By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 25, 2005; A19
SOMERSET, Ky. -- The evidence of Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers's leverage over the federal budget has accumulated over the years in the poor hill country of his Appalachian Kentucky district here.
There are high-tech industrial parks, railroad freight facilities, economic development offices, even a parking lot at a lakefront resort, all funded by federal tax dollars. Particularly striking is the Center for Rural Development, a grand building in one of the nation's poorest regions.
The center, dubbed the "Taj Mahal" by some residents, has a soaring ceiling, a wall of windows and a performing arts theater. On a pedestal in the lobby sits the Harold "Hal" Rogers Leadership Award, an etched-glass bust of the powerful Republican lawmaker.
Rogers is now tapping a new source of money for his district. As chairman of the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, he has encouraged contractors to move into his district and announced millions of dollars in anti-terrorism research at Kentucky colleges and universities. He has taken credit for $206 million in homeland-security-related funding for the state.
"I'm two people," Rogers said in an interview. "I'm a national legislator, and I'm a local congressman."
In Kentucky's 5th Congressional District, Rogers has become an almost mythical figure, a former state prosecutor so formidable that he sometimes runs for reelection unopposed. For a time, the state renamed the Daniel Boone Parkway to honor the lawmaker for securing federal money for highways in the state.
With his white hair and smooth-as-bourbon mountain accent, the 13-term lawmaker from Somerset presents himself as a gruff populist watching out for the nation's taxpayers and his congressional district. He describes himself as "one of the strongest critics of wasteful spending."
But the Lexington Herald-Leader, one of the state's largest newspapers, has called him the "Prince of Pork." And so much federal money for high-tech homeland security projects has flowed to southeastern Kentucky that he and others have taken to calling the area "Silicon Holler." In announcing some of the funding last year, Rogers issued a news release headlined "New Initiatives Seek to Combat Terrorism, Bring Jobs to Kentucky."
First elected in 1980, Rogers was named to the House Appropriations Committee in his second term. In 1995, he was named chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, state and the judiciary. That made him a member of the "College of Cardinals," an elite group of lawmakers who are able to bend the federal budget to their will.
In 2003, Rogers became the first chairman of the new Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, a position that gave him immense sway over federal anti-terrorism projects. Seeking to keep his party in power and become chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, he had started the Help America's Leaders Political Action Committee (HALPAC).
Last January, Rogers was defeated for the chairmanship by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.). But HALPAC continues to raise money, and Rogers said he is considering another run for the post.
Registered at a Washington law and lobbying firm, HALPAC is actually anchored in Somerset, documents show. The man who signed the paperwork creating HALPAC on April 8, 2002, was Clay Parker Davis. He is Rogers's friend and president and chief executive of Citizens National Bank in Somerset.
"I've known Hal for 33 years," Davis said in a recent interview. "I don't care much for politics. I'm just a friend to him. We're just like brothers."
Rogers became a director of the bank and bought the institution with Davis and other local businessmen in the 1970s.
In financial disclosure forms filed this year, Rogers reported that he receives between $100,000 and $1 million a year on holdings of up to $5 million in Citizens Bancshares, the holding company for Citizens bank. Federal election records show that the bank also holds HALPAC's money. The bank's Web site lists Rogers as "Director Emeritus."
Davis also is a founding director of the Center for Rural Development, which was started in part with federal funding arranged by Rogers. The center houses the Southeast Kentucky Economic Development Corp., which also got its start thanks to Rogers.
The organization now works closely with Rogers's district office, along with several other lawmakers from Kentucky, on development deals and loans for homeland security contractors and companies seeking to move into the area, state records show.
The center's chief executive, Lonnie Lawson, initially told The Washington Post that up to 45 percent of the center's $20 million budget this year will come with Rogers's assistance. But Rogers later said in an interview that the center received the money on its own through a competitive grant process.
After speaking with Rogers recently, Lawson downplayed Rogers's role in arranging the center's funding. "We compete just like everyone else," Lawson said. "Obviously, we try to keep [Rogers's staff] in the loop where we are going for funding, but there is no undue influence."
Millions of dollars from the center and some of its occupants is kept at Citizens National Bank, Lawson said. Rogers said he has no control over where entities he helped create do their banking.
Lawson said that guiding companies to the region and finding federal funding for local development groups "is what any good congressman would do."
The center also is home to the National Institute for Hometown Security, which Rogers set up last year. The institute, along with the Kentucky Homeland Security University Consortium, also set up by Rogers, are at the heart of "Silicon Holler."
"These two organizations will put Kentuckians on the frontline of the war against terrorism while also helping to boost our economic development efforts by providing a platform to advance homeland security research and development," Rogers said in a Nov. 4, 2004, news release.
Rogers was joined at a news conference that day in Somerset by Tom Ridge, then the head of the Homeland Security Department. Ridge said the projects were funded with the "unique notion that the homeland is not secure until the hometown is secure."
Since Rogers became chairman of the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee in 2003, the Homeland Security Department's science and technology division has given at least $34 million to the hometown institute and the consortium of Kentucky schools. That compares with $18 million the division gave to a Texas A&M University consortium, $15 million each to a Johns Hopkins University consortium and a University of Minnesota consortium, and $12 million each to a University of Southern California consortium and a University of Maryland consortium, according to figures supplied by Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke.
Unlike the Kentucky schools, the others are considered "Centers of Excellence." The centers were mandated by the law that created the Homeland Security Department to "bring together the nation's best experts and focus its most talented researchers on a variety of threats." The schools that constitute the Centers of Excellence all competed for their designations and funding.
Knocke initially described the Kentucky funding as an "earmark."
"DHS is not a decision-maker with respect to where the funding goes," he said in a statement.
Knocke later issued another statement, saying his previous remark "has turned out to be not completely accurate information, as erroneously provided to me by one of our directorate's (sic). This is not an earmark."
Some scientists familiar with homeland-security-related technology said the projects at the Kentucky schools could be helpful in protecting the nation. But others noted that a few of the projects appeared to be underfunded or duplicative.
"In principle, most of these things on their surface look like reasonable things to do," said Tony Fainberg, a government physicist for 20 years who recently retired from the Homeland Security Department's science and technology division, which gave the money to the Kentucky schools.
The department gave $1 million to the University of Kentucky, along with Morehead State University, Eastern Kentucky University and Alice Lloyd College to develop wall treatment materials that can be used in buildings to "protect against explosions, radiological exposure, chemical agents and electromagnetic pulses," according to a news release issued by Rogers's office.
The University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University received $1.5 million "to develop a wireless electronic monitoring system for securing milk from the farm to the processing plant."
The department gave $124,280 to the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University to reduce the explosive potential of agricultural fertilizer, a frequently used component in makeshift bombs.
The University of Kentucky also received $95,751 "to determine the best way to manage and disseminate information during time-stressed situations."
Rogers's wife, Cynthia, is a vice chair of the board of regents at Eastern Kentucky University, which has received authorization for $23.2 million in Homeland Security Department funds, including $20 million in the current fiscal year that the university will distribute to "selected applicants," a department official said.
She said in a recent interview that her husband did not help her secure the unpaid position and had nothing to do with the grants going to her university.
"People who know me, they know I can do things on my own," Cynthia Rogers said. "Hal said, 'People are going to talk, so let them talk.' "
Rogers denied playing any role in obtaining the funding for individual schools, but he took credit for creating the consortium.
"It's one of the highlights of my life," Rogers said. "I'm thrilled to death with it."
O'Harrow reported from Kentucky and Higham from Washington.
