Flake sets Pelosi earmark in crosshairs

No one can say Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) isn’t an equal opportunist when it comes to attacking earmarks.

Wednesday afternoon, Flake took on a $2 million earmark Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) requested. The money would go to the “Pier 2 Project” at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, Calif.

Flake offered an amendment that would have denied the Center from receiving the funding, but it failed on voice vote. He then requested a recorded vote, which was postponed until later this evening.

To underscore whose request he was trying to gut, Flake asked Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), who was defending the earmark, and Pastor replied that “the gentle lady from San Francisco.”

Flake then referenced the title of Pelosi’s book, “Know Your Power.”

“Knowing your power certainly helps around here,” he remarked.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) is currently attacking another Pelosi earmark, one for $6.2 million for removing a deteriorated Pier 36 in San Francisco, which has been closed in recent years and continues to rot and float into the bay.

“She can lead by example more than any other person in this institution,” he said.

Hensarling also referenced Pelosi’s attack on the Bridge to Nowhere and said this one amounted to a “pier to nowhere.”

Pastor defended the earmark, explaining that parts of the pier are breaking off and floating into a federal shipping route causing a hazard. He also said that the pier was built decades ago out of material that is no longer used because of its negative impact on fish spawning.

A recorded vote also was postponed.

–Susan Crabtree