Federal funding for lawmakers' pet projects declined this year, but not for 11 members of Congress who rose to powerful positions on the subcommittees that write the spending bills, a USA Today analysis shows.

Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas became the top Republican on the panel that handles spending for the Agriculture Department last year. This year, Brownback inserted $12.5 million for his state in the agriculture bill — up from the $2.4 million he got into the same bill three years ago, when members first started to disclose their requests.

It's an illustration of how seniority on the congressional panels that write each year's federal spending bills translates into money for the pet projects known as "earmarks."

"If you move up from having a seat at the table to heading the table, you're going to get more," said Michael Crespin, a University of Georgia political scientist who studies earmarks.

Since 2008, Congress has required the 12 annual spending bills to list all earmarks and name the lawmakers who sponsor them. That rule was part of a package of changes prompted by a series of corruption scandals.

Since then, lawmakers have trimmed the amount of earmarked spending by about a third, from $14.8 billion in 2008 to $10.2 billion this year, according to data from the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense.

In the past three years, the top GOP slot has changed hands on 16 of the 24 House and Senate subcommittees that handle spending bills.

Those lawmakers got a total of $46.3 million more in earmarks in those bills this year than they did in 2008, the analysis found.

Earmarks, says Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, are good for the local economy. He calls them the economic "yeast that raises the dough."

Since becoming the top Republican last year on the subcommittee that oversees homeland security funding, Voinovich's earmarks in that spending bill increased from zero in 2008 to $23.3 million this year, a review of the bills found.

Voinovich, who will retire after this year, said in an e-mailed statement that he chooses earmarks that "create jobs, strengthen our infrastructure, improve quality of life and have a lasting impact on Ohio for years to come."

Brownback spokesman Brian Hart did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

There has been little change on the Democratic side of the aisle. In the past three years, only one appropriations subcommittee got a new chairman: the Senate panel that handles funding for the legislative branch. That subcommittee had eight earmarks in the past three years. New Chairman Ben Nelson of Nebraska inserted the bill's only earmark this year, a $200,000 grant to an Omaha museum, his first in the bill since reporting began in 2008.

Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, who was replaced by Brownback as the top Republican on the agriculture panel, saw his agriculture earmarks cut by more than half, from $18.5 million in 2008 to $9 million this year, the analysis shows.

However, Bennett moved up to become the top Republican on the subcommittee handling energy and water spending. His earmarks in that bill nearly tripled, from $17.4 million in 2008 to $51.3 million this year.

The fact that earmark dollars usually increase with a lawmaker's seniority shows the system is fundamentally flawed, says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"This is not about merit. This is not about objective funding decisions," Ellis said. "They're making funding decisions based on where you sit in the chamber vs. what you need on the ground."

Matt Kelley reports for USA Today.