PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Lawmakers try to save their earmarks:

After Democrats won control of Congress, they moved to fulfill their pledge to crack down on the controversial practice of lawmakers slipping projects in spending bills without public scrutiny.

In February, they scrapped Republican-drafted bills loaded with earmarks and passed a bill that they boasted had none.

Among those celebrating the achievement was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said that piecing together the $463.5-billion spending bill was difficult, “but we got it done without a single earmark.”

But the day after President Bush signed it, Reid wrote federal agencies to “strongly support the priorities” in the discarded GOP bills. “I believe they are essential to the nation and to my home state of Nevada.”

Reid was not alone in seeking to save his earmarks.

Lawmakers from both parties — including Democrats ranging from the most senior, such as Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, to one of the most junior, such as Sen. Jon Tester of Montana — pressed agencies to grant their spending requests, according to correspondence obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The behind-the-scenes lobbying for projects stripped from this once “earmark-free” bill underscores how difficult it will be for lawmakers to curtail a practice that has expanded despite criticism that it is out of control. Already, lawmakers are seeking to replace lost earmarks in next year’s appropriations bills, although they have promised to be more open about it.

“What is ironic is that at the same time lawmakers were crowing about no earmarks this year, they were surreptitiously drowning agency heads in funding requests,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Ironic, yet wholly predictable.