The Problem with Pork:

How It Threatens Transportation Research

Pork in federal transportation bills is nothing new. Among the memorable bacon bits that outraged the public in the latest bill was $223 million for a bridge in Alaska nearly as long as the Golden Gate and almost twice as tall as the Brooklyn Bridge.  The new structure would have connected Ketchikan, population 8,000, to a 20-mile long island that is home to a large population of deer, bear and wolves, but fewer than 50 people who currently travel to Ketchikan via a seven-minute ferry ride. The bridge was one of 120 “special projects” for Alaska in SAFTEA-LU, the $286 billion transportation bill passed earlier this year.

While this particular project lost its earmarked status once “the bridge to nowhere” was ridiculed in the press, similar projects are routinely approved and built. This type of pork, or earmarking as it is called officially, has traditionally been a way for legislators to fulfill commitments to constituents for construction of roads, bridges, and transit.  Fortunately, only about 10 percent of money available for such projects is earmarked—a relatively small amount of the total amount of money for public works projects.

But former Berkeley ITS Director Martin Wachs warns that a recent trend—earmarking research funds in the transportation budget—has gained traction in recent years and seriously threatens the quality and productivity of transportation research.

After four decades in academia, Wachs left at the end of 2005 to begin a new job at the Rand Corporation, a think tank located in Santa Monica where he will continue to do research in the area that he describes as his “passion,” transportation. Yet even as he leaves university teaching and research, he continues to warn of the dangers of earmarking.

“Research has traditionally been exempt from that phenomenon and now it is no longer. Now it’s one of the most heavily earmarked parts of the transportation program for the country.”

Who chooses?

Funding for research projects represents a relatively small part of the federal transportation funds. But in the latest budget, more than half of those research funds were earmarked, which means that politicians in Washington designate a research area or specific project, a funding amount, and who will perform the research. In the past, the selection of researchers has been guided by open competition and peer review to avoid awarding funds on the basis of lobbying, political influence, or friendships, and to select the group of researchers best qualified to undertake a particular project.

“It worries me greatly that we’re in danger of having transportation research be so heavily earmarked that bright, creative, exploratory, original research will never get funded,” said Wachs in a recent interview. “It worries me that the intellectual independence of our own transportation research program is threatened.”

He pointed out that this year’s SAFETEA-LU transportation bill includes “over-earmarking.” The Federal Highway Administration has instructions from Congress to spend more on certain programs than it has received in funding for them.

“That leaves very low probability that faculty with good ideas who want to do original research will get much support in coming years from those programs—and that’s scary. This is a great research university and it thrives on its independence. If the only way to get funded research is to do what the client tells you to do, you might as well be in the consulting business and make good money rather than being in the university.”

Peer Review Bias?

Proponents of earmarking claim that the process of peer review is biased in favor of elite institutions because those reviewing research proposals are frequently part of an “old-boys club” who tend to support each others’ institutions. They maintain that giving funding to newer institutions helps build their research capabilities. 

The problem, says Wachs, is that the quality of research suffers. “I’ve observed a number of completely unqualified research centers being created in places where there is no expertise. I’ve had the uncomfortable experience of having one of those universities call and say, ‘We don’t know anything about transportation research and you’re a great center. Can you tell us something about it? We just got $2.5 million per year for five years from the feds.’”

“It hurts to see enormous growth in funding of transportation research at universities that have no scholarly standards,” he added.

The University of California has repeatedly stated it will not pursue earmarked funding and will continue to discourage earmarking that comes at the expense of sustaining peer-reviewed programs. Nevertheless, the university’s position becomes more difficult to maintain each year as greater amounts of research funds are earmarked.

In 2004, Wachs, who chaired the TRB Executive Committee in 2000, was asked to lead a TRB workshop on the subject of earmarking in transportation. He and Ann Brach, Senior Program Officer for TRB Studies and Information Services, were asked by the TRB Executive Committee to write a white paper on the subject, which was published in Transportation Research Part A, Vol. 39, No. 6, 2005. A shorter version, Earmarking in U.S. Department of Transportation Research Programs: What is the Rationale? What are the Risks? was published in the July-August 2005 TR News and is offered as a downloadable PDF here with permission of the Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.