The Hill News

Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the Senate's biggest advocates of cutting federal spending, is praising a top appropriator's decision to embrace an earmark moratorium.

Coburn is also applying political pressure to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has strongly defended earmarks.

“I hope this decision will shift the Senate’s focus from earmarking to oversight and cutting spending," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in a statement Tuesday. "I hope the rest of the Senate works with, rather than against, Chairman Inouye, President Obama and House and Senate Republicans as we turn our attention away from earmarking and toward the enormous economic challenges facing our country."

Coburn's statement comes a few hours after Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) announced a two-year ban on bills that included earmarks. The earmark ban applies to the current spending year and to fiscal year 2012.

In his annou! ncement, Inouye, a longtime supporter of earmarks, cited President Obama's promise last week to veto any legislation that included earmarks. Inouye also noted that House Republicans have backed an earmark moratorium.

Before Obama outlined his new stance on earmarks during his State of the Union address, Reid said he doesn't support a ban, adding that the legislative branch shouldn't cede any spending authority to the executive branch.

It is unclear if other committee chairmen in the Senate will back an earmark moratorium during the 112th Congress.