“Twice in recent years, House Appropriations Committee chairman David R. Obey helped obtain earmarks totaling $3.2 million for a home-state university to study how to make military jet fuel from plants. Standing behind that nonprofit work, however, is a for-profit Chicago firm that often partners with universities to reap part of their earmark benefits. Similar collaborations between private companies and nonprofits will pose tricky questions under a policy intended to end earmarks to profit-making firms, which Obey, a Democrat of Wisconsin, helped shepherd through the House Democratic caucus last week. That new rule was widely touted as a crackdown, but in reality it could leave untouched almost 90 percent of typical earmarks.” [editor’s note: Suspiciously like the money laundering they put people in jail for otherwise? - SAT] (03/16/10)