Republican divisions over earmarks have stalled the Senate’s effort to advance a five-bill appropriations “minibus” package before the end of the year. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wants to add four appropriations bills - Commerce, Justice, Science; Interior and Environment; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development - to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act (HR 4016).
But Thune needs unanimous consent to combine the five funding bills into a single appropriations minibus under Senate Rule XVI. Conservatives are presently objecting to waiving the rule to allow the Senate to consider the minibus because the combined bills include Republican-sponsored earmarks totaling more than $5 billion that violate the Republican Conference Rules. And Thune has signaled that removing those earmarks is not an option, commenting, “the Appropriations Committee has done a lot of work already, and it’s hard to unwind that.”
Lawmakers in the House and Senate use earmarks - or “congressionally directed spending” - to fund specific projects in their states and districts. In most federal grant programs, Congress sets an overall appropriation, and executive-branch officials then use a merit-based or competitive allocation process to award those funds to projects that comply with the program’s eligibility and regulatory requirements. In contrast, earmarks direct executive-branch officials to circumvent merit-based and competitive allocation processes to prioritize specific projects, locations, or recipients when awarding program funds.
