When Rep. Jason Chaffetz promised not to ask for earmarks if elected, he says there was a second half to that promise:

"Until there's openness, transparency and reform," said the 3rd District Republican on Friday.

Unable to find any forthcoming from Congress, he's making his own rules.

"I think it's more peer pressure and embarrassment than legislation," said Chaffetz, who recently released his personal guidelines to public and private groups to mull over and comment on.

Earmarks are requests by lawmakers for direct funding for specific projects in their district or for specific entities, instead of going through the appropriation process. Often, earmarks aren't publicly touted by the requesting lawmaker, and they are often attached to unrelated bills. The practice is most often derided as "pork-barrel spending" and receives much press though it makes up less than 2 percent of all federal spending.

But it's an important 2 percent to Chaffetz, who will only consider requests under these guidelines:

• All federal funding requests and/or targeted tax benefit requests will be publicly disclosed on Chaffetz's Web site.

• Funding requests from public and nonprofit entities will be considered, if a sufficient federal nexus is established. Requests from for-profit entities will not be considered. Funding requests from public entities requesting funds on behalf of for-profit entities also will not be considered.

• Only requests for projects such as public infrastructure, the U.S. military, appropriate research and development with applications to benefit the nation, and activities on federal lands will be considered.

• Only projects for which there is an established federal nexus will be considered, e.g., interstate commerce, aid in compliance with federal mandates, or other projects for which a defensible purpose exists for requesting federal government funding under the U.S. Constitution.

• Funding requests will not be considered for any program that is not currently authorized by Congress.

• Funding requests will not be supported for any projects that are requested after the House appropriations deadline.

• Requestor must sign a financial certification stating that neither the requesting official nor anyone within the agency has any direct or foreseeable pecuniary interest in the project.

Of course, not everyone sees eye-to-eye with Chaffetz. Sen. Bob Bennett, a frequent target of earmark opponents, has helped Provo get hundreds of thousands of dollars for things such as parking structures.

Provo Chief Administrative Officer Wayne Parker says that's the system they have to work with, so they'll use it any way they can.

"If you're going to have them available for anyone ... then the city ought to be actively engaged to get them for our taxpayers," he said. "It needs to be fair and equal across the board."

The city has received several earmarks related to parking, and the north University Avenue greenway -- the trail near 4000 North on the west side of the road -- is funded with earmarks to the tune of about a million dollars.

Bennett, Parker says, tells the city he sees earmarks differently than Chaffetz does -- who would you rather have deciding where the money goes? A lawmaker in touch with constituent needs, or a massive federal bureaucracy thousands of miles away?

A voluntary change in the system -- as Chaffetz is self-imposing -- may be the only change in the system for some time, says Kelly Patterson, director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at BYU.

The problem, if indeed it is one, is that the federal electoral system is set up in such a way that it encourages earmarks. (Political scientists use "Congress: The Electoral Connection" by David Mayhew as a primer on the topic.)

"If we look at this systematically, what do you expect to happen?" Patterson said. "Members of Congress will represent in a certain way as to maximize their chances of re-election."

That means bringing home the bacon. Of course, constituents don't see their projects as pork, it's those pesky other lawmakers and their wasteful ways.

(For example, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., has repeatedly come under fire lately for earmarking millions that went to specific companies in his district. "Those federal earmarks ... have been critical to our economic survival," he is reported saying in the Washington Post. "The big suppliers came because of me, but they stayed because of the workforce. They stayed because of the savings.")

Patterson says that as time goes on, earmarks could get harder and harder to reform because of the growing federal government coupled with the demands for services by constituents.

"Rep. Chaffetz has this uphill battle." he said. "In some aspect, the success depends on the skill on the representative."

The conservative Republican from Utah does potentially have a powerful player on his side: President Obama has repeatedly called for earmark reform, as recently as March.

"Now, let me be clear: Done right, earmarks give legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their district, and that's why I have opposed their outright elimination," he said while signing a massive $410 billion omnibus bill.

"But the fact is that on occasion, earmarks have been used as a vehicle for waste, fraud and abuse. Projects have been inserted at the eleventh hour, without review, and sometimes without merit, in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest."

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