As Marissa mentioned below, BP will pay fines to the
federal government to compensate for damages from the Deep Horizon Oil Spill. The fine money for these projects is allocated
through the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourism Opportunities and
Revived Economies Act (RESTORE). In order to ensure this bill passed last summer, senators
added an amendment to create the National Endowment for the Oceans. It uses revenue from the BP fines to fund projects benefiting coastlines throughout the nation, including California and the Great Lakes.
The Deal: The endowment attracts non-Gulf senators
to support the RESTORE Act. With this wider base of support, it could be included
in the Senate's version of a massive omnibus and transportation bill and could pass both chambers. Gulf
senators get the 80 percent of total funds for their home states, and other
senators get federal money for pet-projects in their states.
The endowment made it into the final transportation
bill because of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). She, like other Senators, would not have cared about RESTORE without the endowment provision. She was also “a key
member of the conference committee that is meeting to work out the differences
between the House and Senate transportation bills” (Gaffney). The House version
did not include the endowment. With Sen. Boxer’s support, the Senate version of
RESTORE was included in the final transportation bill. Non-Gulf senators got the
benefit for their vote.
By expanding the scope of a bill through amendments,
representatives exchange votes for projects in a more subtle way. It is streamlined
logrolling. Explicit vote trading across bills is illegal and hard to track. Including
the endowment meant 1. The bill had a broad support and 2. The Senate
version was the one brought to the final vote, because of Sen. Boxer’s role.
See Also: Marco Rubio's remarks on RESTORE
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