So who actually secured that $3.6 million earmark for the National Alternative Fuels Foundation back in 2000 -- the one that a federal jury in Denver this week concluded was part of a fraud?

The foundation collected more than $2 million in federal funds after promising to create a new, clean-energy fuel for automobiles and turning in bogus science to the EPA to back it up.

Keith Ashdown, the chief investigator for a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he's been looking into the NAFF earmark for a few days and can't find any record of who wedged that $3.6 million into a massive appropriations bill.

"We need to know who got this money because this is a serious case of fraud. They basically gave the money to a bunch of crooks who ripped off the federal taxpayers," Ashdown said.

Once again, Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's campaign office didn't return our phone call today.

He's the one we really want to ask. Schaffer was in Congress when the earmark was awarded to the little-known not-for-profit founded by Bill Orr, who was convicted this week. And when Schaffer left Congress, he went on to become a director for the NAFF, where his political buddy Scott Shires was treasurer. Shires pleaded guilty and testified against Orr.

When asked by a local reporter, Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, denied the then-Congressman played any part in securing the earmark. But Schaffer hasn't responded to any of these questions and we'd prefer to hear it from him directly.

An unnamed source told the Denver Post that a Congressional staffer slipped the money into the bill.

Since we didn't hear from Schaffer, we called up the other Colorado legislators from those days and asked if they recalled anything about the earmark or Orr. So far, five of the eight members of the 2000 delegation have denied any role in securing the earmark. We haven't been able to reach two former members of the delegation. And then there's Schaffer, who isn't talking.

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Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's business buddy was convicted on 22 counts in federal court last night.

That doesn't bode well for the Republican's campaign, since Schaffer served on the board of directors while prosecutors said the National Alternative Fuels Foundation was scamming money from the government.

Bill Orr, the former president of the NAFF, could face federal prison time for claiming to develop a clean alternative automobile fuel and then using junk science to get federal money.

Local TV in Colorado reports some testimony:

"The more we measured it, the more we found his fuel was just like any other fuel," said Dr. Tom Reed. ...

Orr admitted he paid himself more than $500,000 of the federal funds during two years of research and development work at a small laboratory in Golden. He said he obtained the grant with the help of Congressional aides whom he met while working on other fuel and environmental issues.

Congressional aides?

Schaffer was in the House at the time. We called his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, a couple times this week to ask specifically whether then-Congressman Schaffer had any role in securing that $3.6 million earmark in late 2000. He hasn't returned the calls.

A longtime Colorado political operative, Scott Shires, has already pleaded guilty in the case and will be sentenced later this month. Shires is listed as a key player in a couple of Schaffer's campaigns from recent years.

Democrats in Colorado are stepping up the pressure. Although the case hasn't gotten much attention, a local group called ProgressNowAction is trying to make the link:

"Schaffer may have helped lobby the EPA for these fraudulent grants and the public needs to know the truth," Michael Huttner, Executive Director of ProgressNowAction, wrote in a press release today. "We believe that Schaffer either knew or should have known that the President of his organization was violating the law when he lobbied Congress and received millions of dollars based on false documents."

Last we checked in with Bob Schaffer, the GOP's Senate candidate in Colorado was fending off news reports about parasailing in the Mariana Islands on Jack Abramoff's dime while supposedly personally investigating the plight of foreign workers there.

Now we learn about a federal criminal case in Colorado against former business and political associates of Schaffer's involving government contracts with a nonprofit foundation where Schaffer was a member of the board of directors.

Schaffer, a former House member who is battling with Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) to replace the retiring Sen. Wayne Allard, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the federal prosecutor handling the case told TPMmuckraker in a telephone interview that Schaffer was added to a witness list in the federal fraud trial of Bill Orr, a Denver businessman accused of bilking the government out of more than $2 million.

Orr's trial is currently underway, and the jury has been deliberating since last week. Schaffer could still be called to testify in Orr's sentencing if Orr is convicted.

Orr successfully lobbied Congress in 2000 for a $3.6 million earmark, which he said he would use to develop a new clean-energy fuel that would emit less pollution. It's not yet known which member of Congress inserted Orr's earmark. Prosecutors say he "falsely represented" the scientific tests that convinced the EPA to turn over more than $2 million of the earmark money. Orr had created a separate not-for-profit group called the National Alternative Fuels Foundation to utilize the federal money.

And that's where Schaffer comes in. After leaving Congress, Schaffer was a "director" at the NAFF from October 2004 to March 2005, according to his Senate financial disclosure form. That's not a very long time, but it overlaps with the time frame when prosecutors say the NAFF was wrongfully accepting government cash -- from December 2001 through December 2004.

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Unfortunately for Bob Schaffer, it doesn't look like the U.S. will be adopting the guest worker system from the Norther Marianas as a model any time soon. From the AP:

Workers in the Mariana Islands will receive the protection of U.S. labor law under a bill signed Thursday by President Bush.

Debate over whether to extend federal labor and immigration law to the Marianas, in the northwestern Pacific, had been sullied by reports of sweatshop labor and past associations with the lobbying scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff, whose firm was hired by the islands to oppose the changes.

The measure, approved by Congress last month, creates a federally run guest-worker program in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes Saipan and 13 other islands north of Guam.