Alaska’s United States Senator Ted Stevens, defending earmarking and attacking the process of scientific peer review at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in June 1990, recounts his approach by representatives of the University of Alaska, who reportedly tell him that “it might be possible to bring the aurora to Earth…to harness the energy in the aurora…” Stevens says he “got Congress to earmark the money, and the experiment is going on now.

It will cost $10 million to $20 million.

If it is successful, it will change the history of the world.”