White House Pressures OMB To Withhold Earmark Data From The Public

In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush promised to reform the congressional earmarking process:

The time has come to end this practice [of congressional earmarking]. So let us work together to reform the budget process … expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced plans last week to “step up the administration’s effort to cut earmarks by posting on its website next week all earmarks identified by federal agencies in fiscal year 2005 appropriations bills.”

But according to Mark Tapscott at the D.C. Examiner, the White House is reneging on this pledge and is pressuring the OMB to release only a partial list of congressional earmarks:

[Last week I heard from Hill sources] that the White House congressional liason staff was pressuring OMB Director Rob Portman to not release all of the earmarks requested by Members of Congress to executive agencies under the FY2005 budget. …

Now this morning, word is circulating on the Hill that the Bush administration is going to release only a limited database of earmarks later today or maybe no database at all, but just aggregate or summary data.

Seems the White House legislative staff fears releasing the database would offend members of the appropriation committees in Congress. So, the public gets the shaft, again, on a topic on which there is no doubt where the American people stand.

In 2005, Congress inserted 15,877 pork projects into spending bills. In 2006, Congress allocated a record $71.77 billion “to 15,832 special projects, more than double the $29.11 billion spent on 4,155 pork-barrel projects in 1994.”

The White House’s decision to protect pork comes during Sunshine Week, which highlights the public’s right to know what the government is doing. Not only is the Bush administration not following through on its promise to reform earmarking, but a new study has “found that 26 federal agencies were processing fewer FOIA requests, making petitioners wait much longer for responses and releasing less information than they were nine years ago.”

UPDATE: OMB spokesman Sean Kevelighan told ThinkProgress that OMB will be launching its earmarks website today with “aggregate data on the number and cost of earmarks down to the agency and account level.” He promised that OMB will be providing “even greater detail” in the future.

UPDATE II: Sunlight Foundation spoke with Rob Lehman, the OMB chief of staff, who said that contrary to the Tapscott report, “there is no ‘caving’ on their announced intention to publish a comprehensive list of earmarks online.”