"Its very presence on the canal brings new life to the waterfront," said Craig Williams, a historian at New York State Museum.

But to some in Washington, it's a symbol of pork-barrel excess that taxpayers can ill afford at a time of record budget deficits.

"Should we build a museum when we have roads in disrepair?" asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.).

In the past four years, Coburn said, $28 million has been spent to fund 55 transportation museums.

Millions more have gone to other kinds of museums: the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas; the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky.; the Hunting and Fishing Museum in Pennsylvania and the Los Angeles County Fire Museum in Bellflower, Calif.

"We have to ask ourselves: Is this of national significance?" said Leslie Paige of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

House of Representatives leaders already have told lawmakers that museums won't be considered high-priority projects in the new transportation-funding bill.

The last funding measure produced by that panel included money for the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio, and the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich.

Other spending bills moving through Congress do contain money for museums - including $930,000 for the Aerospace Museum of California; $350,000 for the Museum of Aviation in Georgia; and $100,000 for the Cape Cod Maritime Museum.

The Senate defense bill includes $25 million to expand the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

But congressional leaders did deny a lawmaker's request for money for a New York museum dedicated to "the history and evolution of the North American maple syrup industry."

Supporters of the museum funding said it was even more important in a tough economy.

"The fact that some in Congress still don't understand all the ways museums enrich our communities - as educators, as stewards of history and culture, and as economic engines - is cause for concern," wrote Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums, in an e-mail about a recent Senate effort to cut museum funding.