Spending panels open up requests for earmarks

Congressional appropriators began soliciting requests for pet projects this week, a sign that Congress is still grappling over whether to bow to President Bush’s State of the Union request to rein in earmarking.

These requests are a normal part of the appropriations process, but to earmark foes both on and off Capitol Hill, it’s a sign that lawmakers from both parties have not lost the appetite of steering federal money back home for pet projects.

{mosads}They are firing up the old earmark bandwagon again and inviting everyone on board,” said Steve Ellis, a vice president at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The [executive order] and veto threat are the elephants in the room they are trying to ignore. Just go about spending business as usual and hope it goes away.”

Earmarks are popular with both parties, especially in an election year. But Republicans are under enormous pressure to show their fiscal conservative base that they will curtail the practice. Critics say lawmakers abuse earmarking and have repeatedly crossed ethical lines; supporters argue that it is Congress’ prerogative to choose spending priorities so long as the process is transparent.

Both House and Senate Republicans say they are taking steps that could lead to a decrease in earmarks. But Democrats have been defiant in the face of Bush’s statements, and have levied criticism on the president for proposing a slew of pet projects in his own fiscal 2009 budget proposal.

“We cut earmarks in half in this past year, and one would hope maybe the president would cut his earmarks in half,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee.

A day after his State of the Union address last month, Bush issued an executive order telling federal agencies to ignore earmarks included in committee report language that accompany the text of spending bills. He also pledged to veto any spending bill this year that does not cut earmarks in half from previous years’ levels.

Appropriations bills typically allocate a specific amount of funding, and report language provides detailed instructions on how agencies should carry out that funding. Supporters say that the practice is necessary to make it easier to direct the funding in case there is a mistake written in the legislation, but critics say the process allows lawmakers to hide potentially problematic projects from daylight.

“If these items are truly worth funding, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote,” Bush said to a standing ovation during the State of the Union address.

Bush submitted his $3.1 trillion budget to Capitol Hill this week, kicking off this year’s budget process. Afterward, House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees began setting deadlines ranging from the middle of March to the first week of April for lawmakers to submit all requests, including bill and report language, according to lawmakers and e-mails sent out by the committee aides.{mospagebreak}

The Senate Appropriations Committee will issue further guidelines next week on members’ earmark requests. But it remains unclear whether the final number will represent a sharp decrease or how appropriators will tweak the legislative language. Simply making a request does not necessarily mean the earmark will make it into spending bills.

 “At the present time, no decisions on any issues about earmarks have been made,” said Jesse Jacobs, spokesman for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), head of the panel.

{mosads}Part of the problem for determining how to respond to Bush’s request is that it’s not clear what baseline the White House will use to determine whether earmarks have been cut in half. Nor did the White House clarify what it would consider sufficient as far as explaining projects in legislative text, Appropriations aides say.

Since Bush made the announcement, Democratic leaders have slammed the president for ignoring the issue when Republicans controlled Congress — and for finding a newfound sense of fiscal responsibility even though his recent budget projects a deficit swelling to $410 billion.

Even if Congress and Bush remain at loggerheads over earmarks, leading to a protracted budget fight resembling last year’s battle, Democrats have a plan: wait for Bush to leave office and hope a Democrat wins the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this week that if that situation occurs, Congress may pass a stop-gap resolution that keeps the government funded at last year’s levels and wait for either Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to move into the White House.

Reid said this week that Democrats “will not be held hostage” to the president’s budget request. But Democrats could lose that leverage if the likely GOP nominee, earmark foe Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), wins in November.

House and Senate Republicans already say they are taking steps to curb the practice. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), an appropriator who regularly secures earmarks, created a five-member commission to report to the Republican Conference by March 15 to report on ways to fix the process.

“The legislative process is deliberative around here, and I imagine we have at least until March 15 to make some suggestions,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), an appropriator and the third-ranking Senate Republican.

House Republicans have called on Democrats to join them on an immediate moratorium on earmarks, but Democrats have rejected the request, saying the GOP only made the request knowing full well the majority would not go along.