President Barack Obama signed into law yesterday what he called an “imperfect” $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill, amid Republican criticism that the legislation contains billions of dollars of earmarks.
Several of those earmarks contain funding that will benefit Cornell, most significantly $2.2 million headed for the University’s Grape Genetics Research Center at Geneva.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has criticized the money earmarked for the project as an example of wasteful spending, ranking it as number four on his Top 10 list of the worst examples of “pork” in the bill.
Cornell, which lobbied specifically for the earmark, defended the project’s merit.