Hell Freezes Over (from CQ)

Inouye Agrees to Halt Earmarks

Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said Tuesday that his committee will impose a moratorium on earmarks in spending bills for fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012.

The announcement appears to bring Senate Democrats, the last powerful holdouts out he earmark issue, in line with positions already taken by Republicans and President Obama. “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 House and Senate Republican caucuses voted in November to support voluntary bans on earmark requests. Obama highlighted opposition to earmarks in his annual State of the Union speech last week. “The American people deserve to know that special interests aren’t larding up legislation with pet projects,” he said. “Both parties in Congress should know this. If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it.”

Inouye’s decision may have removed a potentially distracting sideshow from the already fierce battle over federal spending. Enacting significant spending cuts into law almost certainly will require a successful collaboration between Inouye and his House counterpart, Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. Having earmarks in the mix would have been an additional point of contention between the two, who are tasked with making tough calls on which federal programs lose money. While many voters and lawmakers are calling for budget cuts, few, if any, groups that benefit from federal money are volunteering to give up this aid. Like Inouye, Rogers once defended earmarks before joining in the rising clamor to halt them. Staff members on Rogers’ committee have been looking for cuts in the first appropriations bill of the 112th Congress, a proposed continuing resolution (CR) designed to last through September. The current CR expires March 4.

Inouye said his committee will “thoroughly review its earmark policy” to make sure members understand the policy. “If any member submits a request that is an earmark as defined by that rule, we will respectfully return the request,” he said. Late last year, Republican appropriators helped Inouye write an omnibus spending package wrapping together unfinished fiscal 2011 spending bills. That measure included requests for earmark spending. But under pressure from incoming conservatives affiliated with anti-spending tea party groups, those GOP appropriators then revoked their support. The House and Senate agreed on the short-term CR.

Inouye left open the possibility of an earmarks return. His committee will revisit the issue and look for ways to improve the process, after the consequences of the ban are “fully understood,” Inouye said. “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,” he said.

P.S. The image above shows a Sami herder using a sharp knife to apply his "brand" to a young reindeer in northern Finland. For obvious reasons, the practice is called earmarking. --KK