Isn’t it good to know that this congress has pledged to institute “unprecedented openness“?

Of course saying it is one thing, doing it is quite another.

After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress’ pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify “earmarks”—lawmakers’ requests for specific projects and contracts for their states—in documents that accompany spending bills.

Leading up to the 2006 elections all you heard was the mantra of Openness, Openness, Openness. But openness and bringing home the bacon just don’t mix.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.

But it’s not to protect these pet projects. Oh no.

Obey insists he is reluctantly taking the step because Appropriations Committee members and staff have not had enough time to fully review the 36,000 earmark requests that have flooded the committee.

36,000 earmark requests? That’s over 80 earmarks for every single House member (if they are evenly distributed).

I don’t know how much of this openness we can stand.

What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open. Those rules made it clear that projects earmarked for federal dollars and their sponsors were to be made available to public scrutiny when appropriations bills are debated.

The rules also require lawmakers requesting such projects to provide a written explanation describing their requests and a letter certifying that they or their spouse would not make any financial gain from them.

So when are we going to see this transparency?

Democrats, he [Obey] says, will follow the new rules when earmarks are added to the bills, which in most cases will not be until House-Senate talks in September.

The funniest (in a sad way) part of all this is from the Pork Prince.

Democrats in the Senate—including Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee—also are unhappy about Obey’s move. Many do not like the prospect of waiting until September or October to learn which hometown projects they will get.

Hard to brag to the hometown folks about how much you’ve done if you just don’t know.

The problem with skirting the new rules and waiting until September is this:

The House-Senate compromise bills due for final action in September cannot be amended and are subject to only one hour of debate, precluding challenges to individual projects.

Some get it.

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the Appropriations Committee’s former chairman and now its top Republican, said Obey’s move represents “a complete lack of transparency.”

Conservatives say they will employ guerrilla tactics during debates in the full House to push their point.

“This is not more sunlight. This is actually keeping earmarks secret until it’s too late to do anything about it,” griped Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “It will be impossible for anybody to challenge any of what will be thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks.”

If this is unprecedented openness, I’m Jack Bauer.