The Railroad to Nowhere: Why Trent Lott Was Tired of the Porkbusters
The $700 million “railroad to nowhere” never got built. In May 2006 the Senate kept the money in its Hurricane Katrina emergency bill by a single vote. House and Senate negotiators then dropped it from the final law, the $94.5 billion supplemental that President George W. Bush signed on June 15, 2006 (P.L. 109-234). Congress went on to ban earmarks starting in 2011 and brought them back in 2021 under new names: Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending in the Senate. As of November 2026, lawmakers enacted about $15.5 billion in earmarks for fiscal 2026. Their fiscal 2027 requests are on hold until Congress passes full-year spending bills, because the government is running on a stopgap that lasts through December 11, 2026.
The original 2006 post
In April 2006 the PorkBusters blog set out to explain why Trent Lott is quite so tired of “the so-called porkbusters.” Lott was then a Republican senator from Mississippi. The blog’s answer was a railroad. This railroad, to be precise.
Press reports from that time quoted Lott saying of earmark critics: “I’m getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble since Katrina.”
The project: moving the CSX line near Gulfport
The plan was to move the CSX freight line that runs along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Gulfport. Local officials had sought the project for decades. In 2006 it was added to the emergency appropriations bill (H.R. 4939) as part of Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.
Here is how the press coverage quoted on the original page described it:
- Who added it: Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), then chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, added $700 million. His stated reason was that “the tracks were extensively damaged during Hurricane Katrina.”
- The objection: Critics said the line had already been fixed. CSX said the line went back into full service on January 31, 2006. NBC News reported that the company had spent as much as $300 million, from insurance payouts and its own money, rebuilding the track. Under the new plan, that freshly repaired stretch would have been abandoned.
- The plan itself: CSX freight would shift north onto existing Norfolk Southern tracks. U.S. 90 would then be rebuilt on the old CSX rail bed.
- The state commission: The coverage reported that the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal, in its December 2005 final report to Gov. Haley Barbour (R), said the Gulfport railroad plan “is no longer seen as practical.”
Supporters disagreed. Cochran, Lott and Barbour argued that moving the line inland would protect it from future hurricanes and help the coast rebuild. Opponents included Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and some officials in south Alabama. They said it was not an emergency, and some called it a giveaway to coastal developers and casinos.
The local opposition
When the post went up, the bill was expected on the Senate floor the week of April 24, 2006, after the Easter recess. The blog pointed to the Mississippi link: Cochran was writing the bill, and Lott was the state’s other senator.
Sandra “Alasandra” Alawine, a blogger on the Gulf Coast, wrote against the project. Her post, as quoted on the original page, puts it this way:
According to the MS Press the $700 million to move the CSX rail line isn’t pork it’s progress! But considering that many residents of the Gulf Coast are living in FEMA trailers; I believe the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Why was CSX allowed to repair the rail line (which is now fully functional) if the government was going to buy them out?
Why isn’t money being sought to rebuild the public schools, libraries and government buildings destroyed by Katrina?
Why isn’t money being sought to restore the utilities destroyed by Katrina?
Alawine set up a petition here, on her own blog, asking local residents to sign their names against the deal. PorkBusters said it would follow the project closely in the weeks ahead. It also announced that Alawine had agreed to write about the issue from the Gulf Coast on PorkBusters.org. The post ended by urging readers to “go sign the petition.” PorkBusters ran from 2006 to 2010 as a campaign by bloggers against congressional earmarks, and this was one of the projects it targeted most directly.
What happened to the $700 million
The rail money passed the Senate by one vote and then died in conference.
- Senate floor, late April to early May 2006. Cochran beat two attempts to strip the money. The closest was the first part of a Coburn amendment, which would have cut the rail project along with other items Coburn called non-emergency spending. The Senate tabled that part 49 to 48.
- Senate passage, May 4, 2006. The Senate passed its version of H.R. 4939, roughly $109 billion, by 77 to 21, with the rail money still in it.
- Conference, June 2006. The final agreement left out the CSX relocation. The House approved the conference report 351 to 67 on June 13. The Senate approved it 98 to 1 on June 15.
- Signed into law, June 15, 2006. President Bush signed the $94.5 billion Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006 (P.L. 109-234). It contained no rail relocation money.
Mississippi officials said afterward they hoped to find other ways to pay for the move. The federal money never came through, and CSX trains still use the coastal line. In August 2025, Amtrak brought passenger trains back to that coast for the first time since Katrina, running between New Orleans and Mobile with a stop in Gulfport.
The senators involved have since left the Senate. Lott resigned in December 2007. Cochran retired in April 2018 and died in 2019. Coburn left in January 2015 and died in 2020.
From earmark ban to Community Project Funding
Fights like this one helped lead to a full ban on earmarks. That ban lasted ten years. Earmarks then came back with more disclosure rules.
| Period | What applied | Key details |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 to 2010 | Earmarks allowed, disclosure rules added | Earmark reform rules adopted in 2007 required sponsors’ names to be published |
| 2011 to 2020 | Moratorium in both chambers | Bills contained no member-requested projects |
| 2021 onward (FY2022 bills) | Community Project Funding (House) and Congressionally Directed Spending (Senate) | Requests posted online, members certify they have no financial interest, total capped at a share of discretionary spending |
| FY2025 | Full-year continuing resolution | Earmarks dropped, since the stopgap did not fund new projects |
| FY2026 | Enacted in early 2026 | About $15.5 billion across 8,271 projects (Roll Call and AP counts) |
| FY2027 | Pending | Requests filed in spring 2026, and the government is on a stopgap through Dec. 11, 2026 |
How it works in November 2026
Each member files requests through their appropriations committee and posts them online. The committee picks which projects go into its bills. For fiscal 2027, House members could submit up to 20 requests each, up from 15 the year before. The total is capped at a small share of discretionary spending. The House cap is half of 1 percent, and the Senate cap is 1 percent. House rules now bar money for for-profit recipients. The Government Accountability Office audits a sample of funded projects.
The projects only get money if a full-year spending bill passes. The current stopgap, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (H.R. 6500, P.L. 119-103), became law on September 2, 2026, after votes of 90 to 6 in the Senate and 370 to 48 in the House. It keeps most programs running at fiscal 2026 levels until December 11, 2026. If Congress extends it for the full year, as it did for fiscal 2025, the fiscal 2027 earmarks would drop out again.
Totals depend on who is counting. Roll Call and the Associated Press put fiscal 2026 at about $15.5 billion. Citizens Against Government Waste counted $23.7 billion across 8,392 earmarks in its 2026 Pig Book, because it also counts projects with no named sponsor.
FAQ
What was the “railroad to nowhere”?
Critics gave that name to a plan to spend $700 million moving the CSX freight line along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Gulfport. Sen. Thad Cochran added it to the 2006 Hurricane Katrina emergency spending bill. Opponents said the line had already been repaired and was back in service. Supporters said moving it inland would protect it from future storms.
Was the Gulfport railroad ever moved?
No. The money passed the Senate but was dropped in conference. The final law, P.L. 109-234, signed June 15, 2006, did not include it. The CSX line still runs along the coast, and since August 2025 it has also carried Amtrak passenger trains between New Orleans and Mobile.
How close was the Senate vote?
Very close. In early May 2006 the Senate tabled the part of Sen. Tom Coburn’s amendment that would have struck the rail money by 49 to 48. The Senate then passed the full bill 77 to 21 on May 4, 2006.
Why was Trent Lott “tired” of the porkbusters?
Lott, then a Republican senator from Mississippi, backed the rail project and other Gulf Coast spending after Katrina. He was quoted in 2006 saying of earmark critics, “I’m getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble since Katrina.” Bloggers with PorkBusters had been targeting projects like the CSX relocation.
Are earmarks allowed in Congress today?
Yes. Both chambers banned earmarks starting in 2011 and brought them back in 2021. The House calls them Community Project Funding, and the Senate calls them Congressionally Directed Spending. Rules require public disclosure, a financial-interest certification from each member and an overall cap. Roll Call and the Associated Press counted about $15.5 billion enacted for fiscal 2026. Citizens Against Government Waste’s 2026 Congressional Pig Book also counts projects with no named sponsor, and it tallied about $23.7 billion.
Where can you see who requested an earmark?
Members must post their requests on their official websites. The House and Senate appropriations committees publish tables listing each project, its amount and its sponsor. The final list appears in the explanatory statement that accompanies each enacted spending bill on Congress.gov.
Sources
- Congress.gov: H.R. 6500, Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, and CRS report R49353, Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027
- GovInfo: Public Law 109-234, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006
- Congressional Research Service: RL33226, FY2006 Supplemental Appropriations
- Congressional Record Daily Digest, May 4, 2006, and Senate Roll Call Vote 112 (109th Congress)
- Sen. Tom Coburn archive, Oklahoma State University: summary of the votes on non-emergency projects in the 2006 supplemental
- NBC News: “Mississippi senators’ rail plan challenged” (2006)
- Brewton Standard: “Congress OKs spending bill; CSX money removed” (June 2006)
- Roll Call: “Earmarks flood spending bills after a year’s hiatus” (February 2026)
- Citizens Against Government Waste: 2026 Congressional Pig Book
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation: tracking FY2027 House earmark requests
About this article
- Fact-checked before publication.
- Published · Updated
