Farr earmarks millions for Monterey County.

Sometimes it takes an inflatable pig to make a point. On March 7, a group of about 100 people calling themselves the “Monterey Tea Party” protested the federal spending bill at the Window on the Bay Park, using homemade signs, tea bags and a blow-up swine invoking the name of Rep. Sam Farr.

“The pork-barrel spending is not what was promised and won’t help us get along as a country,” Monterey resident Jerry English says.

Farr made 11 individual and 15 joint earmark requests, asking for a total of almost $26 million for agriculture, conservation, gang prevention, public transit and health care. Most of those requests are for Farr’s constituents in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

Among his requests (rounded to the nearest ten thousand):

• $2.99 million for the wine-making industry (viticulture and Pierce’s disease research).

• $2.68 million for Monterey County’s Gang Task Force and Silver Star Gang Prevention and Intervention Program.

• $2.58 million for rural cooperative development grants.

• $2.50 million for the California Bay Watershed Education and Training program in Monterey.

• $2.19 million for a new agricultural research station in Salinas.

• $1.88 million for the National Arboretum.

• $1.73 million for a water recycling project in Watsonville.

• $1.50 million for California coastal seafloor mapping, inland bays and rivers.

• $1.27 million for California pest detection programs.

• $700,000 for produce food safety.

• $690,000 for Moss Landing Harbor dredging.

• $480,000 for Santa Cruz County health care.

• $480,000 for Monterey-Salinas Transit bus refinancing.

• $480,000 for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail.

• $400,000 for water quality protection in the Monterey Bay Sanctuary.

• $360,000 for California sustainable agriculture.

• $250,000 for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s bluefin tuna research.

• $200,000 for West Coast Weak Stock Salmon Solutions.

Farr says constituents regularly approach him with funding needs: “It’s a very transparent and public process.”

He cites the $2.7 million for local anti-gang programs as a no-brainer. “What’s wrong with giving to the Silver Star Gang Prevention program in a county that has a gang problem?” he asks. “There’s nothing wrong with that. The way you get it there is earmarking it.”

The earmarks are generally intended to match other funding, he adds: The nearly $3 million for the wine-making industry should be tripled by private funding, and the $2.2 million for an agricultural station is Salinas is only a small boost for the $35 million project.

National watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has scrutinized the earmarks, which fiscal conservatives criticize as overindulgence for special interests.

The $410 billion federal spending bill is not to be confused with the $787 billion stimulus package approved in mid-February. Congress passed the spending bill March 10, almost six months late.

Farr suggests even more handouts may be needed. “If we’re going into a depression,” he says, “the government, as a last resort, has got to spend like mad.”

Nic Coury contributed to this report.