IV 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 687 
Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to provide greater 
transparency on earmark requests. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 28, 2009 
Mr. ALEXANDER submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Rules, and in addition to the Committee on Standards of 
Official Conduct, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to 
provide greater transparency on earmark requests. 
Resolved, That (a) rule XXIII of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives is amended by redesignating 
clause 18 as clause 19 and by inserting after clause 17 
the following: 
‘‘18. A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner 
who requests a congressional earmark, a limited tax ben-
efit, or a limited tariff benefit shall, within 24 hours after 
making such request— 
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‘‘(a) post on his or her public website for the 
remainder of the Congress financial certification let-
ters that contain the following— 
‘‘(1) the name and address of the intended 
recipient; 
‘‘(2) the requested amount (only in the 
case of congressional earmarks); 
‘‘(3) an explanation of the request, includ-
ing the purpose, and why it is a valuable use 
of taxpayer funds; 
‘‘(4) state if the recipient of the requested 
funds is a public, private, nonprofit, or for prof-
it entity; and 
‘‘(5) a statement that neither the request-
ing member nor their spouse has any financial 
interest related to the funding request; 
‘‘(b) display on the homepage of such website a 
hypertext link that contains the words ‘Appropria-
tions Requests’, ‘Limited Tax Benefits’, or ‘Limited 
Tariff Benefits’ and that directs to such webpage 
address, and maintain that link for at least 90 cal-
endar days after the last such request is made dur-
ing the Congress; and 
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‘‘(c) electronically submit to the committee of 
subject-matter jurisdiction the webpage address 
where such information is posted.’’. 
(b) The last sentence of clause 16 of rule XXIII of 
the Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by 
striking ‘‘and clause 17’’ and inserting ‘‘, clause 17, and 
clause 18’’. 
SEC. 2. Rule XI of the Rules of the House of Rep-
resentatives is amended by adding at the end the following 
new clause: 
‘‘Earmark disclosure websites 
‘‘(s)(1) Any committee that accepts any request of 
a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner for a con-
gressional earmark, a limited tax benefit, or a limited tar-
iff benefit shall maintain a public website with an earmark 
disclosure webpage that contains the list of earmarks in-
cluded in the Committee Report of the bill and is in a 
downloadable format that is searchable. 
‘‘(2) The earmark disclosure webpage of a committee 
shall post the information required under subparagraphs 
(1) within two days of introduction, and shall maintain 
that information on that webpage for the remainder of the 
Congress. 
‘‘(3) For purposes of this paragraph, the terms ‘con-
gressional earmark’, ‘limited tax benefit’, and ‘limited tar-
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iff benefit’ shall have the meaning given them in clause 
9 of rule XXI.’’. 
SEC. 3. Clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives is amended by redesignating 
paragraphs (e), (f), and (g) as paragraphs (f), (g), and 
(h), respectively, and by inserting after paragraph (d) the 
following: 
‘‘(e) It shall not be in order to consider any bill or 
joint resolution, or an amendment thereto or conference 
report thereon, that carries a congressional earmark, lim-
ited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit for which a Mem-
ber, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner failed to comply 
with any applicable requirement of clause 18 of rule 
XXIII.’’. 
SEC. 4. The amendments made by this resolution 
shall apply to requests for congressional earmarks, limited 
tax benefits, and limited tariff benefits made after the 
date this resolution is agreed to. 
Æ 
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