GovernmentExecutive.com

The amount of money earmarked in fiscal 2010 spending bills has dropped more than $880 million, or about 30 percent, from fiscal 2009, according to a preliminary analysis by Citizens Against Government Waste of nine appropriation bills.

The nonpartisan spending watchdog group has tallied the earmarks in seven of the House spending bills and the Senate Agriculture and Homeland Security appropriations bills. The total amount of earmark funding for the nine bills dropped to $1.99 billion in fiscal 2010 from $2.87 billion in fiscal 2009.

"Of course we have to wait until the end to see where it all comes out ... but it is definitely moving in a positive direction," said CAGW President Tom Schatz. While he stressed the analysis is very preliminary, "it's about as good as we can get so far."

The group attributed the decline to increased exposure and pressure from taxpayers and anti-earmark groups to answer for the line items, along with consistent pressure from anti-earmark crusaders like Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

"There are always some members, like former Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd ... who are unabashed and unrepentant, but we think that a significant percentage of members have become a bit squeamish about having to answer for these earmarks, who recognize that some of them will inevitably lead to damaging scandals and that the system is broken," CAGW Media Director Leslie Page said.

"They are on the defensive and are beginning to wonder if the practice isn't more trouble than it's worth," she added.

The decline also comes after Democratic leaders in March implemented new earmark rules for the fiscal 2010 appropriations cycle, which include requirements that members must post their earmark requests on their Web sites, certify that they have no financial interest associated with the request, that the earmarks be subject to agency review, that they must be competitively bid, and could be rescinded if requested by the White House.

Of the nine bills the group studied, only two bills reflected increases in earmarked funds. The House Interior-EPA spending bill showed an increase to $156 million from $134.9 million in fiscal 2009, a 15 percent boost. The Senate fiscal 2010 Agriculture bill posted $220.7 million in earmarks, nearly a 32 percent increase over the $167.2 million provided in fiscal 2009.

The largest percentage decrease came in the House Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, which dropped 42.2 percent from $618.8 million in earmarks in fiscal 2009 to $357.4 million in fiscal 2010.

Earmark funding in the Financial Services Appropriations bill declined 42 percent to $33 million in fiscal 2010 from $57 million in this fiscal year.

The Military Construction-VA bill shed earmark spending in fiscal 2010 by 36 percent, to $394.8 million from $621.3 million, while earmarked funding in the House Energy and Water spending bill slipped 30 percent to $574.4 million from $821 million.

The House Commerce-Justice-Science bill reduced earmarks spending by 10.5 percent to $366.7 million in fiscal 2010 from $409.8 in fiscal 2009.

The Senate Homeland Security spending measure reduced its earmark funding nearly 32 percent to $156.2 million from $229.6 million, while the House Homeland Security bill scaled back its earmarked spending 8.7 percent to $109.7 million next year from$120.1 million in the current fiscal year.