Tara Golshan and Kevin Robillard at HuffPo report that congressional Democrats are planning to revive earmarks.

“Chair DeLauro supports Member-directed funding for community projects,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesperson with the House Appropriations Committee, which is charged with doling out federal funds. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, is expected to make an announcement about earmarks in the coming weeks, Hollander said. Earmarks, sometimes referred to as congressional pork, are federal dollars requested by lawmakers tacked on to legislation for special local projects in their districts. They have a long and fraught history in Washington and were banned in 2011 after several high-profile corruption scandals. But in recent years, lawmakers have tried to rebrand the practice of earmarks to “member-directed spending” or a “Community-Focused Grant Program” — a much more innocuous-sounding practice that leans more toward lawmakers being able to win money for a new post office, rather than hundreds of millions of dollars for a private project an industry lobbyist sold them on. Democrats still haven’t said what restrictions they will put around earmarks. Punchbowl News, which first reported the return of earmarks Monday morning, noted the funding would be limited to nonprofits and localities, but not be allowed for private companies. Hollander declined to comment on those specifics, saying only that an announcement was forthcoming.