Congressman Boehner: No Earmarks in American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act

Congressman John Boehner told ABC’s Jake Tapper in an interview there will be no earmarks in the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act, legislation the House will soon vote on that permanently removes government barriers to energy production to help create thousands of private-sector jobs, lower gas prices, and repair our roads and bridges. Tapper reported on ABCNews.com how this will be a different kind of infrastructure bill:

“While Republicans will likely tie the Keystone project to the new jobs bill, Boehner said that ‘there will be no earmarks in this bill.’ ‘One of our great successes of last year is that we passed all these bills, done good work, working with the Senate, with no earmarks,’ Boehner said.”

The practice of using highway bills to funnel taxpayer dollars to earmarks – without discussion or debate – proliferated in the 1980s under a Democratic Congress, and expanded under majorities of both parties.

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the 2005 highway bill which Congressman Boehner opposed and voted against had 5,671 highway earmarks worth $21.7B, and the total number of earmarks exceeded 6,300. The American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act