'PIG BOOK' SQUEALS ON CONGRESSMAN.

Byline: Bill Hillburg Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, got a ``kick in the grass'' Tuesday as a watchdog group unveiled its ``2002 Pig Book'' compilation of pork-barrel spending by Congress.

The Citizens Against Government Waste group bestowed its 2002 Kick in the Grass Award on McKeon for his effort last year to secure $740,000 in Department of Housing and Urban Development funds for the Lancaster National Soccer Center.

The outlay was part of a record $20.1 billion in pork spending the group identified in the 2001-2002 federal budget.

The group defines pork as an outlay for a local project that was not included in the president's spending proposal. Pork spending is also added to final budget bills by lawmakers without first being evaluated and voted upon by Senate and House committees.

Scott Wilk, an aide to McKeon, was quick to defend spending on the National Soccer Center, a 165-acre, $14 million complex with 35 playing fields and other facilities.

``It has been built in the middle of a redevelopment zone in Lancaster and draws a lot of tourists to the city,'' he said. ``The soccer center is about economic development and youth sports that build character. Those are totally appropriate uses of federal funds.''

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading pork critic and adviser to Citizens Against Government Waste, accused fellow lawmakers of jeopardizing the nation's defense and fiscal health.

``It's war profiteering,'' he said, claiming that many House and Senate members took advantage of the war on terrorism to lard up the budget with ``pork projects that have nothing to do with defense or only a tenuous relationship to defense.''

Both McCain and Rep. Edward Royce, R-Fullerton, a leading pork critic in the House, denied they were making value judgments about local spending.

``I don't know if these programs are good or not, but how can any member know unless the spending is examined, deliberated and authorized?'' said Royce, who also stressed that all federal spending is done with taxpayers' dollars.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, also rated a ``Pig Book'' mention for the $9.8 million in local projects he managed to finance as part of budgets for the departments of Veterans Affairs and of Housing and Urban Development. The total included $2.75 million for radiation research at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

California ranked first among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the ``Pig Book'' survey of total pork spending. The state's 2001-02 take of $671,764,426 in pork funds outdistanced Alaska's second-place $451,334,278. California had ranked second, behind Mississippi, in the 2001 survey.

But California, the nation's most populous state, ranked 35th last year and dropped to 41st this year in per capita pork spending. While each resident of top-ranked Alaska wallowed in $710.88 worth of pork, there was only $19.47 in pork per Californian.

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(color -- ran in AV edition only) McKeon