Chambers set to do battle on earmarks

The House and Senate are heading for a clash over earmarks this fall because House lawmakers have nearly halved the number of their pet projects while the Senate has done little to reduce earmarks in spending bills.

As a result, the Senate has proposed spending more than twice as much as the House on earmarks, creating the biggest disparity between the two chambers on parochial project spending in years.

{mosads}The different philosophies of the House and Senate are summed up in the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

On his own, Byrd successfully has requested $185 million worth of earmarks for the state of West Virginia in 10 appropriations bills, according to an analysis compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a non-partisan group that tracks federal appropriations. Including requests made jointly with colleagues, Byrd has won $274 million in earmarks for his home state.  

Obey, by comparison, has placed $95 million worth of projects in non-defense spending bills passed by the House.

A comparison between the total number of projects in House- and Senate-crafted spending bills is even more striking.

A survey of 11 non-defense spending bills shows that House appropriators included 5,291 projects worth $2.6 billion, according to a TCS analysis. Senate appropriators built in 4,486 projects costing a total of $7.4 billion. The Senate’s proposal to spend nearly $5 billion more than the House on earmarks sets the stage for difficult conference negotiations in coming weeks.

Spending figures for earmarks are likely to change as appropriations bills wend their way toward becoming law.

The comparison between House and Senate spending bills does not include Appropriations defense legislation, which usually carries hundreds of earmarks, because the Senate Appropriations panel has not yet made public its version.

“I don’t remember a time that the number of earmarks between the two bodies was so unequal, so I think there’s probably going to be an argument about whether the House goes up or the Senate goes down,” said Scott Lilly, who served as Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee for 10 years.

Lilly, who now works at a progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress, explained Byrd’s and Obey’s differing views on earmarks.

“I don’t think there are any two members [who] have identical outlooks toward earmarks,” he said. “West Virginia is a state that has had one of the most troubled economies and one of the greatest needs for additional infrastructure, so I think it makes any member of Congress from West Virginia do all they can to resolve some of those problems.”

Describing his former boss’s view on pet projects, Lilly said: “[Obey] thinks earmarks should be used judiciously and thoughtfully and in a way that doesn’t result in embarrassment, and he thinks that hasn’t been true for the last dozen years, so he’s trying to instill a greater level of responsibility in the use of the earmarks.”

Lilly emphasized, however, that he does not speak for Obey.

TCS Vice President Steve Ellis said that the earmark discrepancy between the House and Senate would lead to difficult negotiations.

“It’s going to make a messy situation going forward when they try to conference these bills,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen where the disparity between the House bills and the Senate bills is so striking. It reflects the fact that Obey said he was going to cut the amount and number of earmarks by 50 percent and did so, while Senator Byrd didn’t.”

Specifically, House appropriators have reduced by 50 percent funding for earmarks in non-project-based accounts, which contain the bulk of earmarks. The 50 percent reduction does not include project-based accounts.

House Democrats echoed Ellis’s view.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the fall because the House wants to keep up with its pledge and the Senate doesn’t want to cut its earmarks,” a House Democratic aide said in reference to Obey’s pledge to cut earmarks by 50 percent.

Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), chairman of the Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development subcommittee, said House lawmakers may demand more earmarks for themselves if the senators do not reduce the amount of money allocated for their own projects.

“In our negotiations, we may increase our allocation,” Pastor said, adding that House appropriators may push for a “surge” of earmarks for themselves and their colleagues if the Senate doesn’t moderate its position.

Byrd and other senators have defended their spending decisions.

During a floor speech in early August, Byrd said President Bush had requested over $23 billion worth of the earmarks contained in 11 of 12 appropriations bills, nearly 80 percent of the total spent on earmarks.   

“We have taken steps to bring unprecedented transparency to earmarks and brought pressure on members to prioritize their projects and to show that they do not have any personal financial interest in earmarks,” a spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, Jenny Thalheimer, said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the concern over the total money spent on earmarks is misplaced.

“I don’t think we should be worried about the number of earmarks,” he said. “If they’re good earmarks, fine; if they’re not good, get rid of them.”