Does the defense authorization bill contain earmarks? Maybe!

During the 2010 campaign, House Republicans promised they wouldn't consider any legislation that had earmarks, and they introduced rules for it once they took power.

What are earmarks? Earmarks are special requests from lawmakers that direct money to be spent in specific ways, usually to the benefit of a company or constituency within the lawmaker's home district. They are often attached to a broad funding bill so that the only way to oppose them is to vote the bill down and stall the budgeting process. Critics have long argued that earmarks are likelier to serve special interests rather than the national good.

So according to the House's own rules, there were to be no earmarks in the defense authorization that the House of Representatives approved on May 26.

But were there?

The answer isn't clear-cut, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, an independent group that monitors legislation for earmarks.

When lawmakers were crafting the bill, they ended up creating a $1 billion fund for the Department of Defense called the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund. The idea is that the Department of Defense could use that money for unexpected costs in the coming year.

But lawmakers also passed their own series of amendments for specific defense goals, and they said the source of funding for the amendments would be the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund.

Some of those amendments supported goals that happened to be very similar to earmarks approved in previous years.

Taxpayers for Common Sense cited two examples on its website. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., for example, supported an amendment for night vision advanced technology. In fiscal year 2010, Hunter got a $2.4 million earmark that went to Trex Enterprises for "Brownout Situational Awareness Sensors.” Similarly, Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa., pushed an amendment for terrorism  "risk assessment and resource allocation.” In 2010, Brady got $2 million for the Foreign Research Institute's Center on Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism in Philadelphia for "Comprehensive and Integrated Procedures for Risk Assessment and Resource Allocation.”

Only time will tell if the amendments are a clever way to get around the ban on earmarks, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It won't be clear until the budget is done and the Pentagon allocates the funding,” Ellis said. "We're still concerned that these may shake out to be defacto earmarks, but we'll see.”

"To be sure, we aren't yet back in the bad old go-go years of earmarking. But instead of moving the country to a system where every dollar spending decision is based on merit, we are seeing some of Congress' bad habits creeping back,” said the group in a statement on its website.

A committee spokesman said the fund did not represent a return to earmarks but simply allowed members of Congress to have an appropriate say in defense spending policy.

Republicans have also defended the amendments for two reasons: the amendments support overall military goals, and they allow for the Defense Department to be able to go through a competitive process.

Clearly, it's too soon to give this promise a definitive ruling. For us, the question is whether to rate the promise In the Works or Stalled. If only we had a ruling called "In the Works, with a Few Suspicions.” Because there are questions about whether the amendments could become defacto earmarks, we're going to rate this promise Stalled for now. The Senate still needs to pass the defense authorization, and then we'll have to see how the Defense Department spends the money before we issue our final ruling.