Tucked into the voluminous congressional plan for U.S. military spending next year is a $160 million pot of money intended to help Mexico's police buy American-made police radios. It's a major purchase that one radio manufacturer got rolling, 12 members of Congress formally requested and a powerful defense appropriations chairman championed, according to records and congressional staff. But details of the plan to pump Pentagon funds into Mexico's crime-fighting efforts are cloaked in vaguely worded language in the House defense bill. The program is a one of many congressional requests in the bill, which also includes 1,080 projects worth $2.7 billion tacked onto the measure at the request of lawmakers. The language in the $636 billion bill, which was approved last week by the House defense appropriations subcommittee, discloses neither the specific purpose of the radio project nor the dozen lawmakers who asked Chairman John urtha, D-Pa., to include it. Members of Congress are required under new rules to disclose all requests they make to direct federal funds to pet projects, but the radio-buying program isn't technically a congressionally directed 'earmark.' Instead, according to the committee, the item was classified as 'program support,' which means that the requesting lawmakers did not have to publicly claim it as their pet project. 'It kind of makes a mockery of the disclosure requirements we have,' said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the watchdog group Sunlight Foundation. 'They will disclose the little things, the $1 million projects, but when you have the big-ticket items, you don't have members willing to take responsibility for those. That's a huge problem.' The names of sponsoring lawmakers were detailed in a June 19 letter sent to appropriators signed by Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., and others. Seven were from Illinois, the home state of the communications firm Motorola, which first suggested the idea and helped craft the request, according to Rush's staff. The other five members were from border states. On Rush's congressional Web site, he disclosed asking for $5.5 million in defense-related projects, both for Illinois universities, but says nothing about the radio project pushed by Motorola. Motorola is not mentioned by name anywhere in the bill. Rather, it manufactures a class of radios whose specifications fit the technology described in the lawmakers' request. Officials at Motorola, whose top lobbyist appeared at a hearing before Rush's subcommittee a few weeks ago, declined to comment. Another advocate for the radio purchases, Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., reports making three funding requests for defense projects worth just over $9 million. Bean, who has received $6,500 in donations from Motorola officials since 2004, also doesn't mention the project she and Motorola pushed. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., reported requesting $14.5 million in four defense projects that would benefit Illinois researchers and firms. On her congressional Web site, she said she takes seriously her responsibility to spend taxpayer funds and vet earmarks wisely, and criticized projects that are not 'appropriate or worthy.' 'What I object to in the `earmarking' process is when there is lack of transparency,' Biggert said on her Web site. 'In the past, no one knows who requested the earmark, and no one knows about the earmark until after Congress has voted on the bill in which the earmark is contained. I think that's wrong. Those who request and receive earmarks should be willing to defend the earmarks, and Members should know what they're voting for in advance of the vote.' Contacted this week, Biggert and her staff did not return calls seeking comment on the $160 million request. In their June letter to appropriators, the lawmakers called the need of the Mexican police for secure communications 'urgent and critical' and added that the neighboring country's budget was 'already committed' to other police modernization efforts. The letter stressed that 'it is important that any system procured for this purpose' should be interoperable with U.S. law enforcement, have open standards and use encryption to prevent eavesdropping. Murtha's spokesman said the Defense Department has the discretion to decide which company would best provide the first-responder radios to Mexico. Spokesman Matt Mazonkey said the committee wanted to 'address a serious problem and concern.' He said defense funds previously have gone to fight drugs in Afghanistan and Colombia. 'We believe that by helping Mexican authorities fight the drug cartels, we are helping to protect American citizens impacted by both the increase in violence along our southern border and the spread of narcotics to our communities,' Mazonkey said. Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report. 