PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Going on the offensive in the fight against earmarks:

Sensing a major shift in the political winds, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is zeroing in on groups that receive earmarks to help businesses win even more federal dollars.

And he’s not making any exceptions: Flake’s targets include a pet project of Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.).

Unlike some of his rank-and-file peers, Flake isn’t afraid to confront powerful appropriators who wield the ability to grant or withhold money from members’ districts. Flake doesn’t request earmarks for his district so he’s free to go on the attack.

Flake last year made waves by taking aim at an earmark of Rep. Jerry Lewis’s (R-Calif.), who headed the spending panel at the time. But that vote, as well as all of his efforts to kill earmarks, went down in flames.

All of sudden, however, Flake has plenty of friends joining his anti-pork crusade. Republican leaders last week challenged Obey for not wanting to disclose earmarks in spending bills until the final stage of the legislative process. Republicans declared victory when Obey reversed course, but Democrats claimed that GOP lawmakers were acting like reborn reformers because last year most failed to support Flake’s earmark challenges.

How Republicans respond to earmark challenges this year will test their commitment to transparency and reform. And Flake isn’t wasting any time. Last week, while Republicans were busy fighting Obey’s proposed earmark policy, Flake was taking issue with the chairman’s earmarks to a group known as the Wisconsin Procurement Institute (WPI), whose main purpose is trying to help the state’s businesses obtain more federal contracts and grants.

To Flake, the idea of providing federal money to subsidize the process of trying to obtain more federal money is absurd.

Absurd, yes. Surprising, no.