David Williams worries about even the mundane earmarks.

As noted previously, many of the earmark requests from North Carolina's Congressional delegation favor such workaday projects as fixing bridges, dredging harbors, and testing local water systems.

Those don't attract the same attention as a teapot museum, but the vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste said they're just as problematic.

"A lot of these projects are very mundane, where people might go, 'That actually looks like it might work,'" he said. "But the money isn't going to where it's most needed in the country, it's going to the places with the most influential members of Congress."

As an example, he said that many local towns need help with a new water system. But since earmarks are determined by clout, the towns that are actually the neediest may not be the ones to get funding.

Williams said it is the process of earmarking, not the end results, that matters. 

An earmarks watchdog said the process has gotten better.

David Williams, vice president of policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, said that Congress has become more transparent about requests for federal spending.

Last year, appropriations bills included the names of members of Congress who had requested the specific earmarks for the first time. This year, members posted their requests for earmarks on their official Web sites.

"It's fantastic," he said. "We've seen some really good strides in the past couple of years to bring transparency to this process."

In previous years, his group had to pore over press releases from members of Congress to see if they had announced they had gotten money. Now, they have more time to look at what the earmarks would do.

"It has cut down signficantly on our work," he said. 

Still, Williams said the group has to remain vigilant. The most recent spending bill was signed much later than usual and some earmark requests remain anonymous.

A watchdog group found $228 million in earmarks from last year.

Citizens Against Government Waste highlighted 173 earmarks from North Carolina's representatives and senators in its annual "Pig Book" of Congressional appropriations today.

The list ranges from $50,000 for gang prevention in Charlotte to $57.9 million for a hospital renovation at Camp Lejeune. Many of the earmarks have also been requested in this year's budget.

The advocacy group ranked North Carolina 34th in "pork per capita," with $24.72 per resident. That was up from 39th place the previous year.

It also criticized $11.6 million for a Fort Bragg chapel requested by Rep. Mike McIntyre, $2 million for textiles research and $167,000 for the Morehead Planetarium from Rep. David Price, and $475,750 for the automotive research from Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

In the upcoming budget, North Carolina's House members have requested 545 earmarks totaling $1.5 billion. The Senate has not yet released its requests.

U.S. Rep. David Price ranks No. 18 in the House of Representatives in bringing home the bacon, according to the annual "Pig Book" released today by watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

Price is responsible for 71 projects totalling $91.4 million, according to the 2008 Congressional Pig Book.

The annual Pig Book tracks targeted spending, called earmarks, that members of Congress direct to specific agencies, local governments or businesses, usually in their home districts.

Such earmarks often are known as "pork" spending.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, could be expected to rank high. He is the state’s only member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee — which allocated federal tax dollars. He also is chairman of the spending subcommittee on homeland security.

He is just ahead of Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the dollar rankings.

The next highest-ranking member from the Tar Heel state is U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, at No. 78. His 19 projects total $47.5 million, according to the watchdog group.

In the Senate, Elizabeth Dole ranks 49th. She has 110 projects totalling $133.6 million, according to the group.