When the House Appropriations Committee required members to post earmark requests on their Web sites before they submitted them to the committee, 321 members had them online in a reasonably accessible format. When the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee suggested members post earmark requests for the next big transportation reauthorization bill on their own Web sites–but didn’t require it–we found just 71 disclosures online. That’s comparable to the number that used to disclose requests voluntarily when there was no requirement to disclose.

Oeadlines do matter.