Sen. John McCain's Pork Detector Says Portland Project Is "Second Worst" of 100 Stimulus-Financed Efforts

The Sunday New York Times took a look at the proposed $133 million renovation in Portland of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt federal building downtown, Oregon's largest single federally-funded stimulus project.

Plans for the building include 200-foot tall plant-covered "fins" meant to shade and cool the building. Critics, the Times reported, are not thrilled with the greener-than-green plans.

"In December, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, both Republicans, criticized the cost of the project and ranked it second on a list of what they called the 100 worst stimulus-financed projects. The G.S.A. has said that report relied on incomplete data, but the project's cost has also raised eyebrows here," reporter William Yardley notes, referring to the General Services Administration.

(image courtesy Scott Baumberger of Baumberger Studio)