Panel nixes Bush order on earmarks

House Democrats have escalated their shoving match with the White House over so-called “air-dropped” earmarks.

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), who chairs the Armed Services panel, tucked a provision in the chairman’s mark of the latest defense authorization bill that hit back at President Bush.

{mosads}Skelton’s provision would negate an executive order Bush signed earlier this year. That order barred federal government agencies from expending any funds for earmarks that have been added in House and Senate committee or conference report instead of the original bill’s language.

“Fundamentally, the committee does not believe and does not acknowledge the president’s assertion that report language should have no weight,” said a committee spokeswoman. “The president’s executive order would tear away years of history and tradition concerning the relationship between Congress and the Department of Defense.”

The provision spurred little comment when it passed the committee last week despite its straightforward title: “Inapplicability of Executive Order 1347.”

 Specifically, the section said the executive order doesn’t apply to the defense authorization bill “or to the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying this Act or to the committee reports of the Senate Committee on Armed Services or the House Committee on Armed Services which accompany this Act.”

In the weeks since, however, the bold provision has caught the attention of Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who plans to offer an amendment striking it when the authorization bill reaches the floor this week.

The anti-earmark crusader also plans to target four pet projects he believes Skelton’s provision was designed to protect. Among them: $2.5 million for Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) for “Green Range and Impact Zone”; $10 million for a World War II Museum in New Orleans, La.; $4 million to ProLogic Inc. for Gulf Range Mobile Instrumentation Capability; and $10.6 million for a Library/Lifelong Learning Center at the U.S. Marine Corp base in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Flake has made a habit of trying to eliminate funds for CTC, a beneficiary of tens of millions of dollars requested over the years by Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.).  

“I’ve never seen someone insert an executive order like this designed specifically to protect earmarks,” Flake said.

A spokesman for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) said Democrats are using the provision to undercut President Bush’s power late in his last term. The spokesman predicted that Democrats may be planning to include the language in future bills.

“They are basically throwing the glove down on this issue,” said Steve Ellis, TCS vice president, “and they are challenging him to sign this bill, which negates this [executive order], or veto the defense authorization bill over this provision.”

The final defense bill may not reach Bush’s desk before the November election. So Democrats may be trying to protect a Democratic president from having to directly rescind the executive order. Doing so would be tricky for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who has staked his candidacy on changing Washington and opposing the special interests that often benefit from earmarks.

Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman Corinne Hirsch said the president opposes Skelton’s provision and will address the earmark issue and Democratic efforts to circumvent his executive order in a statement of administration policy later this week.

In the fight between Bush and Democrats on the order, it is politically difficult for House Republicans to claim the high ground. Their leaders have tried to attack Democrats’ earmark policies this Congress, but nearly 300 Republicans requested projects included in the committee report.

In all, the report includes 541 project requests by 729 members — 436 Democrats and 293 Republicans.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a proponent of greater earmark reform, said Republicans deserve scrutiny on the issue.

“The Democratic Party in Congress is staking out the pro-earmark position,” he said. “The only question today is whether Republicans in Congress will stake out the anti-earmark position.”

Democrats on the committee argue that Congress should retain the right to add projects to bills that extend beyond the president’s budget, which often is written early in the year and does not reflect needs that become apparent later in the year.

Rep. Gene Taylor, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi who sits on the panel, said Congress has been instrumental in adding money to meet soldiers’ needs that arise later in the year. He specifically mentioned funds for up-armored Humvees, technology that jams improvised explosive devices and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, known as MRAPs.

But Ellis says citing Congress’s power of the purse is a false argument when discussing the executive order, which only mandates that the projects be mentioned in the text of the bills, instead of “air-dropping” them in committee and conference reports so lawmakers have little or no time to scrutinize them before they come to the floor for a vote.