("Kentucky kickback") Deal to avert default provides $3 billion for Kentucky dam; critics point to Mitch McConnell -- By Susan Crabtree, The Washington Examiner

The Senate-forged deal to reopen the government and avert a default on the nation's debts contains two unrelated provisions providing nearly $3 billion for a dam in Kentucky, as well as up to $450 million for roads in Colorado.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hashed out the parameters of the deal after an alternative effort by House Republicans imploded.

After learning about the billions of dollars secured for the Kentucky dam, conservative groups immediately condemned the project as an earmark for McConnell, which his office denied.

The White House had requested the money for the dam, and the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water had approved the money earlier this year. Still, the Senate Conservative Fund, which is affiliated with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, labeled the project the “Kentucky kickback.”

The recipient of the money is the Olmsted Lock and Dam Authority, which is building the project on the Ohio River between Illinois and Kentucky. The bill would provide $2.92 billion, up from $775 million, for one of the largest civil works projects the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has ever undertaken. It will replace two of the locks originally completed in 1929.

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