Via National Journal’s CongressDaily (subscription only) comes word that the Appropriations Committee has released lists of earmarks along with two bills (I’ve appended them to this post):

The House Appropriations Committee today took its first official steps to disclose pet projects in FY08 spending bills, revisiting the Interior-Environment and Financial Services measures to add the earmarks in advance of floor action next week. Now that Republicans got their wish, they are seeing the fruits of their efforts up close. Their own projects are being squeezed both by House Appropriations Chairman Obey’s decree of a 50 percent total reduction in earmarked projects as well as being on the receiving end of a 60-40 split between the majority and minority they have not experienced in a dozen years.

“There’s nothing magic about a 50 percent reduction,” Obey said.

“We’re simply trying to draw the line so that we have sufficient staff capacity to provide the review of these projects that is necessary to avoid embarrassment to the committee or the institution.”

I think there are actually plenty of people willing to help out with that.

The last page of the Interior list has some interesting language on it, taking a shot at the executive branch for its own earmark requests and for the practice of awarding no-bid contracts. OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org site has a breakdown of contracts awarded by amount of competition from 2000 to 2006 (for the last year, the government has released only partial data).