(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today joined nine other taxpayers watchdog groups in urging President Obama to enforce Executive Order No. 13457, which was signed by President Bush and states that for any “appropriations laws and other legislation enacted after the date of this order [February 1, 2008], executive agencies should not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks included in any non-statutory source, including requests in reports of committees of the Congress or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law or when an agency has itself determined a project, program, activity, grant, or other transaction to have merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decision making.”  The letter is available at www.cagw.org and reads in part:

“Now that H.R. 1 has been signed into law, our groups believe more than ever that Executive Order No. 13457, ‘Protecting American Taxpayers from Government Spending on Wasteful Earmarks,’ must be strictly enforced.  Because the stimulus package is more than 1,000 pages in length and the programs will cost taxpayers approximately $578 billion in discretionary and direct spending, we are concerned that members of Congress and lobbyists will be seeking earmarks through surreptitious contacts with federal agencies.  The ‘Initial Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,’ issued by the Office of Management and Budget on February 18, includes detailed reporting and grant-making procedures, but does not address potential earmarks.

“E.O. No. 13457 was issued by President George W. Bush in order to reduce out-of-control earmarking.  It states that for any ‘appropriations laws and other legislation enacted after the date of this order [February 1, 2008], executive agencies should not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks included in any non-statutory source, including requests in reports of committees of the Congress or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law or when an agency has itself determined a project, program, activity, grant, or other transaction to have merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decision making.’”

“CCAGW is particularly concerned about the growing prospect that members of Congress will try to exert undue influence over the executive branch spending process by calling agency personnel to pressure them to bypass competitive and merit-based criteria in order to fund a specific pet program,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “In fact, President Bush wisely included the term ‘communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source’ in the E.O. to stem that emergent practice among earmarkers in Congress.”

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.