WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn’t mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won’t be able to funnel money to pet projects.

They’re just working around it — and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.

The projects run the gamut: a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami.
Budget Director-designate Peter Orszag, left, smiles as President-elect Barack Obama, introduces him during a news conference in Chicago today. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Budget Director-designate Peter Orszag, left, smiles as President-elect Barack Obama, introduces him during a news conference in Chicago today. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
There are thousands of projects like those that once would have been gotten money upfront but now are left to scramble for dollars at the back end of the process as “ready to go” jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.

more here

The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.

“‘No earmarks’ isn’t a game-ender,” said Peter Buffa, former mayor of Costa Mesa, Calif. “It just means there’s a different way of going about making sure the funding is there.”

Needless to say this wasn't on the front page of the GF Herald.

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