1. What projects are Nevada’s Senators and Congress members looking to fund?
These earmarks — often called pork-barrel spending — are federal funding designated by Congress members for pet projects on their districts. They were banned for a decade due to abuse, and only recently returned in 2021.
Nevada is now asking for $687 million across the state, $55 million in Clark County for more than a dozen projects.
$13 million to the county for Boys and Girls Club, Fire and EMT Regional Training Center, to replace current outdoor lighting fixtures with LED fixtures, for healthcare workforce training, for a joint communications center for law enforcement and first responders.
over $7 mil for the Clark County Department of Aviation for new escalators and elevators in Terminal 1 of Harry Reid International Airport, plus another $5 mil to bring the Airfield Rescue and Fire Fighting facilities there up to current standards.
A combined $11 million in two grants to build two buildings — the Historic West Las Vegas Library and renovate the Rainbow Library, in Northwest Las Vegas.
$5.6 mil to the Clark County Water Reclamation District to build water mains
Almost $5 mil to the Clark County FD for technology, security, and communications system upgrades.
$31 million for the City of North Las Vegas
Over $20 million for Las Vegas
$12.5 million for Henderson
$1 million for Las Vegas Metro PD
Almost $12 million for UNLV
Across the state $91 million for Nevada DOT for various road projects
2. How does this compare to previous spending?
A: These are proposed amounts, requested by the senators and congressmembers, so it’s always more than they end up getting. So earlier this year, Nevada got $194 million in federal earmarks for 108 projects. This proposal is for $687 million – so 3 and-a-half times as much.
States don’t usually get all they requested, there’s some deal making that happens and some earmarks get cut
It’s important to remember that these are just earmarks, these entities still get other federal funding throughout the year, so there’s lot of money being spread around and its all borrowed against our $35 trillion national debt.