WASHINGTON — You would think that a budget-conscious first-year congressman in the

minority party would be an utter failure at bringing home the bacon from the pig trough known

as the federal budget.

Think again.

Rep. Chris Lee obtained more money in federal "earmarks" — lawmaker-chosen spending

items — in the current budget than any of his Democratic colleagues from Western New

York.

In fact, Lee leads by a country mile, according to an analysis, released last week by

Citizens Against Government Waste, of pork-barrel projects in spending bills for the current

fiscal year.

The Clarence Republican's tally of $29.7 million falls just $2.2 million short of what

Reps. Louise M. Slaughter and Brian Higgins, both veteran Democrats, brought in combined.

That leaves all three lawmakers with some explaining to do — especially Lee, a budget

hawk who has been known to sharply quiz anybody coming to his office with hat in hand.

"I thought these were very good proposals," Lee said of the 33 projects that meet the anti-

waste group's definition of pork. "These are good stories to tell. All of them were positive

for the community."

During his year in Congress, Lee has regularly railed against the federal deficit, but he

said he sees no hypocrisy between his fiscal conservatism and his pursuit of earmarks.

"If they are done properly, they can be very helpful," Lee said. "I think it's better than

having all the spending decisions being made up [by] unelected bureaucrats."

The biggest pork-barrel items attached to his name are the $5.7 million for a new small-

arms range at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station and the $4.6 million the region received

for high-speed rail.

Slaughter actually took the lead in winning both those earmarks, but Lee gets credit for

them, too, because he lent his support.

That's one big reason he found himself at the top of the pork list: Again and again, he was

willing to work with Slaughter, Higgins and other lawmakers on projects that he saw as

benefiting the region.

"I don't care who gets the credit," Lee said.

On his own, Lee also got a number of smaller earmarks for defense contractors, particularly

prevalent in the district he serves, which stretches from Amherst eastward across the

farmlands to the Rochester suburbs.

Lee said he focuses on funding defense, transportation, technology and education projects

— and anything solid that is likely to produce job growth.

To some degree, Lee appears to have received so much money because he asked for it, which

is something his predecessor, Rep. Thomas M. Rey-

nolds, R-Clarence, refused to do during the last year of his 10-year congressional career.

Both parties tend to dole out the pork to those who need it the most for political

purposes, so first-year lawmakers of both parties tend to do well. Similarly, in 2005 —

his first year in office — Higgins brought home the second-most money of any lawmaker in

the state.

This year, Slaughter, of Fairport, finished second in the rankings of local lawmakers

bringing home the bacon.

She formed an upstate congressional coalition to lobby for the high-speed rail money and

personally invested huge amounts of time and political capital in bringing the money home.

An examination of Slaughter's earmarks shows them to be roughly evenly split between the

Buffalo and Rochester ends of her district.

"We try to make sure that we bring home projects that benefit as many of our constituents

as possible," said Victoria Dillon, Slaughter's spokeswoman.

Higgins' take was unusually small. Most notably, it did not include any money for the

Buffalo waterfront — the focus of his energy during his years in Congress.

So much funding, he indicated, already had been obtained.

About $80 million in construction is under way on the waterfront. That includes federal

funding and a settlement with the New York Power Authority that Higgins was instrumental in

shaping and eventually doubling.

The next major waterfront project is another big-ticket item: a bridge connecting downtown

Buffalo with the outer harbor.

Higgins said he will seek money for that not through annual spending bills, but in a multi-

year highway bill that Congress is expected to take up soon. Such long-term bills often

include plans for bigger projects.

"That is the opportunity to really take a whack at this," said Higgins, adding that he

received fewer requests than usual for funding this year.

By no means are earmarks widely regarded as a good thing. In fact, Citizens Against

Government Waste compiles earmarks not to celebrate who brings home the most bacon, but to

mock them in its annual "Congressional Pig Book."

This year, one local project earned special derision from the anti-waste group: the

$150,000 Slaughter obtained for exhibits and interactive displays at the Theodore Roosevelt

Inaugural Site Foundation in Buffalo.

"By paying 56 cents more on local taxes, residents of Buffalo could have paid for this

project themselves," the Pig Book noted. "The foundation had a fund balance of $1,222,394 as

of Sept. 30, 2008. With this earmark, Rep. Slaughter is taking taxpayers for a "Rough Ride.' "

The anti-waste group seems to have a special distaste for Slaughter, also naming her the

"porker of the month" for March because of the legislative short cut called the "Slaughter

Rule," even though, in the end, passage of health care reform did not employ that tactic.

Asked to comment on the Pig Book's complaint about the Theodore Roosevelt site, Dillon

said: "Clearly they've never been to the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site and don't understand

the superb work of the National Park Service and museum staff in promoting the rich history of

Buffalo; I'd invite them to stop by."

Molly Quackenbush, the site's executive director, noted that the federal funding allowed

the site to complete its renovation. As a result, walk-in traffic is up 40 percent since last

summer.

While earmarks are a long-standing congressional tradition, they also are controversial,

especially in these times of record federal spending.

House Democrats, therefore, are banning any earmarks this year for privately run

businesses, and Republicans are placing a moratorium on requesting any earmark funding. Lee

has said he will abide by that moratorium.

"The economic scenery has changed dramatically," he said. "The national debt is

skyrocketing. We have to lead by example. [The moratorium] was the right decision."

But Citizens Against Government Waste said the steps Congress has taken so far fall far

short of an outright ban on funding lawmakers' pet projects.

"They have noticed that it is popular to posture as an anti-earmarker," said Tom Schatz,

the group's president. "Unfortunately, the 2010 Congressional Pig Book illustrates that most

members of Congress still aren't willing to eliminate the practice and why meaningful reform

is necessary."