Citizens Against Government Waste has released its 2006 Congressional Pig Book, detailing almost 10,000 pork barrel projects discovered in the eleven appropriations bills for fiscal year 2006. These bits of pork cost you $29 billion.

As CAGW explains it, a pork barrel project is a line item in an appropriations bill which earmarks tax dollars for a specific purpose and bypasses Congressional budgetary procedures.

You can read through all of them for yourself, but I do want to point out a few of my favorites:

Agriculture

• $75,000 for seafood waste research in Alaska. (Guess who was behind that one?)
• $2,100,000 for the viticulture consortium in California, New York, and Pennsylvania.
• $234,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation.
• $500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games in Alaska.

Defense

• $1,000,000 for the Gaming-Technology Software Initiative in Michigan.
• $1,000,000 for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative.
• $1,500,000 for the Allen Telescope array in California. It looks for extraterrestrial life.
• $5,600,000 for the Gallo Center in California. That’s Ernest Gallo, the vintner.

Energy

• $500,000 for the Louisiana State University Sugar-Based Ethanol Project.
• $56,078,000 for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) pet water projects.
• $1,000,000 for the Navajo electrification process in New Mexico.
• $13,500,000 for the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway in Louisiana.

Homeland Security

• $10,000,000 for the Intercity Bus Security Grant Program, including $46,908 for a service which shuttles wealthy New Yorkers to the Hamptons.
• $40,000,000 for the Real ID Grant Program.

Interior

• $47,326,000 secured by Ted Stevens for various projects in Alaska.
• $4,500,000 for the Katahdin Iron Works in Maine.
• $16,750,000 for the National Park Service Save America’s Treasures program.

Labor/HHS/Education

• $100,000,000 for the failed Even Start program.
• $21,750,000 for the National Writing Project, which teaches teachers how to write.
• $2,000,000 for the Underground Railroad Program. That’s still running?

There’s far, far more where that came from. And I didn’t even touch on every single bill. This is where your money is going.