By Emelie Rutherford
A top Senate Democrat announced yesterday a two-year ban on earmarks from spending bills, temporarily halting appropriations earmarks throughout Congress and further altering how defense firms seek to influence Congress.
The action by Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) essentially ensures no earmarks will be inserted in the Pentagon’s next appropriations bill, for fiscal year 2012; Republicans who control the House already declared a ban on such directed spending items.
Inouye, a frequent earmarker, said yesterday his committee will allow no earmarks in the still-not-passed FY ’11 appropriations bills and the FY ’12 versions because of the House moratorium and President Barack Obama’s declaration in his State of the Union address last week that he would veto any legislation containing earmarks.
“I continue to support the Constitutional right of members of Congress to direct investments to their states and districts under the fiscally responsible and transparent earmarking process that we have established,” he said in a statement. “However, the handwriting is clearly on the wall…..Given the reality before us, it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law.”
Inouye said the SAC will “thoroughly review” its earmark policy and give committee members a rule that precisely defines what an earmark is. Requests for directed spending to the SAC that fit the definition will be denied, he said.
Inouye, who also chairs the SAC’s defense subcommittee, said he will revisit the earmark moratorium next year, “when the consequences of this decision are fully understood by the members of this body.”
“At the appropriate time, I will once again urge the Senate to consider a transparent and fair earmark process that protects our rights as legislators to answer the petitions of our constituents, regardless of what the president or some federal bureaucrat thinks is right,” Inouye added.
The senior senator has long defended the earmarking process, pointing out in the past that weapon systems including unmanned aerial vehicles were not initially requested by the Pentagon and originated as earmarks. Yet he bowed to the political reality of the anti-earmark sentiment in Washington.
Government budget watchdogs hailed Inouye’s announced moratorium.
“A one-two punch from Congressional Republicans and the President has brought an end to earmarks–at least temporarily,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. “Now it’s time for the President and Congress to roll up their collective sleeves and design the transparent, merit-based, competitive, and formula systems to make responsible spending decisions. No more political muscle trumping project merit.”
Congress has been moving away from earmarks in recent years, spurred in part by the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal of 2005 and public criticism of federal spending viewed as excessive. Steps taken in recent years include mandates for lawmakers to disclose earmark requests and a successive series of partial and full bans on earmarks in appropriations bills.
Defense lobbyists said they have shifted away from seeking specific earmarks from lawmakers on behalf of their clients because of this scrutiny.
Defense earmarks also can be inserted into the policy-setting defense authorization bill.
The FY ’11 defense authorization act, which Obama signed into law last month, contains no earmarks, after Senate and House negotiators removed them when negotiating a final version of the delayed bill.
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) sent panel Chairman Carl Levin (D- Mich.) a letter last week calling for a ban on earmarks in the FY ’12 defense authorization bill that Congress will begin weighing in two weeks.
“Keeping earmarks out of the [defense authorization bill] while allowing debate and votes on other amendments to the president’s budget request will show that the committee is serious about getting rid of waste in the defense budget at a time when the rest of the government and every taxpayer is being asked to do the same,” McCain argued.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) has pledged support for the House earmark moratorium.