Mississippi State University received $43 million of a record $2.3 billion in congressional earmarks appropriated to colleges and universities during the last fiscal year, the most of any other university in the country. The University of Mississippi came in second place in appropriations with $37 million.
As the sluggish national economy continues to stumble, presidential hopefuls Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have both pledged to cut governmental spending by focusing on earmark reform.
MSU Vice President for Research and Development Kirk Schulz said despite the negative connotations earmarks conjure in voters’ minds, the appropriations are necessary, making up an estimated 35 percent of the school’s research budget.
Each earmark the school receives is closely guided and monitored to prevent any wasteful spending, he said.
“All of our projects have very specific deliverables,” Schulz said. “They’re not a blank check – that’s sort of a misconception out there.”
Mississippi’s status as one of the poorest states in the country makes funding from earmarks crucial to keeping MSU a competitive research institution, he said.
“It is important for poorer states to have the ability to go to Washington and receive funds for things, [where as] in wealthier states, it is all ready available,” Schulz said.
Schulz said the process for requesting earmarks begins in September of each year when the university begins taking project applications from faculty members. Evaluations are made and presented to the MSU president by January.
“We put together a wishbook and the president has ultimate say in what comes forward from the university,” Schulz said. “In that book, we’ll prioritize a list of projects that we’re interested in by individual agency, such as the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense.”
Schulz said the university’s main responsibility in the process of presenting potential earmark-funded projects to congressmen in Washington, D.C. is making sure representatives receive a competitive, needed draft that can garner support.
“[We] want to get them good projects that can be on the front page of The Washington Post and they can be proud of,” he said.
Federal Solutions, a limited consulting company run by former MSU faculty member Marty Fuller, acts as the university’s main lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Schulz said.
It takes 18 months to two years to receive earmark funding, from the time the wishbook is compiled at MSU until the actual assignment of the appropriation, Schulz said.
One of the largest benefactors of earmark funding has been MSU’s Sustainable Energy Research Center. The SERC was established in 2006 through an earmark of over $10 million.
“There are over 75 faculty members and 100 students from all over campus [involved],” Schulz said. “That’s one of our larger earmarks. We’ve received two years of funding over a three-year period.”
Schulz said because of the funding, the SERC’s biofuel studies are helping the university become a competitive force in renewable energy research.
“We started before [biofuels] were as critical as they are now,” he said. “We’ve hit a point where we’re really making breakthroughs on the patent level.”
SERC Director William Batchelor said the earmarks have been rapidly used to develop new technologies, creating new renewable energy avenues in Mississippi.
“From an energy perspective, if you’re trying to create a new industry, it takes large amounts of money to do so,” he said. “By receiving these earmarks, we can utilize our resources that will drive this creation, especially in rural parts of our state that are looking for it,” he said.
Batchelor said the earmark has helped the SERC develop three new sources of renewable energy from woody biomasses and human waste.
MSU’s earmark requests for the next fiscal year could potentially bring the university long-term funding for magnetic nano-material research and one-time money for facility expansions, Schulz said.
As the political tide turns on pork-barrel politics, Schulz said the amount of funding the university receives will inevitably decrease.
“Our representatives in Congress will always appropriate funds for projects in their particular districts and states,” he said. “We’re just going to have to hustle a little harder and we’re going to have to make sure we’re focusing our monies on areas where we could be internationally successful.”