Ellington

Cities will have a more difficult time pulling down federal money in Congress' continuing war on earmarks.

Jackson lobbyist John Waits, of Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group Winston and Strawn LLP. said Congress' new behavior is a game-changer in terms of delivering the goods for Jackson and any other city in the state, however.

Waits said the anti-earmark environment in Washington had made getting money for the city more difficult.

The anti-earmark crusade sank a massive federal appropriations omnibus bill during the lame-duck
session, costing Jackson $5 million for projects such as the renovation of Fortification Street, he said.

"It's a new environment requiring you to meet these new challenges, but there are alternative ways to seek funding, be it more emphasis on competitive grants or other kinds of federal funding through states," Waits said. "Money that would have gone to earmarks will now be going to competitive grants in particular agencies, and some of those agencies want to spend that money for their own purposes and not through competitive grant programs."