Appropriations lobbyists are struggling with more paperwork, new spending restrictions and earlier deadlines for requests as lawmakers try to bring home the bacon without getting stung by an embarrassing earmark request.
Lawmakers hope the additional forms and the requests for more information about projects will help them justify the federal funding they’re seeking. But the new standards have led to complaints among lobbyists that they have to spend too much time on the intricate request applications.
“More time you spend on the forms, the less time you have on developing a better project and coming up with a strategy on how you sell the project,” one appropriations lobbyist said.
Lobbyists help their clients complete funding request forms, which they submit to member offices. The members then review the forms and decide which ones to forward to the relevant appropriations subcommittees as funding requests.
This year, lawmakers appear wary that news accounts of the “Bridge to Nowhere” — a span that would have connected sparsely populated Gravina Island to tiny Ketchikan, Alaska — and other questionable requests have soured the public’s mood on targeted funding requests, which critics deride as pork-barrel spending. With the climate increasingly toxic for pet projects, several members have set up tough restrictions on which programs should be funded.
Rep. Thelma Drake (R-Va.) has established new limits on what she will ask for funding this year, according to a certification document available on her website that accompanies an earmark request form.
“None of the funding requested will be used for a building, program, or project that has been named for a sitting member of Congress. Exceptions for previously named buildings, programs or projects must be fully justified,” according to the certification form.
Earmark-funded projects named after members of Congress proved to be a flashpoint during last year’s budget battle.
The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, named after the New York Democrat, and the Lewis Center for Education Research, named after Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, were targeted by fiscal conservatives last year.
Drake’s press secretary, Travis Burk, said the new rule was set in order to comply with earmark-reform standards established by the House Republican Conference. GOP leadership called on Democrats to meet those limits, too, but party leaders have rejected that offer.
Rep. Jean Schmidt’s (R-Ohio) office said she will continue to only request earmarks for local or state government agencies.
“We cannot even begin to take care of the infrastructure projects because there are so many,” said Barry Bennett, Schmidt’s chief of staff. Schmidt started that practice a year ago.
The new restrictions could have an adverse affect on lawmakers’ fundraising efforts as the election season enters a new gear, some lobbyists predicted.
“I think you would see a drop in their contributions,” another appropriations lobbyist said. “It is definitely more difficult to fundraise when you limit the universe you can assist.”
But more and more members’ offices now require forms to be filled out for earmark requests, lobbyists told The Hill.
The forms typically ask advocates to justify why federal funding is necessary for the project.
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) earmark request form asks that the project’s “benefit to the community and/or Illinois” be listed. In addition, requesters are asked to list how much federal funding its project has received in the past, as well as other potential revenue sources.
Though earmarks have come under widespread criticism, there are those willing to defend them — anonymously, anyway. A seven-page memo, tilted “The Fairness of Congressional Earmarking in American Democracy,” has made the rounds in recent weeks among lobbyists and congressional staff.
The unsigned memo examines the disparity between how Congress chose to fund certain programs compared with the Bush administration’s priorities in 2007, when earmarks were left out of the omnibus spending bill.
“Proponents of eliminating earmarks argue that the Executive Branch is better suited than Congress to distribute federal dollars,” the paper states.
“When you examine how funding was distributed when federal agencies controlled the allocation of all spending, however, you will see a distribution of federal funding that failed to recognize that communities all across America face serious challenges needing federal support, and that funding was concentrated to only a few entities.”
The report also noted that in 2007, when Democrats pushed through spending bills devoid of earmarks, federal spending did not decline. Several lobbyists told The Hill that they had seen the document but did not know its author.
A number of deadlines for submitting requests to House members and senators have already passed this year. The House Appropriations Committee has set a March 19 deadline for submitting those requests to its subcommittees.
Deadlines for the Senate Appropriations Committee are more staggered, with some subcommittees asking for requests by March 20 and others extending the deadline into mid-April.
