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The requests total more than $297 million.
But only one other member of the House, Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. has followed Gillibrand's lead.
Locally, spokespeople for Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, and John Hall, D-Dover Plains, and Democratic U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton of New York said such information is treated as confidential by their offices until the funding is approved.
"After that, Maurice always publicizes that information," a Hinchey spokesman said.
For Hinchey to publicize such information before the funding is approved would require the "permission" of the applying entity, the spokesman said. Hall and the two senators said their offices had similar policies.
Gillibrand, D-Greenport, admitted the chances of securing funding for all 188 projects in her 20th Congressional District "are very, very remote." But she said she would not be embarrassed by what some might consider "a failure to deliver." Rather, she said, she would "vigorously pursue" each rejected request through the normal federal grant application process.
"Earmarks," commonly referred to as "pork barrel" funding, typically are attached to congressional appropriations bills and rarely are debated before passage.
Critics of the funding practice, like the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, point to the almost exponential proliferation of earmarks from a few thousand in the mid-1990s to more than 14,000 in the 2006 federal budget.
Newly seated members of the Democratic majority in Congress, vowing to reform the system, have recommended cutting the earmark budget in half.
While calling for full disclosure of earmark funding, Gillibrand would not criticize fellow legislators who are not following her lead. Earlier in the year, Gillibrand announced she would post her daily schedule of official business on her Web site, but only two other members of Congress, neither of them local, bought into that idea.
Hinchey said anyone who wants to keep up with the official business he carries out can get the information by contacting his Washington office.
"I think it's something that every member of congress has to make a decision about," Gillibrand said. "As a freshman (she unseated Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, last November), I can make rules for my own office. I can create what I believe are appropriate policies from scratch."
Asked how her requests for earmarks compared to Sweeney's, she replied: "I don't know. It's not public record."
Gillibrand said she met with "as many local officials as possible" after winning the election in an effort to determine which local projects should be considered for federal support. "These are the priorities local community leaders advocated for," she said of her selections.
Gillibrand said publicizing the entire list of projects, rather than just a "handful" of eventual winners, "helps empower people."
"This isn't just for insiders, or people who know the system, people who can afford to hire high-priced lobbyists to access their government," she said. "I want people to have access to who is applying for federal funds from their communities. I think having that information makes them better represented, makes me a better representative."
Bills under debate in both the House and Senate would require the level of public disclosure that Gillibrand and Cooper have volunteered.
New York's 20th Congressional District stretches from the Adirondacks to the Hudson Valley. Locally, it includes Northern Dutchess, part of Delaware County and all of Greene and Columbia counties.
A PEEK AT THE PORK
THE following is a sampling of earmarks, or 'pork barrel' funding, requested by U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand for the Columbia/Dutchess/Greene/Delaware counties portion of New York's 20th Congressional District.
Dutchess County
$9.3 million to acquire property to construct a Hudson Valley Welcome Center in Hyde Park.
$3 million for state Route 55 traffic improvements in LaGrange.
$1.5 million for implementing health-care information technology at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck.
$500,000 to improve access to the Montgomery Place Historic Site in Red Hook.
$250,000 for renovations at the village of Red Hook Police Department.
$175,000 for a stream mitigation project through the Dutchess County Soil and Water agency.
$100,000 for two flight simulators at Dutchess County Community College in the town of Poughkeepsie.
Columbia County
$1.2 million for an intergenerational community center in Hudson.
$1 million for restoration of the historic Hudson Opera House.
$750,000 for medication administration safety for the pharmacy department at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson.
$500,000 to rehabilitate 5.5 miles of historic carriage drive at Olana in Greenport.
$495,000 for broadband development in Columbia County.
$400,000 to the Columbia County Historic Society for restoration of the Vanderpoel House.
$400,000 for a Time and Youth Center in Hudson.
Greene County
$2.21 million for drinking water source protection and improvements to drinking water infrastructure in the village of Coxsackie.
$2.2 million for Main Street improvements in East Durham.
$200,000 to study the long-term fiscal impact of the New York City watershed system Greene County.
$250,000 for maintenance of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill.
$250,000 for the Greene County YMCA.
Delaware County
$5.2 million to upgrade police and emergency radio systems in the county.
$850,000 to create a methane energy system at the Delaware County landfill.
$500,000 to replace guiderails on state Route 7.
