White House Moving Forward on Earmark Reform

I'd missed this, but it looks like the Office of Management and Budget has directed the federal departments and agencies to begin aggressively compiling data on earmarks - both in enacted legislation and bills under consideration. It's a good move by Ambassador Portman. Once collected, the data will be published on the web:

The White House is heading to the Web in March to publicly post Congress’ earmarks in legislation, according to a new memorandum.

The Jan. 25 memo directs departments to catalog earmarks in appropriations and authorization bills and in report language to measure a clear baseline total. President Bush wants to cut that total in half by 2008.

For emphasis, the administration will post the earmark information in detail on the Internet by March 12, according to the memo written by Rob Portman, Office of Management and Budget director.

Knowing is half the battle.

(The original OMB memo is here).

Update: If earmarks interest you, check out these two posts on how Democrats are falling down on their promise to eliminate earmarks in appropriations bills this year.