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Committees grapple with disclosures |
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By Kevin Bogardus
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Posted: 06/08/07 07:36 PM [ET] |
As Congress attempts to enact ethics reform to provide greater transparency into potential conflicts of interest in earmark requests, disclosure has varied widely from panel to panel.
Some lawmakers are pushing for new standards and more accountability in the appropriations process. But with the lobbying reform bill not yet law, chairmen have not set a consistent pattern in how best to disclose their panels’ interests in earmarks.
But that could change soon. House and Senate aides have been meeting this week to discuss the lobby reform bill, which will soon be taken up in conference, according to a House Democratic leadership aide. The House has already passed its version of the bill, while an earmark-disclosure provision in the Senate version is expected to survive the conference. The Senate
passed its version in January, while the House signed off on its bill in May.
Once the bill becomes law, it will require both the House and the Senate to post their earmark-disclosure statements online.
Through an internal rules change in January, the House voted to disclose written statements by members vouching that they have no interest in any appropriations bill. But the letters are available only to those who visit Congress in person.
Complicating the matter, committee chairmen have interpreted the new rule differently, resulting in varying disclosure practices among panels.
For example, in the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee has stuffed its members’ disclosure letters into six binders. Open to the public in the committee’s office on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, the statements are in alphabetical order according to members’ last names. Some go on for three pages, laying out budget numbers and addresses for each earmark’s intended recipient.
Two floors down, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee provides one-sheet forms for its members.
Organized by state and then district in manila folders, the forms say little beyond the earmark’s location and purpose. Not many members took up the option to attach more information to the forms.
About 30 people have visited the Armed Services Committee to view the statements since they became available about a month ago, while about 10 people have stopped by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s office, according to an aide.
In contrast, the Senate has not yet enacted a rules change on disclosure. But some committee chairmen have offered their own guidelines in earmark disclosure, in accordance with the Senate lobbying reform bill. For example, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has posted its members’ letters online. But the committee has promised only to follow the spirit of the Senate bill for now, leading senators to offer very little about their earmarks.
As Steve Ellis, vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense, put it: “Everybody recognizes when you start a new process, there are going to be some bumps in the road.”
Ellis added that he had hoped the House earmark letters would be posted on the Internet.
“You have to get on a plane to D.C. to see your member’s earmarks disclosure,” he said. “That is not really transparent.”
Under the House rules change, detailed information — such as the address or location of the earmark’s recipient, as well as its purpose — “shall be open to public inspection.” But the only online disclosure requirement is that members who request earmarks, their projects and the dollar amounts be posted in the House bills’ conference reports — after the committees decide on the earmarks.
Mary Kerr, press secretary for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said that panel members contemplated posting the earmark-request statements on the Internet but were worried that their signatures could be forged.
Meanwhile, in the House committee offices, visitors have restricted access. They can view the statements in person but cannot make photocopies of the written statements. The Armed Services Committee keeps its earmarks data in electronic format, but it has no plans to release it to the public.
In contrast to the House committees, the Senate Environment and Public Works panel posted its earmark-request statements online. Yet most provide very little information on the earmarks themselves. In the roughly 90 letters posted to date, members assure they have no financial interest in their earmarks, but they include no description of what those earmarks are or where they are located.
Earmark disclosure is not “just about just saying you and your spouse do not have a pecuniary interest in your earmark,” said Ellis. “It was about providing more information to the public on what their taxpayer dollars were being spent on.”
He pointed to a letter by the committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), promising to follow the “spirit” of the lobbying reform bill.
“I give them the benefit of the doubt because they were the first out of the gate,” he added.
The panel did post a document on its website that lays out earmark requests by member and location but leaves out the dollar amount.
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