The Tool Nobody’s Using
Every year, members of Congress can submit up to 20 Community Project Funding requests — what used to be called earmarks. Each one sends federal money to a specific project in the district: a water plant, a fire station, a health clinic, a road. It has to be public before any vote. Typical awards: $250,000 to $5 million.
Someone has to ask. No request means no funding.
What FL-03 Is Leaving on the Table
Rep. Kat Cammack has never submitted a single earmark request. Not once. Her website says so: “Our office is not accepting requests for Community Project Funding.”
Meanwhile, the districts around us have brought home over $250 million. Here’s what our neighbors — all Republican — have received across four funded cycles (FY2022–FY2026):
| Representative | District | Total Funded |
|---|---|---|
| Buddy Carter | GA-01 | $90.8 million |
| Gus Bilirakis | FL-12 | $71.9 million |
| Neal Dunn | FL-02 | $52.4 million |
| Daniel Webster | FL-11 | $37.2 million |
| Randy Fine | FL-06 | $6.2 million |
| Aaron Bean | FL-04 | $1.0 million |
| Austin Scott | GA-08 | $0 |
| Kat Cammack | FL-03 | $0 |
That’s not a partisan difference. Every name on that list is a Republican. Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House. Republicans claim 62% of all earmark funding. This is their own party’s process — and FL-03’s representative still refuses to use it.
FL-03 taxpayers pay into the same federal accounts that fund these projects. When our representative refuses to ask, that money doesn’t disappear — it goes to every district around us. And when a neighboring district also opts out, like GA-08, the counties on our border lose services from both directions. People go where the services are.
What the Neighbors Are Building
These aren’t exotic projects. They’re bread-and-butter community infrastructure — the same things FL-03 needs and isn’t getting.
Water & wastewater
The most common earmark category. Bilirakis funded water and wastewater in Brooksville ($1.75M) plus four more water projects. Carter funded water and sewer in Port Wentworth ($1.75M) and a waterline in Rincon ($1M). Dunn funded wastewater in DeFuniak Springs ($1M) and water/sewer in Washington County ($750K). FL-03 has coastal towns where saltwater intrusion is threatening the drinking water supply.
Public safety & emergency services
Bilirakis: emergency communications ($3M), school safety and weapons detection across 100 campuses ($1.75M), forensics tools ($2.9M). Carter: a fire station in Tybee ($5M). FL-03 has volunteer fire departments whose equipment is aging out, rural counties where emergency communications haven’t kept up, and the cost of replacing any of it has gotten dramatically more expensive.
Health & research
Bilirakis funded $2M for USF brain research plus $14M across seven university projects. Dunn funded the Second Harvest food bank in Tallahassee. FL-03 has counties where healthcare access has been declining for years — clinics closing, services being cut back, people driving further for basic care.
Roads & transportation
Carter got $5M for I-16 widening, $4M for roads in Pooler. FL-03 has growing counties still operating on road networks built for a different era.
Workforce & economic development
Bilirakis requested $3M for a workforce training center. FL-03 has broadband gaps, limited local tech training, and a workforce that needs new options for what’s coming.
What I’d Fight For
I put these on my platform because I saw them when I looked across the district. Counties where medical care has been shrinking for years — losing clinics, losing ERs, losing the services people count on. Farmers with nowhere to process what they grow. Coastal towns running out of fresh water. Every issue on this site connects to something real on the ground — and earmarks are one of the ways we fund it.
But I don’t pretend to know every need in twelve counties. These are my starting priorities based on what I’ve seen. The final list gets built with the people who live in and run these communities.
Mobile Health Units
Most of our counties have no VA facility. Many have seen clinics close and services cut back over the years. Mobile units — health clinics and VA clinics on wheels — can rotate on a schedule and bring care where people live instead of making them drive across the county. Neighbors are funding health infrastructure through HRSA — we should be too. More on the healthcare plan →
Meat & Agricultural Processing Co-op
FL-03 has over a million acres of farmland and very few places to process what it grows. A co-op processing facility — funded through USDA Rural Development, the same category neighbors use for their projects — keeps the price in the farmer’s hands and puts local food on local tables. More on food & agriculture →
Desalination for Coastal Communities
Saltwater intrusion is threatening drinking water along the Gulf coast. Containerized desalination units can produce drinking water on the coast within months. Every neighboring district funds water infrastructure with earmarks. We’d use the same EPA and Energy & Water categories for this.
Energy Independence for FL-03 Homes
A district program helping households and small farms install solar, heat pumps, and passive cooling. Local installers do the work, money stays in the district, every home that makes its own power is one less home exposed to the next price spike. More on energy →
Decentralized Technology & Training
Neighboring districts are funding workforce training and university infrastructure with earmarks. We need the same kind of investment — community technology centers where people can learn to protect their data, run their own systems, and make sure FL-03 doesn’t fall behind. This isn’t about gadgets. It’s about making sure the next generation here can compete. More on privacy →
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky. Congress lets me submit up to 20 earmark requests per year. I’ll submit all 20. Every cycle. Earmarks run alongside federal grant applications — if one doesn’t come through, the other might. If both land, they build on each other. Every request will be published — project name, county, dollar amount, recipient — before any vote.
Tell Me What Your Community Needs
The priorities above come from what I’ve seen walking the district. But twelve counties is a lot of ground, and I know I’m not seeing everything.
If you’re a county administrator, a fire chief, a health center director, a utility manager, or anyone who runs a public service in FL-03 — I want to hear from you. What’s the project that’s been sitting on your desk waiting for somebody in Washington to pick up the phone?
And if you’re a resident who sees something that needs fixing — a road that’s been bad for years, a service that disappeared, infrastructure that’s falling apart while nobody at city hall or the county seems to be doing anything about it — tell me that too. Sometimes the people living with the problem see it before the people in charge do. I can’t promise every need turns into an earmark, but I can promise it gets on the list and gets looked at.
No polished proposal needed. Just tell me what’s broken and where.
Community Project Funding is authorized under House Rule XXI and subject to annual appropriations. All requests are publicly disclosed under House Rules prior to any vote. Funding is not guaranteed; requests must be included in the annual appropriations bill and signed into law. Cumulative totals are based on final funded project tables published by the House Appropriations Committee for fiscal years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2026 (FY2025 was zeroed by continuing resolution). All data points are drawn from public records and should be independently verified before submission of formal earmark requests. Data reviewed April 2026.