Donations for Young, then an earmark.

WASHINGTON -- Virginia transportation officials recognized in the late 1990s that the growing stream of tractor-trailer rigs rumbling north and south along I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley would eventually clog the four-lane highway.

So they formally invited ideas for addressing the highway's future needs.
The winning concept, submitted by a coalition of more than three dozen Virginia and national road-building, design and engineering firms, called for doubling the size of the interstate by adding four lanes solely for toll-paying trucks along the highway's entire 325-mile Virginia segment.

What followed offers a glimpse of how much money in campaign contributions can flow to a member of Congress willing to champion a congressional earmark, especially one that might conflict with state transportation policy.

The cost of the proposed toll road, in a state with huge demands for relieving traffic congestion in northern Virginia, was a nonstarter for state officials: $8 billion to $13 billion.

So the coalition, known as STAR Solutions, turned to politics, seeking earmarked funds to jump-start the I-81 project. It was well positioned with the Republican Congress, having retained the services of lobbyist and strategist Randy DeLay, brother of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
They also fattened the campaign wallet of the man in the best position to help them -

- Alaska Congressman Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee -- with more than $240,000 in campaign contributions.
Executives and their spouses from many of the 40 companies in STAR Solutions -- among them subsidiaries of Halliburton Co., Koch Industries and Ashland Oil Co. -- donated $110,000 to Young's campaign from 2002, when the group submitted its proposal, through 2005. The firms' political action committees contributed another $93,000. Koch's and Ashland's PACs gave $37,900 to Young's Midnight Sun leadership PAC.

One donor, Maura Dunn, chief operating officer of Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc., was listed in Young's campaign finance report to the Federal Election Commission as a "homemaker."

Some of the money was collected at Young fundraisers -- at an annual golf tournament at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., and at an event he hosted at the elite Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va., whose room rates can be as much as $700 per night and which boasts three championship golf courses.More on the story.

On a side note: After George W. Bush became president, however, the U.S. Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges for Koch. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a plea bargain, in which Koch pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.


Koch had contributed $800,000 to the Bush election campaign and other Republican candidates.
Alex Beehler, assistant deputy under secretary of defense for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, previously served at Koch as director of environmental and regulatory affairs and concurrently served at the Charles G. Koch Foundation as vice president for environmental projects. Beehler was later nominated and re-nominated by the Bush White House, to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General.