By LARRY MARGASAK – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Repairs for rural bridges, an under-highway safe crossing for turtles and efforts to protect the sage grouse population are among 100 projects a Republican senator pointed to Monday as questionable federal stimulus spending.

The list by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., includes projects others would identify as ideal for creating jobs and benefiting generations of Americans: skateboard parks, streetscapes, upgrades of park facilities, bike trails and parking garages.

Coburn's list is partially a collection of news stories that questioned local projects to be funded under President Barack Obama's economic recovery program. The White House has promoted the program by selecting favorable newspaper stories.

One of the most fiscally conservative senators, Coburn cited the repair of 37 rural bridges in Wisconsin that average little more than 500 vehicles apiece each day — with one carrying no more than 10 cars a day. The projects jumped over larger, urban repairs because they were "shovel ready."

Local officials had a different perspective. Coburn, for instance, criticized $840,000 to repair a bridge in Portage County, Wis., that carries 260 vehicles a day largely to a backwater saloon and a country club.

Bill Weronke, the county highway commissioner, said the bridge has "lived its life expectancy" and is dangerous. "It's a pretty crucial bridge in Portage County," he said. He added it soon will be a shortcut to a state highway.

Coburn also criticized a $3.4 million Florida Department of Transportation project for an "eco-passage" — an underground wildlife road crossing for turtles and other wildlife in Lake Jackson, Fla., along U.S. 27.

"Why did the turtle cross the road? To get to the other side of a stimulus project," the Coburn report says.

Josh Boan, the Florida Transportation Department's natural resources manager, said a large number of turtles and other wildlife are killed in the area. In addition to protecting wildlife, he said the project is needed for safety: turtles hit by vehicles can become flying projectiles.

The project north of Tallahassee is to begin in September.

An administration spokesman said the stimulus program already is a great success.

Ed DeSeve, senior adviser to the president for Recovery Act implementation, said, "We have approved more than 20,000 Recovery Act projects to get Americas economy moving again.

"With 20,000 projects approved, there are bound to be some mistakes. When we find them, we have been transparent about it, and worked on a bipartisan basis to shut them down immediately. Sen. Coburn's report, however, is filled with inaccuracies, including criticisms of projects that have already been stopped, projects that never were approved, and some projects that are working quite well."

Coburn also criticized:

_A Bureau of Land Management project to study the impact wind farms have on the sage grouse population in Oregon. The proposal calls for hiring people to tag sage grouse in areas where wind farms may be built, to help determine where turbines could be located.

_$1.5 million in stimulus money for a $5 million new wastewater treatment plant in Perkins, Okla., his home state. Coburn said the stimulus money came with strings that will increase the costs. With a new total cost of $7.2 million, the city will be forced to borrow money and, as a result, utility taxes have increased by 60 percent this year, the senator said.

_Grants and loans totaling $1.3 million to Solon Township in Leelanau County, Mich., to help pay for construction of a wastewater treatment plant. Local opposition killed the project. The money will now be used for a future treatment plant, for which there is no plan and questionable local support.

_Road signs costing $300 each, being placed at construction sites to alert motorists that the project is being paid for by the stimulus money. Transportation Department spokesman Jill Zuckman said each state decides whether to use stimulus money for signs, and the cost would vary in each state.

_A $3 million project to repair taxiways at Hanscom Field, Mass., which Coburn said is for corporate jets. Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the independent state agency that runs the airport, Massport, said only 18 percent of the traffic at the airport is for corporate jets. Most of the use, 70 percent cent, is for flight students, he said.

_Montana's state-run liquor warehouse, to receive $2.2 million in stimulus cash to install skylights. The project is part of the $27.7 million the state has been awarded for energy programs.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration's spending designed to combat rising joblessness.

Biden said inaccuracies in unemployment predictions shouldn't undercut the White House's support of the $787 billion economic revival plan that has not met the expectations of President Obama's team. Instead, the vice president urged skeptics to look at teachers who kept their classroom assignments and police officers who kept their beats because of financial assistance from Washington.

"The bottom line is that jobs are being created that would not have been there before," Biden said.

But they are not coming at the pace first estimated.

Just 10 days before taking office, Obama's top economic advisers released a report predicting unemployment would remain at 8 percent or below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.

Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment in May rose to 9.4 percent.

Biden said the White House is keenly aware of the gap between the rhetoric used to sell fast passage of the legislation and the reality that has 14.5 million people unemployed. The administration had predicted that the stimulus bill would create or save as many as 3.5 million jobs.

"No one realized how bad the economy was. The projections, in fact, turned out to be worse. But we took the mainstream model as to what we thought — and everyone else thought — the unemployment rate would be," Biden said.

Those projects came from a report co-written by Biden's chief economist, Jared Bernstein. Last week, Bernstein briefed reporters on the stimulus spending and insisted the report was in line with others' research, but not aligned with reality.

"At the time our forecast seemed reasonable. Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic," he told reporters last Monday.

The White House has tapped Biden as its chief spokesman on that economic stimulus plan, sending him across the country to drum up support for a plan that has yet to make the impact it promised. On Thursday and Friday, Biden visited Pennsylvania, Kansas and Michigan to highlight projects the stimulus has funded.

The vice president said losses each month have dropped, although the economy is still losing jobs.

"Can I claim credit that all of that's due to the recovery package? No. But it clearly has had an impact," Biden said.

Biden said the estimates were based on standard economic models.

"Everyone guessed wrong at the time the estimate was made about what the state of the economy was at the moment this was passed," Biden said.

Biden appeared Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" from his hometown of Wilmington, Del.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.