and community relations.

"We're disappointed that the bill was stalled," Greden said. "Earmarks have become a dirty word in this political environment, but our projects and many other projects in this region illustrate that earmarks are often tools for economic development and investment in our community."

Reid has said he would work with Republican leaders to draft a short-term spending measure to keep the government running beyond Saturday, when the current federal spending authorization resolution expires. The continuing resolution is seen as a status-quo option, extending current funding levels with no earmarks for new programs or projects.

Dingell offered his comments on the omnibus budget bill's defeat in a written statement.

“Earmarks are never a guarantee until the president signs the spending bill into law," he said. "I have fought continuously for both Stadium bridges and Ann Arbor-to-Detroit, as evidenced by the funding secured for these projects over the years. Today’s failure of the omnibus budget bill is another attempt by Republicans to block funding for local, quality projects like the ones our delegation supported.”

Greden said he's cautiously optimistic there may be "high-quality earmarks like ours" continued in the next Congress, despite Republican opposition.

President Barack Obama had requested almost $1.14 trillion in spending for the 2011 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30, 2011.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.