[1] It approved appropriations of $388 billion[2] for eleven departments, including "foreign operations, export financing, related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes.
Also, buried within the bill was a provision that stated doctors, hospitals, and clinics no longer have to offer abortion as an alternative to birth control undermining the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v.
It included such provisions as $335,000 to protect North Dakota sunflowers from blackbirds, $2.3 million for an animal waste management research lab in Bowling Green, Kentucky, $50,000 to control wild hogs in Missouri, and $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food, $131 million for abstinence programs in public schools, and most notably $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to develop music education programs.
Part of President Bush's platform for re-election was to cut so-called "congressional pet projects"[6][7] - also known as earmarks - and spend the government's money on things that would help the country as a whole.
108-447 A 2004 New York Times article noted that with Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, earmarks made up approximately four percent of the $388 billion in the Bill.