Referring both to the OP article and Heavy Duty's commentary, post #5:
The funds secured by Sen. Jon Kyle's for Native American Indian tribes in his state (AZ) is an earmark.
The $200 million may come under the heading of "a settlement" to prevent future lawsuits by Black farmers and Native American Indians, but the funding was still secured after the bill was approved in the House and right before it came before a vote by the Senate and was subsequently approved.
Now, Heavy Duty is correct (atleast per the article itself anyway) when he quotes that the appropriations aren't considered an earmark in the Senate. But in the House, apparently it's a different story as neither House Dem Reps' Baucus and Jefferson are dying that they acquired similar funding under the same circumstances in the House.
Other interesting tidbits:
I re-read the Republican party's Pledge to America. While it doesn't use the word "earmark" to specify how their party will not tack funding at the end of bills to fund pet projects, they do elude to being honest in how they write, review and approve legislation in Congress, towit:
Page 2, first paragraph:
From the article:
Not sure how long the bill was on the Senate floor before it came to a vote, but it would appear that not only has the transparency and honesty aspect of their Pledge have already been breached, it's possible the Senate Republicans have also abandoned their 3-day waiting period to give all Representatives and citizens time to read the bill before it came to a vote. (see page 5, second to last paragraph and the first paragraph at the top of page 18 of the Pledge for details. Also, notice the wording used here, "No more hiding legislative language from the minority party..." I guess since Republicans are no long the "minority party"...'nuf said).
There's also the issue of "backdoor deals" and "phantom amendments" that Sen. Kyle brings into question after having "slipped" this measure through. (See page 17, first paragraph of the Pledge).
So, while Republicans didn't include wording specifically stating they will not accept earmarks in their Pledge, they're leadership, specifically Sen. Boehner and most recently Sen. Mitch McConnell, have both pledged to forego earmarks. In a recent
blog post, Boehner and Cantor stated that the GOP conference will vote next week to ban earmarks. In short, earmarks are still on the GOP table for now and depending on next week's vote, they likely could remain.