Five months after the House adopted institutional earmark reform rules (H. Res. 6) and the Senate passed statutory requirements governing earmark disclosure (S. 1), confusion reigns in both chambers on how earmark disclosure rules will work and who will administer them. Key members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees have unilaterally altered the rules in the intervening months, and even with appropriations season upon us, it appears the disclosure rules and their application remain in flux. S. 1, the Senate's lobbying and ethics reform bill that passed January 18, requires that members seeking earmarks provide a written statement to the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction including: the Member's name; the name and address of the intended recipient of the earmark ... identification of the [beneficiaries]; the purpose of such earmark or benefit; and a certification that the Member or spouse has no financial interest in them [with] the name of the requesting Member is made available to the general public on the Internet for at least 48 hours before its consideration. But because the Senate has not yet enacted S. 1, the earmark disclosure requirements are not yet binding. Because of this, Senate Appropriations subcommittee chairs began improvising on their own. On Feb. 21, the Interior and Environment subcommittee sent Senators a detailed procedure for proposing earmark requests with a March 30 deadline. On Feb. 28, the chairman and ranking Republican on the Energy and Water Development subcommittee released a different procedure that asked for earmark requests that detail the beneficial role of the spending. Several subcommittees sent out earmark solicitation forms omitting the requirements of the new ethics bill. The form from the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions subcommittee asked only that the request be made by April 13. Perhaps because of the proliferation of subcommittee approaches, Senate Appropriations Committee chair Robert Byrd (D-WV) announced in mid-April that the full committee would apply the standards established in S. 1 even though the bill has not yet been enacted. Critics, led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), complained that the Senate shouldn't have to rely on Sen. Byrd to enforce S. 1: "There's no reason at all we shouldn't adopt [the earmark provisions of S. 1] as a Senate rule." Outside critics even suggested that adopting those provisions as a Senate rule would run afoul of an earlier pledge by Byrd to place a moratorium on all earmarks until a reformed process is firmly established. Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee chair David Obey (D-WI) has floated several earmarks procedures, all of which appear to flout the guidelines established by H. Res. 6, the House lobbying and ethics rule changes passed January 4 (which are identical to those in S. 1, minus the Internet publication requirements). After Obey set a March 13 deadline for the submission of earmark requests to his committee, the twelve House Appropriations subcommittee chairs nevertheless imposed a diversity of application procedures of their own. After Appropriations ranking member Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and others cited "confusion stemming from new House ethics rules," Obey extended his mid-March deadline to April 27. In the six weeks since then, Obey has struggled to settle on a legislative process for the 36,000 earmark requests his committee has received. In late May, Obey announced he would ignore the January reforms adopted by the House requiring that earmarks and their sponsors be identified in spending bills when they are introduced. Instead, he said he would delay the inclusion of earmarks into spending bills until they are in conference, when they can no longer be removed from the bill by amendment. This announcement was met with harsh national and home state criticism in the press and calls from watchdog groups, including OMB Watch, for reform. In spite of guidelines passed by both houses of Congress and increasingly intense media scrutiny of the issue, the situation continues to evolve. As recently as June 11, Obey took a completely different tack, according to the New York Times: 'Before the August recess,' [Obey] said, his office intends to list 'every earmark that the committee expects to try to include in a final conference product' with the Senate. Any lawmaker can question or challenge any request and, he said, the earmark's sponsor will be asked to respond. 'They'll be hanging out there for 30 days' of public scrutiny and comment while Congress is on its summer break. Whether this approach will stick — and comply with the House rules governing earmarks — remains to be seen.