Action and commentary aplenty on the earmarks front, from CRS to OMB to Capitol Hill this week:

• CRS' Earmark Policy: the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service (CRS) "sudden" announcement that "it will no longer [perform research for] members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks" brought this WSJ denunciation on Monday, followed by this CQ-released ($) response by CRS the same day;
• OMB Database: the failure of OMB to meet its own commitment to producing a comprehensive earmarks database, publishing this website instead, prompting this scathing commentary Tuesday by Heritage Foundation founding president Paul Weyrich;
• Legislative Earmark Lop-Off: the Senate took action yesterday, adopting an amendment that removed a $2 million earmark for an institute at the University of Vermont named after former Senator James Jeffords. Said amendment sponsor Sen. Coburn (R-OK), "it is imperious to suggest that the only individual Americans with failing health that deserve special treatment in an emergency supplemental bill are former senators."

General Services Administrator Lurita Doan is on the front page of the Washington Post once again. This article plays up the allegation that GSA held events to help Republican candidates in the 2006 election. Not much new is revealed in the article, though if you're not familiar with the whole ordeal it's a good place to start.

The other element of this story is GSA's assault on the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). After the OIG objected to a GSA contract with Sun Microsystems, and launched an investigation into a suspicious no-bid contract that Doan tried to award to a personal friend, Doan tried to reduce the OIG's funding and restrict what it could audit. See this timeline for lots of links to articles on the scandal re: the OIG.

Freshman House Member Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has let a New York Times reporter in on the process and pitfalls of selecting pet projects in her district for earmark approrpriations. The view from what the reporter calls "a rare spectator's seat" is described in an article appearing in today's Times.

An open and transparent process becomes all the more important, as congressional appropriations for local projects rise:

The article quotes Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, as saying that Gillibrand's earmarks-in-the-sunshine approach is insufficient to change the fact that "Congress awards winners of taxpayer dollars on the basis of political muscle rather than a project's merit."

Perhaps a board should be appointed to sit in judgment of members' process of choosing local funding projects to determine whether merit or politics holds sway. The board already exists, however, and the voters of Rep. Gillibrand's will be able to make precisely that determination for themselves. How many other voters across the country will be able to do so?

In the article Matt cites below, Robert Novak reports on a related issue: Senate "appropriators' noncompliance" with a requirement in the Senate ethics bill (passed but not yet enacted) that a member requesting an earmark disclose any personal financial interest in that earmark.

Senate subcommittee "request forms [issued this year] generally omit" this disclosure requirement, Novak notes. Without new Senate ethics rules, there aren't any technical violations, but the practice runs afoul of the pledge by Appropriations chair Robert Byrd (D-WV) to "place a moratorium on all earmarks until a reformed process is put in place."

Meanwhile, The Hill reports today mounting confusion on the House side on how to interpret similar but mandatory earmarks disclosure requirements, echoing members' complaints that we noted earlier this month.

The confusion has prompted one House member to refrain from submitting any earmark requests at all, because of the "ethical uncertainty of any earmark defining personal financial interest."

Robert Novak reports today that the OMB database on earmarks is intentionally incomplete- orders came from the White House to not finish it, for fear of offending earmark beneficiaries.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the "Accountability in Contracting Act" by a vote of 347 - 73. The bill (H.R. 1362) would improve oversight of federal contractors by restricting the use of sole-source, or no-bid, contracts and require large contracting agencies to minimize their use of cost-reimbursement contracts. It would also tighten post-employment restrictions on government procurement officials and permanently extend the acquisition workforce training fund.

Despite unsubstantiated objections by the White House, the House moved quickly this week, marking up the contracting bill in both the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, and passing the bill on the floor in the span of only nine days.

The bill was the fifth passed by the House during Sunshine Week, all of which would expand and strengthen the transparency and accountability of the federal government. The other bills concerned protecting government whistleblowers, expanding the Freedom of Information Act, restoring the automatic release of presidential records, and requiring disclosure of donors to presidential libraries.

TAKE ACTION: Contact your Senators and Representative today to increase contractor responsibility and oversight!

We were quick to praise OMB for setting guidelines and a deadline -- per a January 25 memo from Director Rob Portman -- for a website to provide details on all earmarks funded in 2005. The deadline was yesterday. The website was launched on time. But it contains no references to specific earmarks, only aggregate agency and account funding data.

Today, Portman issued a press release "on Initial Phase of Earmark Database." The statement accurately claims that the site "provides more accurate information on earmarks in one place than has ever been available through the Federal Government," but it is unaccountably silent as to when the site will comply with OMB's January 25 website standards.

When asked about this, OMB Press Secretary Sean Kevelighan said, "in the coming weeks." Will the website provide information about Congressional earmarks' sponsors, as the House and Senate promise? "No." Will it honor the January 25 commitments on an earmark-by-earmark basis? "Yes, based on information that exists."

In an embarrassing reversal of its promise (reported here) to have a full searchable database of all FY 2005 earmarks on line by today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has announced that it will release information today only on the aggregate number and cost of earmarks from that year.

Apparently, the White House legislative liaison staff team has, for now, countermanded OMB chief Rob Portman's January 25 directive to all federal agenices to provide comprehensive earmark information, including the name and address of individual earmark recipients, the costs and descriptions of individual earmarks, and the relevant report or bill language funding the earmarks. Portman's directive promised that OMB will post this "information to the public Internet." [sic]

We had hailed Portman's earmarks disclosure initiative and are disappointed that the White House has interfered with it. We hope this is merely a temporary delay and strongly urge the White House to allow Portman's comprehensive searchable earmarks website to launch immediately.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House committee on government reform and oversight, has introduced a bill that would go a long way toward reforming the contracting process.

The bill would make publicly available more information on contracts, fix parts of the contracting process that have been exploited by wasteful contractors, and move towards closing the revolving door between government employees and contractors.

We look forward to see where Waxman takes this bill. Meanwhile, check out FedSpending.org for the most comprehensive data set out there on government contracting.

As promised, OMB will launch its earmark identification-and-tracking database website next Monday, March 12. The database's operational definition of eamarks and the information about them are outlined in attachments included in this January 25 memo from OMB Director Rob Portman.

Among the information to be reported on each earmark:

• earmark cost
• identification of recipient
• description of project
• whether the earmark is statutory or non-binding
• the relevant bill or report language

"Site" unseen, we applaud OMB for this long-overdue undertaking to make one of the most secretive aspects of federal spending transparent and accountable.

We'll have a URL address and commentary on the website for you next week.

According to an article in Roll Call today ($), a new earmark request-and-approval regime in the House is giving rise to a culture of confusion for members and lobbyists alike. The regime is proving to be a far more complex and perilous one than in the past, owing to:

• ambiguities in the House rules package on earmarks in several areas, including "multi-Member" funding letters supporting for broad or regional requests (which may now count against the earmark limits of each signatory)
• a diversity of application procedures and funding limits imposed by each of the twelve House Appropriations subcommittee chairs
• a Feb. 9 "Dear Colleague" letter from Appropriations chair Rep. David Obey (D-WI) indicating that his committee will allow only half the total dollar value of earmarks approved in FY 2006

Things might get worse -- or better, depending on your perspective -- before they settle down long enough to become less confusing. A Democratic leadership aide said yesterday that the House could even consider broader earmark reforms when it takes up the ethics pacakge conference report, probably later this month.

At a hearing of the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee yesterday, Chairman Jose Serrano (D-NY) made some harsh statements about the IRS privitization program that has outsourced some tax collection duties. Serrano said that the program is on its "deathbed" and that the program does not have a lot of supporters in Congress right now.

This is certainly welcome news from the appropriations subcommittee chair who has jurisdiction over the IRS. Yet another key voice has chimmed in on this program and the verdict is not good.