Article from Fox News by Alex Pappas.

An anti-government waste group has identified millions of taxpayer dollars allegedly frittered away on “absurd nature-related earmarks,” including $9 million to “quarantine fruit flies” and $13.8 million to “manage wild horses.”

Those revelations are inside the 2019 Congressional Pig Book released Wednesday by Citizens Against Government Waste. That report identifies what it describes as egregious examples of pork-barrel spending in Congress, drawn from fiscal 2019 appropriations bills. This year, the group said it identified $15.3 billion in earmarks, an increase of 4.1 percent from the $14.7 billion last year.

“Pushing pork does not drain the swamp and it won’t restore integrity to Washington,” Tom Schatz, the president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said in a statement.

Schatz wrote in an op-ed for Fox Business Network that “perhaps the most flagrant earmark” this year is $16.7 million for a research organization called the East-West Center, added by Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

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