An open and transparent appropriations process

This editorial flags up an interesting story that I missed, and I don't think we covered:

"Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify 'earmarks' ... in documents that accompany spending bills .... Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman [Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.)] to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them[.]" [Obey's rule means that earmarks] won't be added to spending measures till the fall, when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to the president. But that means few lawmakers will get a chance to oppose specific projects ... [and] "keeping earmarks secret until it's too late to do anything about it."

(They're quoting, respectively, an AP story and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)). Phil Kerpen at Human Events picked this up and ran with it, adding that not only is this a lamentable way to run an appropriations process ("Conference committees are supposed to be for reconciling differences between House and Senate versions of legislation. Earmarks conjured out of nowhere in conference have long been identified as one of the most abusive earmarking practices. ... Adding earmarks at that stage virtually guarantees that indefensible projects will be funded because they will escape any meaningful public review or congressional debate"), but more juicy yet, it's against the rules:

Adding earmarks in conference reports is also a violation of the standing rules of both the House and Senate. The relevant House rule (rule XXII, paragraph 9) says: “Moreover, a conference report may not include matter not committed to the conference committee by either House.” The relevant Senate rule (rule XXVIII, paragraph 2) says: “Conferees shall not insert in their report matter not committed to them by either House, nor shall they strike from the bill matter agreed to by both Houses.” When these rules were broken by Republican majorities, Democrats correctly called foul ... [but] [n]ot only are Democrats now refusing to specifically prohibit the practice, but Chairman Obey is using the conference committee method to block transparency of all House earmarks. Far from setting a new standard of openness and ethics, the Democrats, are now setting a new low for public accountability with respect to earmarking, disregarding their campaign promises as well as the rules of the Congress.

In short, this is bad because (1) it's against the rules of the House and Senate, and (2) "[it] means that citizens, bloggers and porkbusting members of Congress would only have a few hours to look through thousands of earmarks for conflicts of interest and wasteful spending before appropriations bills would be put to a vote. Worse, members would not have any way to strip out bad earmarks and reduce spending by the amount they would have cost."

Under pressure, Obey is now tantalizing us with the prospect of a kosher 2008:

Then Obey alluded to the possibility of not having any earmarks in the 2008 spending bills. “When and if we have earmarks — and I am still skeptical that we will have earmarks in the end, and I am skeptical because people get greedy and they screw up the whole process ....”

Still, if Obey actually does it, that'll merit some serious kudos (although I share Flake's skepticism - I don't know which is less likely, flying pigs or their flying the coop from Congressional spending next year.)

In her speech accepting the Speakership, Speaker Pelosi said that "the American people told us they expected us to work together for fiscal responsibility, with the highest ethical standards and with civility and bipartisanship." Shame the Dems weren't listening. Obey's new directive seems flatly incompatible with the "toughest congressional ethics reform in history," the "respect for every voice in the Congress," the commitment to "in the first 100 hours ... mak[ing] this Congress the most honest and open Congress in history," that Pelosi promised in the same speech.

Related:
The Great Earmark Slaughter