Appropriator open to keeping 2008 bills earmark-free

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., is considering keeping earmarks largely out of this year's regular appropriations bills, according to lawmakers, aides and lobbyists.

Obey previously pledged to cut the number of earmarks in half relative to appropriations bills approved a few years ago.

Eliminating them altogether is still in the discussion stage, sources said, but the prospect has triggered widespread concern over the potential for another earmark-free fiscal year. Obey and Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., recently stripped the entire fiscal 2007 domestic budget of earmarks when they approved a year-long continuing resolution earlier this year.

The prospect surfaced at a meeting Obey held last week with GOP subcommittee ranking members to discuss the fiscal 2008 measures. House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Jack Kingston, R-Ga., applauded Obey for reaching out to Republican panel members, but said eliminating earmarks would be the wrong approach.

"I think that we have worked ourselves into a frenzy on the subject and when that happens. Congress historically overreacts," Kingston said. On the Labor-Health and Human Services measure, for example, Obey might need Republican votes and that would require earmarks. "The problem is you need Republicans to pass the bill and Republicans need their pork-barrel projects the same way Democrats always did on Labor-HHS," he said.

Obey said no decision had been made although some members "raised concerns" with him at the meeting.

"I've told people that the way this place works I wouldn't be surprised if in the end we didn't want to put any earmarks in," Obey said, including in the final versions negotiated with the Senate. "I can't tell you if we're going to have earmarks or not until I see what the hell they look like, until I see what mood the House is in, what mood the Senate is in."

Kingston noted that if the House did eliminate earmarks in its versions, the Senate was unlikely to follow suit, putting the House at a disadvantage in conference negotiations.

The potential move stems in part from widespread confusion over personal financial disclosure requirements approved earlier this year as part of a House rules change.

Aside from having to disclose their sponsorship of an earmark, its intended recipient and purpose, members must also specify in writing that neither they nor their spouse has a financial interest at stake in a project.

In the absence of clear guidelines about what constitutes a financial interest, House Appropriations ranking member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., requested that Obey extend the deadline for members to request projects. Originally set for March 16, Obey moved the deadline to April 27.

The goal was to give subcommittee staff enough time to process the requests to begin markups of the fiscal 2008 spending bills in early May. Even with the amended deadline, members have had trouble filing their earmark requests, but Obey has decided to keep to his markup schedule even if it means bills go without earmarks.

Earmarks might be added in conference with the Senate, once the rules are clarified. But that would leave the Democrats open to charges that they were "air-dropping" earmarks into conference reports without prior debate, a practice that was much-derided under Republican rule. As chairman last year, Lewis front-loaded projects in the initial House versions, ostensibly to allow more time for review.

If they do exclude earmarks from House bills, one lobbyist said, House Democrats will have "run this train right into an embankment."