EDITORIAL: Fighting terrorists with pond scum and choo-choos - Washington Times

EDITORIAL: Fighting terrorists with pond scum and choo-choos - Washington Times: "When speaking before a veterans group last month, President Obama's words sounded simple and direct. 'If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it,' he promised. The Democratic Congress is betting the president had his fingers crossed.

Both the House and the Senate are cooking up bills filled with $2.7 billion in pork, and not just the usual defense-related pork. A couple Democrats from Michigan have hijacked the bill to launch a second round of the auto-industry bailout, and still others are using it to fight global warming with, among others things, algae-based jet fuel.

Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, both Michigan Democrats, are taking a fortune away from U.S. troops for 'battery development,' a 'lithium iron phosphate battery system,' 'hydraulic hybrid vehicles for the tactical wheeled fleet,' a 'smart plug-in hybrid electric vehicle program,' and a 'vehicle fuel cell and hydrogen logistics program.' Total cost: $26.5 million.

They're not the only ones who seem confused about the purpose for defense spending. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins, both moderate Republicans from Maine, are taking $1.6 million to turn trees into jet fuel, or as the Senate disclosure form puts it, 'woody biomass conversion.' Not to be left out, a bipartisan pair of senators from South Dakota, Democrat Tim Johnson and Republican John Thune, have requested $3 million for almost the same thing: 'Renewable jet fuel from lignocellulosic feedstocks.' Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, Democratic senators from New Mexico, are the guys who want our fighters to be fueled with algae."