Tucked in the folds of a $328 billion federal spending plan that conservative Republicans say is stuffed with pork projects is more than $8 million that would make its way to Beaufort and Jasper counties this year.

Approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in December, the bill will be put before the Senate early this year.

But a few federal legislators and citizen watchdog groups have come out against the spending plan, calling it one of the worst examples of pork-barrel politics in years.

"I reluctantly voted in favor of the bill," said U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., whose congressional district includes Beaufort County.

Wilson was one of 242 House members who approved the bill while 176 opposed its passage.

The $328 billion plan is the discretionary portion of a larger $820 billion that includes 2004 funding for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, State, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Transportation.

Discretionary spending allows congressmen to include one-time annual allocations for "pet projects" that wouldn't otherwise receive money in the budget.

According to the conservative Heritage Foundation, the $328 billion spending plan reflects a 9 percent increase over 2003 spending.

Another grass-roots group, the Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste, has criticized several pork projects, including a proposed $270,000 added by the House for a cotton quality study in Clemson.

Nationally, congressmen are serving up pork projects that include $50 million to build a tropical rain forest in Iowa and $225,000 to repair a swimming pool in Nevada.

But what one person considers pork spending could be called an important community investment by others, said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Still, the senator agreed the earmark system is being abused to the tune of millions of dollars.

"Local projects that have no value to the community as a whole and just reward a few people to make the politician look good. I don't do that," Graham said recently, adding that he's leaning towards voting in favor of the spending package. "I try to focus on projects that come from the community."

Wilson said he's concerned with all of the extra spending and said he only approved the bill because its failure would have affected government operations. The departmental budgets included in the omnibus bill should have been approved by Oct. 1.

"I would have preferred not to have all of the add-ons," he said.

Both Graham and Wilson said many of the discretionary earmarks are inappropriate, but not the South Carolina projects.

Both congressmen said they'll continue to work to keep money slated to reach South Carolina included in the bill when it hits the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, South Carolina's senior Congressman, U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, is blaming the Republican White House for jeopardizing the fate of the bill by reopening it after an agreement of a joint House-Senate committee was reached.

"The fate of the bill remains uncertain at this point," Hollings spokesman Andy Davis said, adding the senior Democrat won't officially comment on the projects included in the bill until it passes through the Senate. "He doesn't want to put the cart before the horse."

But Davis said Hollings is fighting to keep the South Carolina appropriations included in the bill.

"There are several critical appropriations in there Hollings would like to see approved," Davis said. "But the fate of the bill is uncertain at this point."

But in between the political wrangling, approval of the disputed spending bill could make or break this year's budget for several area agencies.

Included in the bill for Beaufort and Jasper counties are:

$1 million for the widening of U.S. 278.

$20,000 for communications equipment and in-car cameras for the Yemassee Police Department.

$300,000 for computers for the Jasper County Sheriff's Office.

$4.5 million for the ACE Basin Visitor's Center.

$2.5 million for the Carolinas Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction System.

$300,000 for the Lowcountry Regional Transportation Authority.

Madilyn Fletcher, director of the Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences in Columbia, which oversees the coastal observing system, said federal dollars will allow for continued use of a tool that allows officials to predict a hurricane's effects.

"That's all we are right now," Fletcher said when asked what federal dollars mean to the budget of the year-old program. "Federal dollars allowed us to get the program started, buy the majority of the infrastructure and start getting the system into place."

Jasper County Sheriff Ben Riley said he didn't know $300,000 was slated to come down for his department next year; but he knows he could use it.

"If we get the money we'll use it," he said, adding it would be used to put computers in some of the department's 30 cars. "We definitely need computers."