Why Should Delaware Care?
Earmarks, or project-specific spending that is also known as Congressionally directed spending, has been a major driver of investment in Delaware over the past four years. That will be stunted this year after all earmarked projects were cut from the FY 2025 budget, and it is unknown whether Republican leaders intend to restore the funding avenue.
The future of one of the biggest sources of federal investment into Delaware in recent years is uncertain after earmarks were stripped from the latest spending bill and a new era of federal austerity sets in across Washington.
The funding, known today as Congressionally directed spending (CDS), has brought more than $300 million in the last three years to support new affordable housing construction, workforce development initiatives, and health care expansion, among other uses, across the entire state.
But the continuing resolution passed by Congress this month cut all $11 billion in earmarked funding for Fiscal Year 2025. That included more than $149 million in designated projects for Delaware, according to an accounting by Spotlight Delaware.
“While I’m disappointed Congressional Republicans blocked worthy Delawareans from receiving CDS funding in FY 2025, I am working with these organizations on resubmitting their projects for the next fiscal year. Despite these roadblocks we faced in FY 2025, I’m hopeful the CDS process will continue as expected in FY 2026,” U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Spotlight Delaware in a statement.
His office, along with Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s office, have actively solicited requests for earmarks for FY 2026 in anticipation that the spending will return.
However, it is the first time in four budget cycles that earmarks were not included, and it comes amid a major change in direction at the federal level. The offices of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not respond to Spotlight Delaware questions about whether earmarks may return in next year’s budget.
Notably, most Congressional offices that have opened CDS application period for FY26 to date are Democratic.
When Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 2011 amid a wave of concern over federal spending, they banned the use of earmarks. That ban lasted until 2021, when a Democrat-controlled Congress returned the local project spending.
Four years later, the nation is once again amid a reckoning over federal spending as the newly created Department of Government Efficiency scours budgets and makes deep cuts into the federal workforce. The Trump administration has often highlighted project-level spending as examples of government waste.
Impact on Delaware
Among the 80 funding Delaware requests that cleared committee reviews for FY 2025 was more than $16 million for affordable housing, nearly $10 million for health care services, $15 million for National Guard projects, nearly $3 million for historic preservation projects, nearly $1 million to upgrade cameras at state prisons.
The single largest appropriation was to be $11 million for the Port of Wilmington to complete dock and wharf repairs.
The second largest sum was $10 million to buy equipment for the future Securing American Biomanufacturing Research and Education (SABRE) Center at the University of Delaware. The new research manufacturing facility will support the work of the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), which has been among the largest beneficiaries of earmark spending in recent years. NIIMBL was also set to receive a second $4 million grant.
“Congressionally-directed spend projects have value and enable Congress to pursue worthy projects in their districts,” said Kelvin Lee, the director of NIIMBL, while adding that he’s hopeful for the return of earmarks in the next budget despite the current environment.
In Wilmington, The Bridge project that seeks to convert the former Bank of America offices at Bracebridge to a home for multiple higher education institutions, including the relocation of the Widener University Delaware Law School, was set to receive $5 million.
Thère du Pont, president of Longwood Foundation that is overseeing the project, told Spotlight Delaware that the group “wrote off any hope” of a federal earmark after the change in administration. They are continuing to seek funding from New Castle County and through the state’s bond bill to keep the project moving forward.
Without that funding, the project is likely to be delayed after seeking buy-in for federal, state, city and foundation partners.
Meanwhile, WRK Group CEO Logan Herring Sr. was depending on a $4 million earmark to help fund the replacement of the Kingswood Community Center as part of his group’s redevelopment of the city’s Riverside community.
“[Earmarks] are critical for us. The new Kingswood Community Center building is currently under construction, and we were relying on that spending to fill out the capital stack for the construction costs,” he said. “No funding is guaranteed, and so especially with the change in administration, we knew this was a possibility.”
While WRK Group would reapply for funding in FY 2026, Herring said that the episode was a stark example of the changes in Washington now.
“We’re optimistic, we’re faithful – that’s the only way we can be when you’re doing this work – but we also have to be responsible in terms of diversifying our fundraising,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This story originally reported the total of federal earmarks at $15.8 billion, but that reflected Fiscal Year 2024. The FY25 appropriations were set to be closer to $11 billion. We regret the error.