The recent policies imposed by the House Appropriations Committee and the House Republican Caucus to ban for-profit earmarks and all earmarks respectively will reduce the ability of the public to track directed spending and do little to stem this type of spending. Perhaps this is counter-intuitive to some people, but, as the late, great Bill Hicks would say, "I know this is not a very popular idea. You don't hear it too often any more … but it's the truth."

First of all, the obvious, the for-profit earmark ban and the House Republican earmark ban both only apply to the House of Representatives. The Senate refuses to follow suit. With the Senate earmarking precious appropriations dollars, House members will take to lobbying their state's senators for earmarks in their respective districts. The money isn't drying up, so why not try to get some.

Second, tons of not-for-profit earmarks go to colleges, universities, non-profits and state and local governments that then contract out to for-profit firms. Here are some examples:

Twice in recent years, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) helped obtain earmarks totaling $3.2 million for a home-state university to study how to make military jet fuel from plants. Standing behind that nonprofit work, however, is a for-profit Chicago firm that often partners with universities to reap part of their earmark benefits. (Washington Post)

Another example of controversial earmarks the new reform would not touch is a nonprofit defense research center at Pennsylvania State University that collected nearly $250 million in earmarks through Murtha, then channeled a significant portion of the funds to companies that were among Murtha’s campaign supporters.

According to a report in the Washington Post, officials at the center regularly consulted with two “handlers” close to Murtha, one of whom was a lobbyist for the PMA Group, a firm that recently disbanded in the wake of an FBI raid on its offices. (The Hill)

The above-linked Washington Post article rightly notes that, "[the] new rule was widely touted as a crackdown, but in reality it could leave untouched almost 90 percent of typical earmarks."

Third, there are a variety of other ways for lawmakers to secure earmarked funds outside of the appropriations committee. One such example are the earmarks included in the transportation reauthorization bill. Unlike the Appropriations Committee, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee does not post online the requests they receive from members nor does it require members to post their transportation earmarks to their official web sites. Transportation earmarks only come up every four years. If a ban remains in effect, lawmakers will certainly look for other ways to direct spending to their district. By going through Transportation Committee they would be circumventing transparency rules set up by the Appropriations Committee.

Even more troubling could be the increase in "phone-marks" in place of earmarks. "Phone-marks" are the practice of lawmakers lobbying executive agencies to give money to particular organizations. Lawmaker lobbying could easily be instigated by an outside lobbyist or campaign contributor seeking funding for a project. And, of course, there is no transparency in this process.

What Congress really needs to do is pass real earmark reform. Earmark reform that makes the process totally transparent and encoded in rules or laws. Committee imposed rules or bans can easily be changed or circumvented -- this includes the committee's imposed rules on earmark transparency. Passing a resolution like the Cassidy-Speier earmark reform bill would allow people to actually see the earmarking process before their eyes, instead of head-faking with a ban and then taking the process underground.

We just received a fact sheet from the White House, which outlines some of the policy goals suggested in President Obama's State of the Union address.

As Ellen noted, we are particularly excited about new proposals for lobbying disclosure reform and better earmark disclosure.

I've embedded a copy below, and copied the text in the extended entry.

RESCUE, REBUILD, RESTORE – A NEW FOUNDATION FOR PROSPERITY CRACKING DOWN ON SPECIAL INTERESTS

For too long, hardworking folks doing everything they can to stay afloat have not been heard over the powerful voices of the special interests and their lobbyists in Washington. The result was a national agenda too often skewed in favor of those with the power to tilt the tables. In the President’s first year in office, he implemented historic reforms to reduce the influence of those special interests. But more needs to be done. That’s why the President continues to believe a reformed Presidential public finance system is essential, along with the following additional key reforms:

• Fix the Damage Done by Citizens United: Last week, the Supreme Court handed a huge victory to corporate interests and their lobbyists. Its 5-4 decision wrongly overturns a century of law that had barred corporations from using their financial clout to directly interfere with elections and opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. The President has instructed his Administration to work with Congress to develop a forceful, bipartisan response to this decision. Those efforts are underway, including responding to the danger that foreign-controlled corporations will seek to influence our elections.

• Limit Contributions and Bundling by Lobbyists: During the campaign, the President voluntarily declined to accept contributions from federally-registered lobbyists. It’s time this practice became law. That’s why the President is calling upon Congress to establish low-dollar limits on the contributions lobbyists may bundle or make to candidates for federal office. Those carefully-tailored limits would ensure that lobbyists can’t unduly influence the system to favor the special interests over the public interest.

• Toughen Lobbyist Disclosure Rules: Under instructions from the President, the White House now discloses detailed records of its visitors. It’s past time that the Lobbying Disclosure Act was updated to conform all lobbying to this practice. Lobbyists should disclose everyone they lobby and when, where, and what the substance of the contact was. The current law also contains a loophole that allows many lobbyists to avoid registering so long as they keep their actual lobbying activities to less than 20% of their time working for any particular client, and another loophole that allows foreign agent lobbyists to avoid full disclosure of their activities. Those loopholes should be closed.

• Fully Disclose All Earmark Requests: Many Members and others disclose earmarks on various individual websites. That has helped contribute to a significant drop in earmarks since 2008, but the practice is far from uniform across Congress, and often too difficult to access prior to votes. It’s time for a comprehensive, bipartisan, state-of-the-art disclosure database that allows Americans to examine the details of every proposed earmark before a vote is taken—one that is fully searchable and otherwise user-friendly. These steps build on the actions that the President has already taken to crack down on special interests and their lobbyists and to make government more open and accountable to the American people: • Closing the Revolving Door: On January 21, 2009, the President signed an Executive Order imposing tougher ethics standards on this Administration than any in history. The Order not only places strict limits on lobbyists joining the Administration but also prohibits all appointees from lobbying the Obama Administration after leaving government service. These steps earned the Administration an “A” rating on fulfilling its promise to close the revolving door by a consortium of independent good government watchdogs.

• Banning Gifts from Lobbyists: In that same Executive Order, the President also imposed strict limits on appointees in his Administration accepting gifts from lobbyists.

• Restricting Recovery Act Lobbyist Contacts: On March 20, 2009, the President issued a memorandum imposing restrictions and disclosure requirements on registered lobbyists' communications with federal officials regarding Recovery Act funding. Those restrictions were expanded on July 24, 2009 to limit communications by lobbyists and non-lobbyists alike once a competitive grant application is on file to insure decisions are merits-based.

• Disclosing Visitors to the White House: On September 10, 2009, the Administration announced it would post White House visitor records online, including for registered lobbyists and others who come to the White House, so the public can know who comes and goes from the people’s house.

• Removing Lobbyists from Advisory Boards and Commissions: On September 23, 2009, the White House announced a goal of no longer appointing or reappointing federally registered lobbyists to agency advisory boards and commissions and federal agencies across the government have implemented policies to achieve that goal.