Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), in the latest edition of his controversial "Wastebook," argues that the federal government should back away from investing in unique, eccentric and parochial research on unproved technologies and excessive promotional endeavors.

The junior senator from Oklahoma and longtime critic of Congress' spending ways has already penned a plan to cut the deficit by $9 trillion, and he ridicules agencies and colleagues in "Wastebook 2012," citing 100 examples of "outdated and outlandish" programs that he said fall short of helping the country manage the debt.

In the report, released last night, Coburn refers to the Highway Trust Fund as a "good example" of a program that invests in "questionable projects that do little" to achieve desired results.

The fund, which provides money for road projects using collections from the federal gas tax, will be running on empty in a few years, according to government audits. Even more reason, Coburn argues, for fund managers to reprioritize their allocations and avoid backing projects such as a type of "bridge to nowhere" in Ohio.

"An unused Ohio bridge -- not even connected to a road or trail -- received a half-a-million dollar makeover this year. ... An Oregon town will pay $388,000 for just five bus stops -- almost enough to buy three houses in the same town. And in West Virginia, thousands of dollars were spent to reconstruct a historic streetscape out of Legos," Coburn wrote. (A $3,700 grant through the National Scenic Byways program is enabling officials in the Mountain State to build an 18-foot-long Lego replica of a historic corridor.)

"Would the dollars spent on these transportation projects not have been better spent to fix some of the 22,158 deficient bridges plaguing our national highway system?" Coburn added.

Trashing 'Students Against Trash'

The "book" also takes issue with a nearly $68,000 U.S. EPA grant for Syracuse University to run a "Students Against Trash" poster contest. The goal, Coburn said, was to involve at least 25 universities in New Jersey, New York and Puerto Rico. However, the senator noted a potential flaw in the contest: Many of the proposed posters could have ended up littering campuses.

"Ironically," Coburn wrote, "contest administrators must watch how many posters are printed, lest they be found in the rubbish bin."

New York City's theater scene also benefited from wasteful spending, according to Coburn. The Civilians, a theater company, received more than $697,000 from the National Science Foundation to create a musical about biodiversity and climate change.

The group put up "The Great Immensity," which followed a woman looking for a sister lost in the Panamanian jungle. Coburn said reviewers panned the production.

"Characters in the first act stand around awkwardly in a train station," Coburn wrote, "and sometimes head into the 'jungle,' complete with flying monkey poop."

'Black liquor'

Many of Coburn's biggest wasters took advantage of tax loopholes. His list included a loophole that could allow the pulp and paper industries to collect $268 million this year for the production of "black liquor," a byproduct of certain wood-pulping processes.

The black liquor issue came to the forefront several years earlier, when companies began reaping billions from a 50-cent-a-gallon alternative fuel mixture tax credit that was included in the 2005 highway bill.

While Congress closed that loophole in 2010, the Internal Revenue Service found black liquor could also qualify retroactively for the cellulosic biofuel production tax credit, a $1.01-per-gallon boon to business. According to the "Wastebook," use of the credit for black liquor in 2009 will cost taxpayers $1.3 billion over the next four years because companies are allowed to carry it forward until 2016.

This year, the Senate Finance Committee eliminated the loophole in its new highway bill, but the final version of the bill signed in June by President Obama included it after lawmakers with pulp and paper interests protested.

"Congress never intended for paper mills or anyone to reap billions from this tax credit," Coburn wrote.

There's an app for that

Coburn also singled out the Department of Energy's "Apps for Energy" contest, which awarded $100,000 to developers of programs that allow users to track their home energy usage. The award was part of the Green Button initiative.

The $30,000 grand prize went to Leafully, an app that shows users how many trees would be needed to offset their energy usage. Coburn argues the private sector had already created apps that filled this niche.

"Maybe Uncle Sam needs to develop an app to track duplicative government apps," he wrote.

Also on Coburn's radar: $7 million from the Department of Agriculture to the Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. to develop "natural rubber tires" using the shrub guayule, nearly $50,000 for Smokey Bear balloons at events throughout the Southwest, and a $21,000 investment by the Pentagon to research intergalactic travel.

Some critics have argued that this Congress, so far, has been among the least productive in recent history. Coburn seems to think so, too.

In the report, Coburn blamed his colleagues on the Budget panel for not reporting a budget to the Senate floor and the Finance panel for not overhauling tax policies. He questioned the productivity of the Environment and Public Works Committee, classifying the panel as unproductive. (The panel ranked ninth on the Oklahoman's list of congressional committees that held the fewest hearings in 2012, with 19 gatherings.) And he criticized the workload of the Special Committee on Aging. That panel "reported out a single measure, which was to provide for its own budget, and held just nine hearings" in the past year, according to the report.

Coburn, a member of the Senate's "Gang of Eight," which is seeking long-term spending and tax reforms, has established himself as an ardent opponent of nominees with records of favoring earmarks and increasing the role of government. He has blocked or voted against measures he thinks would increase the federal debt or duplicate government work. For instance, before Congress adjourned for the fall campaigns, Coburn questioned the backers of legislation aimed at providing veterans with jobs.

"This bill has had no hearings, has had no committee work and essentially has had no debate until today despite the fact that it's going to affect six different federal agencies, at a minimum," he said on the floor in September.

Reporters Amanda Peterka and Emily Yehle contributed.