WASHINGTON – Looking to strengthen financial aid for students from low-income families wanting to attend college or receive vocational training, President Bush is proposing to remove millions of dollars in funding for local research, education and community projects.

All of the programs targeted for cuts have been championed by Maine’s congressional delegation.

In unveiling the proposed federal budget on Monday, the White House said the cuts to Maine projects – and hundreds of similar ones around the nation – are necessary to help raise $1.3 billion for the coming year in the Pell scholarship program.

Some of the funding the president is eyeing for the chopping block includes $1.25 million to expand The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor; $440,000 to improve statewide teaching standards and student learning assessment through the University of Southern Maine; and $400,000 for the Kennebec Valley Technical College to address the work force shortage in Maine’s metal products industry.

These and other Maine programs appear on an initial list of 1,600 project grants nationwide that the White House believes to be “low-priority programs,” although Congress already has guaranteed the funds to local schools, hospitals, community groups and museums for spending this year.

Howls and grimaces ignited immediately on Capitol Hill from Republicans and Democrats alike.

“The White House budget office slapped both parties in Congress across the face and said, ‘Your priorities don’t count, only ours do,'” said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the top ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

Maine’s two congressional Democrats, Reps. John Baldacci and Tom Allen, identified $3 million worth of grants already passed into law that the administration now suggests cutting.

“While we strongly support the president’s plan to increase funding for Pell Grant aid for college students,” the two said in a joint statement, “we are dismayed that he would choose to do so at the expense of local education and research initiatives in Maine and other states.”

If Congress reneges on its funding commitments per the White House request, it could create major logistical problems for groups that have been counting on receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from Washington sometime this year.

After nearly exhausting a five-year, $3.5 million federal grant on developing the Electronic Learning Marketplace (www.elm.maine.edu) for Maine teachers, project director Deborah Smith predicted that if a $400,000 grant is canceled, her University of Southern Maine program will be “pretty much eliminated.”

Known as earmarks, such grants are attached to appropriations bills after intense lobbying by lawmakers looking to ensure that local needs in their states and congressional districts are met. Critics, on the other hand, view the process as “pork-barrel” spending for special interests.

“Members of Congress add programs without regular review,” said Tom Schatz, president of the Citizens Against Government Waste. The Washington-based watchdog group publishes an annual “Pig Book” that blasts earmarks it considers wasteful spending, including a $200,000 Department of Education grant to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and another $273,000 to Blue Springs, Mo., for its Youth Outreach Unit to “combat Goth culture.”

“When you have a war on terrorism, these programs become even more ridiculous,” Schatz said.

Apparently in agreement, a Department of Education memo recently blamed lawmakers for funneling cash into ineffective pet projects without the scrutiny of merit-based reviews.

“It is this administration’s clear position that earmarking undermines carefully crafted laws and procedures governing how to distribute federal funds designed to ensure that taxpayer dollars support national interests,” the memo said.

But Maine lawmakers are saying their projects are worth fighting for.

Just last month, Republican Sen. Susan Collins stopped in Bangor to boast of her effort to land a $400,000 grant for Bangor’s United Technologies Center that will be used to teach photonics to high school students and displaced workers.

Training in the technology, which is used in bar scanners, credit card holograms, laser eye surgery, compact disc players and other products, will give “students terrific skills to obtain great jobs,” Collins said during her visit.

“There’s no way that money is going to go away,” said Collins’ spokeswoman, Felicia Knight, of the grants for the photonics program and others.

“This money already has been appropriated and signed into law,” she said Tuesday. “The senator is adamantly opposed to any efforts to repeal these earmarks – and the idea that the choice is between funding these and other earmarks or funding Pell Grants is a false choice.”

Fellow Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe also plans to join in the fight, said spokesman Dave Lackey. “The president proposes and Congress disposes,” Lackey said. “These are already funded projects and the senator will work to make sure they are protected.”

Other educational programs in Maine targeted by the president:

. $200,000 for “Project Promotion,” a project of the Southern Penobscot Regional Program for Children with Exceptionalities and Eastern Maine Technical College for paraprofessional educators to pursue a two-year college degree;

. $200,000 for SAD 58 in Kingfield, for Pathway Partners rural education program, to help connect young people to fundamental resources such as caring adults and safe places;

. $100,000 for SAD 64, East Corinth, for the STAR technology teacher training project;

. $50,000 for the Lewiston-Auburn College-University of Southern Maine TEAMS program to prepare teachers to meet the demands of Maine’s 21st century elementary and middle schools at Sherwood Heights Elementary School in Auburn and Lewiston Middle School in Lewiston.