U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., is now a member of the minority party in Congress, but that doesn't mean her funding requests to the House Appropriations Committee have no chance of passage.

In fact, while some of Cubin's projects will not ultimately be funded, others likely will, said Dana Chasin, senior adviser on federal fiscal policy for the group called OMB Watch.

The ranking members of the various subcommittees - at present, Republicans - do have the ability to parcel out a limited number of earmarks, said Chasin, implying that Cubin will have to work closely with those ranking members in appropriations subcommittees to get any of her earmarks included in final bills.

Every year, Cubin serves as an advocate for requests from local governments, agencies, schools, nonprofits and other Wyoming entities that she believes have an opportunity to win federal funding support, said Alison McGuire, Cubin's press secretary. This is the first year Cubin has publicly released her list of requests.

McGuire said the congresswoman fights to get Wyoming's fair share of money that is already budgeted. McGuire said the projects are all brought to Cubin's attention and are "thoroughly vetted" and also appear in bills supported by Wyoming's senators.

McGuire said that in fiscal year 2006, Cubin brought home $54.2 million in earmarks.

Bill Luckett, communications director for the Wyoming Democratic Party, said he didn't want to focus on the individual earmarks on Cubin's list.

"This is consistent with the Republican policy of borrow and spend," he said. "How is she going to pay for all this? With more tax cuts for the rich? She has no business advocating for this spending when she's helped create the largest deficit in history, thanks to massive tax cuts."

Earmarks have become hot-button issues in recent years, with charges and counter-charges between political parties over whether earmarks are truly needed projects or wasteful pork-barrel spending. One high-profile example was "the bridge to nowhere," a $223 million earmark by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, which would have connected Alaska's Gravina Island (pop. 50) to Ketchikan (pop. 8,000) by a bridge higher than the Brooklyn Bridge of New York City and nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

In 1994 - the last year Democrats controlled the appropriations process - there were 4,126 earmarks totaling $26.6 billion. That dropped to 3,000 earmarks when the Republicans became the majority. Pledges of fiscal responsibility became overshadowed by more and more earmarks, until the 2006 budget contained 15,500 earmarks totaling $64 billion.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers For Common Sense, said only 22 members of Congress published their earmarks 18 months ago. Today, there are more than 70 - including Cubin.

Ellis said the Republicans passed a weak earmark reform bill last September - one that was full of loopholes. Since then, he said, the Democrats have passed a stronger earmarks reform bill, which closed earlier loopholes.

Ellis said he doesn't mind Republican criticism of Democrats on earmark reform, even if it smacks of opportunism. Such political one-upmanship is good for the concept of open government, he said, even if Republicans didn't practice it very well in the past.

House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., wants to process the fiscal 2008 appropriations bills through his committee and the House without earmarks - saying they can be added later, during a House/Senate appropriations conference.

House Resolution 6, adopted earlier this year, requires the sponsor and purpose of earmarks to be listed in the reports accompanying bills, and whether they would personally benefit from these projects. That's a big change from past years, when earmarks were kept secret.

By some accounts, majority parties tend to get about 60 percent of their earmark requests, while minority parties get less.

Of the six fiscal 2008 appropriation bills approved so far by subcommittees, none contain earmarks.