Tom Harkin: “I happen to be a supporter of earmarks, unabashedly”
Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, got his subcommittee gavel. He chaired the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services from 2007 until he retired in January 2015. Earmarks also lasted, as the 2006 editorial below predicted. Congress later banned them from 2011 under party and committee rules, then brought them back in 2021. The House now calls them Community Project Funding and the Senate calls them Congressionally Directed Spending. In November 2026 the government runs on a continuing resolution through December 11, so fiscal 2027 earmarks become law only if Congress passes full-year spending bills.
What the 2006 post said
The post was published in late 2006, after Democrats won control of the House and Senate in that year’s midterm elections. The blog State 29 wrote it, and PorkBusters picked it up. It quoted an editorial from the Jacksonville Daily News of Jacksonville, North Carolina. The editorial responded to a New York Times story by David D. Kirkpatrick, “As Power Shifts in New Congress, Pork May Linger.”
The editorial’s argument
The Daily News editorial argued that new leadership in Congress would not end earmarking. It said the Times headline writer was wrong to use “may” when “will” would have been more accurate. In its view, earmarking had always been bipartisan, with members trading support for each other’s projects. It predicted the practice would go on under Democrats “all the good government rhetoric aside.”
The Times story included other senior appropriators saying much the same thing. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) told the paper, “I don’t see any monumental changes.”
Harkin’s defense of earmarks
Harkin was the senator quoted in the headline. “I happen to be a supporter of earmarks, unabashedly,” he told the Times. At the time he was expected to chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and he did. He pointed with pride to the money he had directed through the Department of Defense for breast cancer research. “Now, was that bad?” he asked. “If you left it to the Defense Department, they never would have done it.”
The editorial agreed the Pentagon would probably not have funded the research on its own, because its main job is fighting wars. It argued that other federal agencies were better suited to medical research. In its view, the money went through the Defense Department because of Harkin’s committee assignments.
The naming dispute
The editorial noted that Harkin did not use the word “earmark.” He preferred “congressional directed funding,” which the editorial called a euphemism. Looking back, the phrase stands out. When the Senate brought earmarks back in 2021, it chose a name very close to it: Congressionally Directed Spending.
The editorial called the practice a scandal that would continue under Democratic control. The State 29 blogger added a charge of hypocrisy. The blogger noted that Harkin’s website complained about the size of the deficit, and that Harkin criticized the “windfall profits” of oil companies while his wife, Ruth Harkin, had close ties to the oil industry. SEC filings show that Ruth Harkin was a director of Conoco Inc. from about 1998 and later sat on the ConocoPhillips board. From June 1997 to February 2005 she was also senior vice president for international affairs and government relations at United Technologies Corporation. Those are the blogger’s arguments, not findings of any official review.
The original post also pointed to two related posts on its blog: “10% Down, 90% On The Deficit Credit Card” and “E85, The Other Pork Product.” Readers were told to read the complete post at State 29.
The breast cancer money: how the program started
Harkin’s example was real, and the program he started still exists. In 1992 he pushed to put $210 million for breast cancer research into the defense budget. The Senate passed his amendment, which required peer review of funded projects, by 89 to 4, after rejecting a broader transfer amendment 62 to 36. Accounts differ on the final step. A Cancer Letter report from that October says the conferees wrote the $210 million mandate into the defense bill. Harkin later said the amendment roughly doubled federal breast cancer research funding.
The money created the Breast Cancer Research Program, the first part of what is now the Pentagon’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP). The program has received funding every year since. Its appropriation was $130 million in fiscal 2025 and $145 million in fiscal 2026, according to the CDMRP and the Congressional Research Service.
Supporters such as Susan G. Komen point to the program’s peer-reviewed grants. Critics of earmarks have long said it shows how one senator’s committee seat can shape an agency’s budget. Both descriptions fit the record.
Did the pork linger? What happened next
It did at first, and then Congress banned it for a decade. Here are the main turning points:
- 2007: Democrats took over Congress. New House rules and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 required lawmakers to put their names on their earmarks. Earmarking continued in the fiscal 2008 through 2010 bills.
- 2010 to 2011: House Republicans adopted a conference ban on earmarks, and Senate appropriators followed with a moratorium in early 2011. The ban came from party rules and committee practice, not chamber rules.
- 2021: House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) announced on February 26, 2021, that earmarks would return as Community Project Funding for fiscal 2022. The Senate adopted Congressionally Directed Spending.
- Fiscal 2025: The full-year continuing resolution contained no earmarks.
- Fiscal 2026: Earmarks came back in force. CQ Roll Call counted nearly $15.5 billion in enacted earmarks. The Transportation-HUD bill had the most, just under $6 billion across 3,212 projects. Citizens Against Government Waste, which counts more broadly, put the total at $23.7 billion in its 2026 Pig Book.
How earmarks work in November 2026
Today’s earmarks run under the guardrails written in 2021, plus later limits:
- Overall cap: Total earmarks are capped at 1% of discretionary spending.
- Eligible recipients: Only state and local governments and nonprofits can receive the money. For-profit companies cannot.
- Disclosure: Members must post their requests online and certify that they and their families have no financial interest in them.
- House limits: For fiscal 2027, each member can submit 20 requests across the eight spending bills that allow Community Project Funding.
- Senate limits: The Senate takes no earmark requests for the Legislative Branch bill. The National Taxpayers Union counted 11,472 distinct Senate requests for fiscal 2027, worth $46.47 billion in total.
Requests are not the same as money spent. The government is currently funded by Division A of P.L. 119-103, a continuing resolution that President Trump signed on September 2, 2026. It runs through December 11, 2026. No full-year fiscal 2027 bill has been enacted. If Congress passes another stopgap instead of full-year bills, the fiscal 2027 earmarks will not be funded, as happened in fiscal 2025.
FAQ
Are earmarks legal in Congress in 2026?
Yes. No law ever banned them. The 2011 moratorium came from party rules and committee practice, and both chambers’ appropriations committees have accepted requests again since 2021. They are subject to a 1% cap, disclosure rules and a ban on for-profit recipients.
What is the difference between Community Project Funding and Congressionally Directed Spending?
They are the House and Senate names for the same thing: money that a member directs to a specific project or place without competition. Each chamber sets its own request limits and decides which spending bills accept earmarks.
Does the Defense Department breast cancer program Harkin started still exist?
Yes. The Breast Cancer Research Program is part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs and received $145 million in fiscal 2026. It began with Harkin’s 1992 push for $210 million in the defense budget.
What happened to Tom Harkin?
Harkin chaired the Labor-HHS appropriations subcommittee from 2007 until he left the Senate in January 2015. He did not run for re-election in 2014. Republican Joni Ernst won the seat.
How much did Congress spend on earmarks in fiscal 2026?
It depends on who is counting. CQ Roll Call counted nearly $15.5 billion in enacted fiscal 2026 earmarks. Citizens Against Government Waste counted $23.7 billion because it also includes items it considers earmarks that have no named sponsor.
Will there be earmarks in fiscal 2027?
Only if Congress passes full-year appropriations bills. The current continuing resolution expires December 11, 2026, and a stopgap through the rest of the year would leave the requested projects unfunded.
Sources
- Congress.gov, Congressional Research Service: Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027 (Division A of P.L. 119-103)
- Congress.gov, Congressional Research Service: Agriculture and Related Agencies: FY2027 Appropriations
- Congress.gov, Congressional Research Service: Legislative Branch: FY2027 Appropriations
- Congressional Research Service: Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs Funding for FY2026
- Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs: FY2026 Appropriations
- National Academies: review of the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: ConocoPhillips proxy statements (2010 and 2011)
- CQ Roll Call: “Earmarks flood spending bills after a year’s hiatus”
- Citizens Against Government Waste: 2026 Congressional Pig Book
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation: Tracking FY 2027 Senate Earmark Requests
- Holland & Knight: Community Project Funding: 117th Congress Revives the Earmark Process
Featured image: Tom Harkin. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (file page)
About this article
- Fact-checked before publication.
- Published · Updated
