Earmarks: another route to federal aid Friends in Congress bring home the bacon for hungry public TV stations Originally published in Current, Feb. 11, 2002 By Dan Odenwald No grant applications to sweat over. No matching funds to raise. Perhaps the slickest way to get money out of Congress is the oldest. Call it "earmarks" or "pork barrel," it's the dollars that legislators win for pet projects back home. Though they evade Washington's attempts to distribute dollars according to merit, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) decries them as special-interest pork, earmarks do an effective end-run around competition and uncertainty. Why face fierce competition when your hometown congressman happens to chair a subcommittee? Though they are controversial, earmarks are as popular as ever, and public TV hasn't ignored the technique. A quick round of interviews finds millions in federal funds designated by influential members of Congress for specific pubcasting organizations. Stations in Alaska and California are getting aid for digital conversion, while networks in South Carolina and Iowa are winning grants for educational technology projects. The trend is growing, says John Lawson, president of APTS, because earmarks are so popular in allied fields such as higher education and other nonprofits. It helps to know a cardinal KVCR turned to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) for help when it wasn't getting help from the usual federal grant programs. The little station in San Bernardino, Calif., received $2.73 million in earmarks over the last two years through the Education Department's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), says General Manager Lew Warren. Located about an hour east of Los Angeles, the small station competes in the nation's second largest TV market, and funding for its DTV conversion is limited. One of the so-called 13 cardinals in the House of Representatives, Lewis oversees one of the 13 appropriations subcommittees and can call in favors when he needs one. He helped KVCR pay for more than three-quarters of its DTV conversion. For KVCR, that's free money—no competition, no match, just cash. "Good management is about maximizing the resources you have," Warren says. "If we didn't have Lewis, we'd be looking for loans and everything else." The station cultivated its legislators for years, Warren says. He visits them regularly in D.C. and announces their town meetings on KVCR. "All I had to do was continue the relationship and get their focus to include the station." By the time KVCR needed the money, Warren already had their ear. "We're fighting cable. We're fighting satellite. It's a very tight market out there," he says. "Anybody that would turn down money is crazy." Though a station like KVCR can win an earmark, Lawson says, it still has to compete to get it. Subcommittee chairmen receive hundreds of funding requests every year from their districts. Only a handful of the requests are granted. Because of its relative size and wealth, public TV makes more use of earmarks than does public radio, Lawson says. An NPR spokeswoman said she couldn't recall any earmarks awarded to radio stations. Before Lawson took charge at APTS, he ran his own lobbying firm, Convergence Services, where he helped secure several millions in earmarks for clients. In 2001, he worked with South Carolina ETV to win $2 million for its Bridges project. South Carolina's senators—eight-term Republican Strom Thurmond and seven-term Democrat Fritz Hollings—played crucial roles in winning the grant. Hollings chairs a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Lawson also worked with MHz Networks (formerly WNVT/WNVC in Falls Church, Va.) to secure $800,000. General Manager Fred Thomas called on powerful friends on Capitol Hill to seed the endeavor, including Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.). Wolf, another of the 13 cardinals, chairs the Commerce subcommittee that oversees technology programs. "It's politics, and there are key players, obviously," Thomas says. "If you have a really good idea, your representative ought to want to see [it become] successful." Downside of earmarks Not all pubcasters regard earmarks as good public policy or even good politics. Julie Andersen, executive director of South Dakota Public Broadcasting, shuns lobbying one of her state's senators, Majority Leader Tom Daschle, for congressional perks. Andersen believes the system is better served when it presents a united front on Capitol Hill. "I've never heard earmarks talked about well," Andersen says. "It seems to me you're better off going after these things as a team player. They may pay off in the short run, but you lose credibility in the long run." "Ultimately I don't care if Daschle has all the power in the world," she says. "We're still a public TV affiliate and the strength of the whole system matters to us." Funding agencies hate earmarks because they undermine competitive grantmaking processes that supposedly reward the best projects, says Arthur Zygielbaum, a research director at the Nebraska network. Earmarks "bypass a lot of the controls that are there," he says. "To a lot of people, earmarks are not playing fair." Lawson counsels restraint in pursuing earmarks. Stations ought to be wary of lobbying for money in existing programs that are available to the entire system, he says. If someone pursues a PTFP earmark and succeeds in draining limited resources, he advises, that would generate bad blood. A more immediate danger, he says, is the risk that stations will exhaust their political capital seeking earmarks instead of appropriations for the whole system. On the other hand, a successful project resulting from an earmark could build a station's political capital. For example, the MHz Networks project close to Washington might prove very helpful on the Hill as a demonstration project. "It's a balancing act," Lawson says. Some politicians also oppose pork. In the fiscal year 2003 budget he sent to Congress last week, President Bush recommended rescinding all earmarks passed in the 2002 appropriations bills. Though that idea may be dead-on-arrival in Congress, Lawson says, Bush is slashing the Fund for the Improvement of Education, a favorite vehicle for earmarks. FIE would plunge from $832.9 million to $84 million in 2003. The president also targeted earmark-friendly FIPSE, the fund that made KVCR's digital conversion possible. Bush cut its funding from $180.9 million to $39.1 million. "There's always criticism of earmarks," says Sarah Garland, an independent lobbyist who works with public TV stations. Every administration sends its budget to the Hill and sees it as the perfect document. Those requests don't focus on items that a particular legislator might be interested in, she says. Some legislators criticize earmarks, but they all use them, says Reba Hull Campbell, director of government relations at South Carolina ETV. "It's all about pork and what you bring home to your constituents." Many pubcasters defend earmarks as a legitimate means to pursue funding. Alaska's four public TV stations, with their unique needs, rely heavily on home state Sen. Ted Stevens, ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, who helps them with their digital conversion. Some earmarks pay for pilot projects that might not otherwise get funded because of their experimental nature, says Pam Pfitzenmaier, an education director at Iowa PTV. Iowa PTV went to Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate's education appropriations subcommittee. For years, Harkin has helped Iowa PTV win earmarks through Star Schools, a federal program which funds distance education projects. People can learn from projects funded by earmarks, she says. Some of the competitive grants require such huge matches they squeeze out worthy competitors. "Somebody may have a sparkling idea but may not have a match for it," Pfitzenmaier says. "Does that mean it shouldn't be funded?" Though Rita Ray, chief of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, declines to pursue earmarks with pork wizard Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she wouldn't discourage stations from going after them. "Not all earmarks have harmful effects," she says, " it just depends on which side of the fence you're on." Soft earmarks As head of a membership organization, Lawson can't pursue earmarks for individual stations. But that doesn't mean he's "chained to the lowest common denominator"—the traditional grants vehicles open to all stations. Lawson will seek earmarks on behalf of the entire system or large groups of stations. For example, APTS is looking for aid in the Farm Bill, now moving through the Senate. The massive legislation deals primarily with farming subsidies, but Lawson aims to create new programs for rural broadband development using PTV signals. These so-called "soft earmarks" distribute funds through competitive grant programs but are so narrowly tailored that only a few applicants are eligible. Garland, a former staffer for Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), helped create a soft earmark 12 years ago for community licensees that serve statewide audiences in rural areas. The Department of Agriculture program is open to five licensees: the networks in Maine, Vermont, North Dakota and Oregon, and Alaska's four stations. Together the five licensees split an annual award of $2 million for programming and job training projects. "I can guarantee you that there aren't any public TV stations that serve rural areas that can afford to do this kind of programming that the USDA grants make possible," Garland says. Earmarks are found in committee reports that accompany legislation and sometimes in bills themselves. But some are not put on paper. In a private deal struck with Stevens, Alaska's four public TV stations will receive an undisclosed amount of CPB's new digital money, according to public TV execs. Stevens, who shepherded two DTV bills totaling $45 million through Congress last year, originally wanted the money for rural and fiscally weak stations. His committee broadened the scope of recipients when public TV negotiators agreed with a nod that Alaska stations would get some of that money, says a source close to the talks. CPB declined to comment on the agreement. The Alaska stations will use the money to construct a joint digital production center in Anchorage. The center will furnish the stations with editing suites and high-definition cameras, according to station execs. Lawson says the number of earmarks tends to ebb and flow on Capitol Hill. Currently, they're flowing. "Public TV is a babe in the woods compared to higher education and other nonprofit interest groups in its use of earmarks," Lawson says. "I don't think we'd be singled out as a particularly bad offender."

A sampling of recent earmarks Nebraska ETV— $17.7 million. The network and its licensee, the University of Nebraska, have scored several earmarks over the years with help from former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey. A $15 million earmark for the university paid for conversion of telecourses from broadcast video to the Web. A $2.7 million grant will pay for a technology center operated by the network and the university's teachers' college. Iowa PTV—$3 million. A leader in educational technology, the Iowa network received a $3 million earmark last year to work with the state's K-8 schools to improve technology resources. The state net will distribute grants to schools for distance education projects and Web training for teachers. Iowa PTV will use a small portion of the grant for overhead costs. KVCR, San Bernardino, Calif.—$2.73 million. The two-year grant will help with digital conversion of the community college-owned station. It was administered through the Education Department's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). South Carolina ETV—$2 million. The state network received $2 million for its Bridges project in 2001. Partnered with the state networks in Maryland and Nebraska, SCETV is using the funds to develop technology to improve reading and writing skills for students. Alaska's public TV stations—More than $1.5 million. In 1998, three of the state's stations—KUAC, Fairbanks; KTOO, Juneau; and KYUK, Bethel—shared in $1.5 million to build Alaska One, a statewide network offering a single program service. The money was used to build facilities and create rural programming. In 2000, Susan (Reed) Satin, g.m. of KAKM in Anchorage, worked with Stevens to pay for a digital server to store her station's analog content. Detroit Public Television—$808,000. The funds back the station's Enrichment Channel, a stream of arts and culture programming targeted at the city's schools. The station worked with Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. MHz Networks, Falls Church, Va.—$800,000. The operator of WNVT/WNVC in Falls Church, Va., won funding for its Kidz Online project, which will develop a peer-to-peer technology education series to address the digital divide. WQED, Pittsburgh—$205,000. The grant backs the station's family literacy and job training learning center. The station successfully lobbied Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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	Outside link: Public broadcasters are relative newcomers to earmarks. The Chronicle of Higher Education counted earmarks worth $1.67 billion that were arranged for colleges and universities in 2001.

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