House Leaders Near Agreement on Managing Earmarks in Spending Bills

House leaders moved toward a tentative agreement last night on allowing votes on "earmarks" attached to upcoming annual spending bills, potentially ending a Republican-led floor protest over the handling of pet spending projects that had brought voting on the bills to a standstill.

The deal would allow the first two spending bills, for homeland security and for military construction and veterans affairs , to pass the House this week without any earmarks in their texts. Earmarks would be added later, as Democrats originally planned, before the bills enter conference, in which they are reconciled with their Senate versions.

The subsequent 10 bills would include all earmarks when they arrive on the House floor, subjecting them to open debate. Under the Democrats' new rules, that debate would be more meaningful because lawmakers' names for the first time would be attached to the earmarks.

Though the plan would delay votes on several of the bills until after the July 4 recess, they would all in theory stay on track to reach the president's desk before Oct. 1, the start of fiscal 2008.

"On our first day of the new-direction Congress, we implemented reforms to end the growth in secret earmarks," said Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "We are optimistic that House Republicans will end their delaying tactics that have obstructed passage of improvement in border, port and airline security, and the largest increase in veterans' health care in the 77-year history of the VA."

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Republican leader John A. Boehner (Ohio), would not acknowledge any final agreement last night. "The Democrats have made significant concessions, but there is no deal," he said.

On Tuesday, Republicans, angry over a plan by Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) to insert earmarks into the bills later in the process, staged an all-night series of speeches, stalling a vote on 2008 homeland security appropriations, the first of 11 bills House Democrats had hoped to pass before the July 4 recess.

Obey said his plan to insert earmarks into the bills just before they are reconciled with their Senate versions, rather than as they first reach the floor for a vote, would allow the Appropriations Committee staff to keep the bills on schedule. Republicans' failure to pass nine of 11 spending bills last year, and a long fight over the war spending bill passed last month, put the 2008 spending-bill cycle nearly a month behind. Besieged with more than 32,000 spending requests, Obey said vetting each one before the bills reached a vote would have delayed the process by weeks.

But Republicans protested the change. Until 2 a.m. yesterday, and for most of the day, they introduced amendment after amendment to indefinitely stall a vote. Under the tentative deal, debate on the bills would not be limited, but Republicans would agree not to obstruct votes further.

The concessions under discussion would put heavy pressure on appropriations staffers. But a deal would allow Democrats to move forward on the bills, whose spending levels have made them subject to presidential veto threats, and to keep the high ground on earmark reforms that began in January, when the House passed a rule requiring lawmakers to attach their names to pet spending projects.

Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) emphasized that, for the first time, the earmarks will "have a name and an address," allowing lawmakers and the news media to review them in "daylight."