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Your Message:
Welfare Reform
I strongly urge you to file the following complaint with the House Ethics Committee:

"I respectfully request that the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee) open an investigation into the insertion of the $10 million “Coconut Road” earmark during the enrollment process, and whether this is the only instance where a conference report has been materially altered before transmission to the President for his signature.

The Coconut Road earmark was inserted into H.R. 3, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), before the President signed it into law on August 12, 2005. When the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate passed H.R. 3 on July 29, 2005, the bill contained an earmark directing $10,000,000 for “Widening and Improvements for I-75 in Collier and Lee County.” However, the version of H.R. 3 that was signed by the President contained a change in the description of the earmark so that it read “Coconut Rd. Interchange I-75/Lee County.”

Rep. Young has publicly taken responsibility for altering the earmark during the enrollment process.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have requested that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation of Rep. Young’s actions.

I request that the Ethics Committee initiate an investigation to determine if:
1. Rep. Young’s actions violate House Rules of Conduct, and
2. Other conference reports have been materially altered during the enrollment process."

The $10 million earmark directly benefited real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who helped raise $40,000 for Rep. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel only days before Congress considered the highway act. Aronoff needed the money to build a new highway interchange that the local zoning commission had twice refused to fund because the road would destroy local wetlands.


I look forward to your response.