News release: “Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), incoming Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced three significant changes to further increase transparency and reduce funding levels for earmarks, building on reforms brought about in the last Congress…new reforms to begin with the 2010 bills include:
- Posting Requests Online: To offer more opportunity for public scrutiny of member requests, members will be required to post information on their earmark requests on their Web sites at the time the request is made explaining the purpose of the earmark and why it is a valuable use of taxpayer funds.
- Early Public Disclosure: To increase public scrutiny of committee decisions, earmark disclosure tables will be made publically available the same day as the House or Senate Subcommittee rather than Full Committee reports their bill or 24
hours before Full Committee consideration of appropriations legislation that has not been marked up by a Senate Subcommittee. - Further Cuts: Earmarks will be further reduced to 50% of the 2006 level for non-project-based accounts.” [Note: “President-elect Barack Obama said today in a meeting with members of his budget team that he will ban earmarks from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will soon go before Congress. The President-elect also said he expects his administration to inherit a budget deficit of up to $1 trillion.”]
