Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines defends the New York senator's additions to military spending bills.
"These defense earmarks bolster our national and homeland security, and provide our brave men and women in uniform with the resources they need to achieve their mission while keeping them safe," Reines said.
Clinton has delivered multimillion-dollar defense earmarks to a company making improvements to bomb racks for B1 fighter jets; to a small Buffalo-area firm that provides anticorrosive coating to military vehicles; and to the Manhattan-based New School University for a defense mapping project. Individuals associated with these entities have donated to her campaign.
New School, which received $1.6 million in this year's defense budget and $6 million previously, is particularly well-connected. Its president, former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), is campaigning for Clinton in Iowa. Three school trustees are among Clinton's most prominent backers, having each raised at least $100,000 for her campaign. A former trustee is Norman Hsu, who was indicted on fraud charges last week. After Hsu's criminal past was revealed last summer, Clinton returned $850,000 he raised for her.
All about 'green'
Clinton also has pushed for money in a variety of nondefense bills. In Destiny's case, Clinton helped rally support and beat back opposition to the earmarks, on which Schumer and the local congressman, Republican James T. Walsh, took the lead.
Together, they secured special funding that benefited the project in two ways. One, included in a 2005 transportation bill, provided $5 million in funding to promote access to Destiny, though that money has not yet been spent, Destiny officials say.
Clinton also helped give the project federal aid from a specially authorized program that promotes "green" construction. Destiny has already begun to use some $200 million of the $1 billion in federal bonding authority it received in return for agreeing to build and operate the project to high standards of energy efficiency.
Destiny is one of a handful of malls that requested the special $2-billion green bond earmark, which remains controversial even among environmental activists. If the mall projects proceed according to plan, the anticipated cost to the Treasury Department, which helps administer the program, would be $231 million, said Ashdown of the taxpayers research group.
