Jeff Flake: “in a couple of weeks, it is likely that we will be addressing the Labor-HHS bill. We have passed the bill in the House.…”

“in a couple of weeks, it is likely that we will be addressing the Labor-HHS bill. We have passed the bill in the House. I believe they have passed the bill in the Senate, but conferees have not been named. We will be asked to approve a large bill that I believe is over the President's budget. But, more significantly, this is the first test of actually doing a conference under the new earmark rules. We had new earmark rules passed at the beginning of the year that provide a little more transparency than we have had before, and that is a good thing; but it hasn't done much to cut down the number or dollar value of earmarks, because we haven't gotten through the process now. Some people have said in the House we have fewer earmarks, the dollar value is down, and that is a good thing. Certainly it is a good thing. But we are only halfway through the process. Typically, when you get to the conference process, that is where a lot of the mischief happens, where earmarks are added in the middle of the night and you aren't given a chance to vote on them. You simply vote on the bill, either up or down. Just to give you a flavor of what is in this Labor-HHS bill, the House bill included about 1,342 earmarks. These earmarks were added in the conference report of the bill that came to the House. They were added just days before the bill came to the house.”