Secrets holds and the "bridge to nowhere"

If you've not been watching the blogosphere recently, you may not be aware of the secret hold put on a bill introduced by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would create a public, searchable database of all federal grants and contracts. Envisioned as a Google-like website, it would provide on-line access to the information, thus enabling the on-line community to scrutinize and police contract abuses. The Senate was set to vote on this bill just before the August recess, when one senator put a secret hold on the bill, thus preventing any action on it.

As TPM Muckraker put it:

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed the measure July 27th, and S.2590 seemed to be speeding on its way to full Senate passage when, in the dark of night, an unknown Senator placed a "secret hold" on the bill. According to Senate courtesies, the bill will never come to a vote as long as the hold continues.

So who's the culprit?

The blogosphere went to work, contacting Senators one-by-one and obtaining denials from most. In the end, the culprit was smoked out. It was ALaska's Senator Ted Stevens of "the bridge to nowhere" fame.

Stevens says he put the hold on the bill because the program's proposed $15 million cost was excessive. Hmmm. The "bridge to nowhere," to connect the town of Ketchikan, with a huge population of 8,900, to the island of Gravina, with a collossal population of 50, is expected to cost a total of nearly $1 billion, of which $320 million was to be charged to the taxpayers. That's $6,400,000 of taxpayer's money for each and every resident of Gravina.

It's more likely that Stevens was trying to kill the bill as a way of punishng Sen. Coburn for backing an unsuccessful effort to stop the "bridge to nowhere."

Knowing Stevens, he won't back down on this one either.