It’s Not Pork If It Benefits Your State
The $700 million plan to move the CSX tracks off the Mississippi Gulf Coast was never funded. Congress dropped it from the 2006 Katrina and war supplemental in conference, the rebuilt line stayed where it was, and since August 18, 2025 that coastal corridor has carried Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras Service between New Orleans and Mobile. Earmarks themselves were banned in Congress from 2011 and came back in 2021 as Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending in the Senate. As of November 2026 the government runs on a stopgap through December 11, 2026 (P.L. 119-103). Stopgaps carry no new earmarks, so fiscal 2027 project money depends on the full-year bills Congress is still negotiating.
How earmarks work in November 2026
Earmarks now come with public disclosure and fixed limits. This is a big change from the system PorkBusters campaigned against in 2006.
- Requests. Members of the House submit Community Project Funding requests and senators submit Congressionally Directed Spending requests to the Appropriations Committees. Each request names a recipient and an amount and must be posted publicly.
- Eligibility. State and local governments and nonprofit 501(c)(3) groups can receive the money. For-profit companies cannot. A rule like that would have changed the 2006 debate, because CSX is a private railroad.
- Selection. The committees choose a smaller set of requests and write them into the 12 regular appropriations bills. The money covers one year only.
- Enactment. A project is funded only when its full-year bill becomes law. Continuing resolutions extend the previous year’s funding and add no new earmarks.
For scale, the Washington Post counted nearly $15.5 billion in earmarks for more than 8,000 projects in the fiscal 2026 funding package. Citizens Against Government Waste, a group that opposes earmarks, used a broader method in its Pig Book and arrived at a higher total.
Background: the “Blood on the Tracks” editorial
The original PorkBusters post began with a Mississippi Press editorial called “Blood on the Tracks.” The paper backed moving the CSX freight line, which runs close to the beach along U.S. 90, further inland.
The Press states the case this way: “Gov. Haley Barbour’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal recommended moving the tracks for safety concerns, as well as an effort to restore the U.S. 90 corridor to a more pedestrian-friendly character. Too, it will open the doors to economic development.”
The post’s author disagreed. In the author’s view, asking federal taxpayers for $700 million, labeled as disaster relief, to make a corridor more pedestrian-friendly and open it to development was unfair to taxpayers in the rest of the country. The post said cheaper options could deal with the safety concerns: making CSX install crossing gates at every crossing, and building overpasses or underpasses where needed.
Where the $700 million came from
In April 2006, Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) added the money to the Senate’s version of the emergency war and hurricane supplemental. That bill was about $106.5 billion at the time. Cochran chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee. Both senators said moving the tracks would protect the line from future hurricanes and open the coast to economic development. Critics, including Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the Heritage Foundation and Citizens Against Government Waste, called it a “railroad to nowhere.” They pointed out that CSX had already rebuilt the line after Katrina at a cost of at least $250 million.
| Date (2006) | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| April | Lott and Cochran add $700 million for rail relocation to the Senate supplemental | Included in the Senate bill |
| Late April | Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) amendment to remove all added projects | Failed, 26 to 72 |
| Late April | Coburn amendment to remove the $700 million | Failed by one vote, 48 to 49, according to Coburn’s office |
| May 22 | Senate leadership aide says the money will be left out of the conference report | Provision dropped |
| June 15 | President George W. Bush signs the final supplemental, P.L. 109-234 | No rail relocation money |
The Meridian Star’s view: “PorkBusters Pick on Wrong Project”
The Meridian Star answered the campaign with an editorial titled “PorkBusters Pick on Wrong Project.” The PorkBusters post summed up the paper’s position with the line that gave this page its title: it’s not pork if it’s for something in your state.
The Meridian paper agreed that pork-barrel spending was a real problem: “We won’t argue that so-called pork-barrel politics is a huge problem in this country, and partly responsible for the federal government’s massive debt load that will be shouldered by American taxpayers for generations to come. But pork, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.”
It then made its case for the project. The current U.S. 90 would become a scenic byway, and the beachfront would be less congested and more aesthetically and environmentally friendly. The paper also argued that the move would push commercial development, except for casinos and other large buildings, back from the beach. Small shops and restaurants there were “sitting ducks” in a hurricane like Katrina.
The PorkBusters author did not accept that argument. The post said gift shops and restaurants would stay on the beach because that is where tourists spend their money, not along an inland highway. Each side was predicting how businesses would react to the move. Because the tracks were never moved, neither prediction was ever tested.
The Sun Herald editorial on arts and history
The post’s final source was Sun Herald A Better Tomorrow Must Include Arts and History. The Biloxi-Gulfport paper warned that the coast’s cultural institutions could be lost during the recovery.
“How tragic it would be, one day when the demands of rebuilding and recovery are past, to wake up in a world with no Ohr-O’Keefe Museum, no Walter Anderson Museum, no Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, no Maritime Museum, no Beauvoir, no local history museums, no symphony, no opera, no little theaters… no laughter, just tragedy. Work is under way to find a funding source to provide life support until these institutions and organizations can again breathe on their own. But thousands of pressing needs are competing for the same funds.”
The PorkBusters author agreed with the Sun Herald. The post argued that $700 million would cover many of these needs and that most taxpayers would see them as real disaster relief. It ended by asking Senators Lott and Cochran to drop the railroad relocation and spend the money on the coast’s arts and history instead. The author said this would benefit all Americans.
What happened afterward
None of the $700 million went to the museums either. When Congress dropped the rail provision, the money was not moved to anything else. Katrina had wrecked the Frank Gehry-designed Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, which was still unfinished when the storm hit. It was rebuilt on its Biloxi beachfront site and opened to the public in November 2010, according to the Smithsonian.
Katrina had also ended passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast. It came back on August 18, 2025, when Amtrak began the twice-daily Mardi Gras Service. Trains stop at Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula, and Louisiana and Mississippi pay for the service under contracts with Amtrak.
FAQ
What was the Mississippi “railroad to nowhere”?
It was a $700 million provision added in April 2006 by Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran to an emergency war and hurricane spending bill. The money would have moved CSX’s Gulf Coast freight line inland, even though the line had already been rebuilt after Katrina. Critics such as Sen. Tom Coburn gave it the nickname.
Did the CSX tracks ever get moved?
No. Congress dropped the provision before final passage, and the supplemental President Bush signed on June 15, 2006 (P.L. 109-234) left it out. The coastal line stayed in place, and Amtrak passenger trains have run on that corridor since August 2025.
Are earmarks still banned?
No. Congress banned earmarks from 2011 and brought them back in 2021, starting with the fiscal 2022 bills. The House calls them Community Project Funding and the Senate calls them Congressionally Directed Spending. Today’s rules require every request to be posted publicly and bar for-profit recipients.
How much does Congress spend on earmarks now?
The Washington Post counted nearly $15.5 billion for more than 8,000 projects in the fiscal 2026 package. That is about 1 percent of the roughly $1.7 trillion in annual discretionary spending that CBO counts under the current stopgap.
When will fiscal 2027 earmarks be decided?
Only when Congress passes full-year appropriations bills. The current stopgap, P.L. 119-103 (H.R. 6500), keeps agencies funded at fiscal 2026 levels through December 11, 2026. If Congress passes neither full-year bills nor another stopgap by then, the agencies it covers face a funding lapse.
What was PorkBusters?
PorkBusters was a campaign run by bloggers against congressional earmarks. N.Z. Bear and Glenn Reynolds launched it on September 18, 2005, during the debate over Hurricane Katrina spending. Its organizers urged readers to contact their senators and tracked how lawmakers voted on amendments like Coburn’s. It was not connected to any party committee, and its positions were those of its organizers.
Sources
- Congress.gov: H.R. 6500, Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027
- Congressional Research Service: Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027 (R49353)
- NBC News: Mississippi senators’ rail plan challenged
- Sunlight Foundation: Burns’ Massive Earmark; Coburn’s Amendment
- Coburn archive, Oklahoma State University: Senate vote record
- Washington Post: Congressional earmarks are back, to the tune of $15.5 billion
- KEDM: Amtrak Mardi Gras Service launches along Gulf Coast
- Smithsonian: The Mad Potter of Biloxi gets a new home
About this article
- Fact-checked before publication.
- Published · Updated
