WASHINGTON - In 2005, Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.), the influential vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was able to tack a $2 million "earmark" onto the fiscal 2006 defense spending bill for a firm in his district.
The company - Dynamic Defense Materials L.L.C. - employs as its lobbyist one of Weldon's close friends. The firm has given nearly $11,000 to Weldon or his political action committee.
The Defense Department had not requested the funding. Most Congress members voting for the spending bill probably did not know about the earmark.
All of this is within the letter of the law. But it shows how the power to earmark works in Washington, and how money flows through a revolving door.
"This is a perfect example of the pay-to-play system that has infected the Washington political culture," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group that monitors earmarks and pork-barrel spending. "Dynamic Defense Materials over the last several years gave early and often to Weldon, assiduously courting the lawmaker to get a piece of the federal spending pie.
"Business senses that members of Congress are for sale and that for a few-thousand-dollar investment, millions of taxpayer dollars will be sent their way," Ellis said.
Russ Caso, Weldon's chief of staff, confirmed the earmark for Dynamic Defense Materials and said it was justified.
Locked in a tough battle for reelection against Democrat Joe Sestak, Weldon is embroiled in a federal criminal probe that appears to focus on actions he took to help clients of his daughter's lobbying firm.
FBI agents this month carted away documents from Karen Weldon's home and business office as well as the home of her business associate.
There is no indication that anything concerning Dynamic Defense Materials is part of that investigation.
DDM, based in Boothwyn, is a designer and manufacturer of ceramics- and polymer-based products for personal and structural protection. "Our focus is on finished armor products for personnel safety and for the protection of structural, vehicle, nautical and aerospace assets," a statement on the firm's Web site says.
Military applications include body armor for troops and portable armored wall systems. Annual sales are estimated at $720,000, according to a 2006 Dun & Bradstreet financial report.
DDM vice president Katherine Leighton declined to comment.
The firm was acquired in 2005 by Robert A. Lipinski, a millionaire South Jersey entrepreneur with numerous business ventures, including a landscaping and snow-removal business based in Marlton.
Lipinski is a 1980 graduate and benefactor of Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, whose new football field is named after him.
Last year, Lipinski successfully bid $48,200 for Terrell Owens' NFC championship ring, which the former Eagles receiver auctioned to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Lipinski did not return numerous calls for comment.
During the 2003-04 election cycle, Lipinski and other officers of Global Protection in Berlin, N.J. - another firm owned by Lipinski - contributed $6,750 to Weldon, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Lipinski sold Global Protection in October 2005, according to Louis Schiliro, the firm's director of operations and a former Lipinski employee.
During the preparation for the fiscal 2006 budget, Weldon earmarked $2 million for DDM in the defense spending bill for research and development of the company's Portable Wall Armor System, which provides hardened structures on the battlefield.
The money was not requested by the Defense Department, and no funding for the project was in the Senate spending bill. The earmark was added by Weldon to the House bill, and was passed after being approved by the Senate-House conference, which seldom rejects members' earmarks.
Earmarks, which have grown rapidly in recent years, are provisions that many lawmakers add to spending bills for an item or program that was not requested by the agency getting the money.
Caso, Weldon's chief of staff, said after contacting military branches to ask if they wanted DDM's project, "the Marine Corps systems command, in particular, loved DDM's armor system and where they were heading in their research and development."
Caso said because of Weldon's senior position on the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, his office receives "a lot" of earmark requests, which are reviewed in a "strict" process.
In the current election cycle, Dynamic Defense Materials and its officers contributed $10,900 to Weldon, according to FEC records. That amount puts the firm fifth among Weldon's largest contributors, just behind Lockheed Martin.
The registered lobbyist for Dynamic Defense Materials is Grimes & Young of Media.
Cecelia Grimes, 40, who spent most of her career selling real estate, describes herself as a longtime family friend of Weldon's. Her business partner is Cynthia Young, a lawyer who is married to Robert J. Young, son of Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R., Fla.), the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee.
Robert Young worked as a paid staff aide for four months on Weldon's 2004 reelection campaign.
Grimes & Young was paid $40,000 in 2005 by Dynamic Defense Materials, according to lobbying records.
Grimes did not return calls asking for comment.
She and Weldon have cooperated in connection with other firms seeking defense and domestic security funding. Lobbying records show that, since 2003, Grimes has signed up eight corporate clients, four of which are in Weldon's district. Weldon has assisted at least three lobbying clients of Grimes & Young, according to lobby records and published reports.
Caso said he saw nothing wrong in Grimes' lobbying Weldon for DDM.
"I don't pick and choose who companies pick as their lobbyists," he said. "There are plenty of lobbyists who are friends of Curt."
Earmarks are of growing concern to government watchdog groups.
The amount of money spent on such projects - special state or local projects tacked onto legislation - nearly doubled to $52.69 billion from $29.11 billion in the 10-year period ending in 2004. The number of projects more than tripled to 14,211 from 4,155 in the same period, according to the Congressional Research Service.
"The portable wall system DDM is selling may be the best thing since sliced bread or the biggest dud since the Edsel," Ellis said. "I don't know, and neither does Congress. We are diverting funding from critical national security needs to pay for a parochial pork-barrel project in Weldon's district."
