GOP: Southside earmarks still on table

The $2.4 million in earmarks recently delivered to Southside that were thought to have expired are still on the table and will go before the full House and Senate for a vote, former Congressman Virgil Goode and a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee said.

Goode and Jennifer Hing, a Republican spokesperson for the committee, both said the announcement from freshman U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s press secretary, Jessica Barba, on Monday that the omnibus bill and its earmarks had expired was incorrect.

“The omnibus will be voted on,” Hing said Friday.

Goode said Tuesday that Congress has been operating on a continuing resolution since the end of September, when all 13 appropriations bills were due to be filed.

“That date is rarely met,” Goode said. “This year will be similar to previous Congresses, when the final appropriations bills weren’t done until late January, or even February or March.”

Hing confirmed Goode’s statements, noting that nine of the 13 appropriations bills from the 110th Congress were not enacted and had been combined in an omnibus bill that would be voted on by the 111th Congress.

“Virgil was on the committee for a long time,” Hing noted. “He knows how it works.”

She said the current continuing resolution — a resolution that keeps government spending at the same level as the previous year until a bill is passed — runs out on March 6 and another one would have to be enacted if the omnibus has not passed by then.

Since all of the outstanding bills, plus the earmarks, have been combined, it will be an all-or-nothing vote by the House and Senate. While it is possible for the omnibus to be voted down, such a vote is rare, Hing said, because the earmarks have already been approved by subcommittees and committees, and a “no” vote would send everything back to the beginning.

“Republicans don’t really like omnibuses,” Hing noted. “We would rather debate each issue on its own merits.”

At the end of the year, just days before leaving office, Goode presented $210,000 to the Future of the Piedmont Foundation for a proposed research center for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.

The Rocky Mount Republican also earmarked more than $1 million for projects linked to the Institute and about $500,000 for the SIPS (Structurally Insulated Panels of America) project in Blairs that has been working on developing manufacturing technologies for energy-efficient housing.

If the bill is approved, the city also will receive more than $1 million for upgrades and renovations to the Municipal Building, the U.S. 29 interchange at Elizabeth Street and bus facilities.

• Contact Denice Thibodeau at dthibodeau@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7985.