Loans to attract businesses to Provo and Orem may not seem as urgent as aiding new democracies in Panama and Nicaragua. But Congress said both were dire emergencies last week.
As part of a "dire emergency" spending bill designed originally to aid Central America, $1 million was also earmarked for the Provo-Orem loan program - which doesn't make Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp happy at all.The Utah project is among 40 he had called "disgraceful" examples of pork-barrel politics, where politicians sought funding for hometown concerns without going through a competitive grant process.
Kemp had refused to fund them earlier because Congress had merely earmarked spending for most of them in a conference report outlining congressional intent, not in actual law itself.
But Congress forced Kemp to eat the "pork" when it added the projects quietly and without debate to the fattened $4.3 billion dire emergency bill, which Bush quickly signed into law to obtain the $800 million in aid for Central America he has been seeking for months.
A HUD press office spokesman said Friday that the agency will comply with the law and fund the projects.
West Valley project
That includes funding for three "pork-barrel" projects that had already been written directly into HUD appropriations law, but which Kemp had stalled - including $500,000 for roads and utilities at a West Valley City industrial park.
That and the Provo/Orem loan project had been pushed by Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, who is the ranking Republican and former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on HUD and Independent Agencies. Ironically, Garn in committee hearings has attacked the practice of earmarking.
Is the funding for the two Utah projects an emergency? "It's not an emergency, it's an economic development program is what it is," said Karl Snow, president of the state-sponsored Utah Technology Finance Corp., which applied for the Provo-Orem program funds. Snow is also a Republican candidate for Congress in the 3rd District.
Helps high-tech
The program will provide a revolving loan fund to help high-tech companies settle in Utah County, an area a panel of experts said is ideal for such ventures.
Ironically, the program once received approval and funding from HUD offices in Denver, but HUD headquarters pulled the plug, saying funds used were meant for other purposes.
Snow said that's when Garn and other members of the Utah delegation sought other ways to reformulate the program and receive funds.
Was the West Valley project an emergency or needed? "It depends on your definition of emergency, but it is for us," said Larry Catten, assistant to the West Valley City manager for economic development.
Adds roads and utilities
He said the $500,000 planned to add roads and utilities in the planned West Ridge Commerce Industrial Park is part of his city's efforts to keep the Hercules missile plant from leaving Utah.
Several years ago, the city annexed the area around the plant and borrowed money through bonding to buy 600 acres to serve as a buffer to keep homes from encroaching too near the plant and its explosives. The city is building a golf course on part of that land now.
"But the city has spent all it can on that land, and it has bond obligations to repay. That's why we went after federal help," Catten said. "The land is not marketable as an industrial park until will can build some roads there, and install sewer lines and other utilities."