WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in economic stimulus projects, saying Homeland Security officials were treating the recovery plan like a "bottomless pit'' of taxpayer money.

Dorgan said he was not persuaded by assurances from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that economic stimulus money was handed out appropriately.

The Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money. The result is that tiny crossings in Montana and Dorgan's home state are set to get money ahead of busier, higher-priority border stations.

Homeland Security officials say they acted appropriately. Dorgan was unconvinced, even though his state stands to receive more than $128 million for checkpoint improvements.

"There's no common sense at all to a requirement that says you've got to put up a $15 million facility for a small port of entry that's host to about five vehicles an hour,'' Dorgan said in a telephone interview. "That seems to suggest that there's a bottomless pit of taxpayers' money out there to be spent.''

Dorgan sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee, which helps control the purse strings for the federal government. His criticism is a blow to the Obama administration, which has promised to crack down on waste and provide unprecedented transparency to stimulus.

Neither Homeland Security nor White House officials immediately responded to requests for comment. Homeland Security refuses to make public the initial priority list or their reasons for deviating from it. Instead, officials say the final project list is all they need to make public.

After his statement, Dorgan, who could be facing a 2010 challenge against Republican Gov. John Hoeven, attracted criticism from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group responsible for getting Republicans elected to the Senate.

"It is the height of hypocrisy for Byron Dorgan to attack DHS for misusing taxpayer dollars, when it was Dorgan and his Democrat colleagues who insisted on rushing the trillion dollar 'stimulus' through Congress without even reading the bill," said NRSC spokesman Colin Reed in a statement.

(Bismarck Tribune reporter Brian Duggan contributed to this report. Reach him at 223-8482 or at brian.duggan@bismarcktribune.com)