Amid talk of further federal spending to help blunt the impact of continued deep job losses, Republicans are highlighting tens of billions of dollars of what they call abuses of stimulus money. 

The list, assembled by Senate Republicans from 10 local newspaper accounts, includes spending on bug research, pet population control and a snow machine for Duluth, Minnesota.  

• READ the Senate Republicans' full list

Syracuse University’s Daily Orange, the school’s independent newspaper, reports a university professor is using $219,000 in stimulus funding to examine “the sex patterns of college women.”  The paper said the professor defended the funding and the research because “women have been traditionally neglected in health research, even though they are disproportionably vulnerable to a number of health threats.” 

Topping the Republicans’ list was $300,000 for “mapping radioactive rabbit feces." As The New York Times reports, the Hanford nuclear reservation is the focus of the nation’s “largest environmental cleanup.” The paper said the government used the money to survey an area “used by rabbits that had also burrowed into other areas that were contaminated … (and) carried strontium and cesium, which emit gamma rays, back out of the area in their digestive tracts.”

The White House charges that Republicans opposition stems from a long-seated opposition of stimulus efforts. 

“When we went to talk to the Republican Caucus about the recovery plan, before the motorcade left the White House they put out a statement opposing it,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in a briefing Thursday.

In response to the Senate Republicans' list, Ed DeSeve, special advisor to the President for Recovery Act Implementations, issued the following statement Thursday: “On the eve of reports from more than 50,000 recipients of Recovery Act funds, which seem likely to confirm estimates that over one million jobs have been created or saved, those who opposed this essential effort have identified 10 of these tens of thousands of projects as 'wasteful.'  Their critique is error laden, as illustrated by the fact that the 'golf cart' tax break they criticize was signed into law by President Bush. The Florida road project they criticize was approved by Republican Governor Charles Crist. As we have previously announced, we have killed more than 170 wasteful or ill-advised projects, and we will continue to do so whenever they are found.”