The House will take up appropriations bills again this week, but on a delayed schedule resulting from the earmarks clash that engulfed the chamber last week.

The dispute — over whether earmarks should be included in the fiscal 2008 spending bills before House floor consideration — was decided in the Republicans’ favor; only two spending bills will not include the earmarks before conference.

Additionally, an agreement reached June 14 calls for House rules to be changed, likely Monday, to allow for points of order to be raised against conference reports that contain “airdropped” earmarks added during conference.

“This is an important victory for American families who deserve to know how and where Congress is spending their hard-earned tax dollars — and for House Republicans who stood united to make it happen,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio.

Despite the political victory for Republicans, some say GOP lawmakers did not come out of the earmarks debate untarnished.

Some Democrats say the GOP’s delaying tactics on appropriations bills just proved that they were willing to stop House proceedings if they did not get their way.

“They may see this as a short-term gain but . . . [it will] ratify they idea they’re obstructionists,” said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.

And House Appropriations Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., warned that because staff would have less time than planned to vet earmarks, the risk of allowing one that would cause embarrassment to the institution would grow.

Obey had determined earlier this year to add earmarks to spending bills after floor consideration.

He said he and his staff had not had time to review the approximately 32,0000 requests for earmarks — funding for specific projects — but that he would provide lawmakers time to review earmarks that would be added to the House spending bills in conference.

Yet Republicans last week tied the House floor in knots over their displeasure with Obey’s plan, saying the Democrats were abandoning their pledge to make the earmark process more transparent. That led to the agreement under which earmarks will be added to most House spending bills before conference.

Despite the reversal in procedure, Democrats generally refrained from criticizing the decision to back down on earmarks.

“You have to be ambitious early on or else because of the inertia of this place — it’s three yards and a cloud of dust,” said Democratic appropriator Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island.

By the end of last week, Democrats were fatigued from the focus on earmarks rather than the funding decisions laid out in their spending bills. They said they wanted to get back to work on the bills.

And on June 15, they were able to pass the first two fiscal 2008 spending bills. The House passed the Homeland Security measure (HR 2638) on a 268-150 vote and the Military Construction-VA (HR 2642) bill on a 409-2 vote. President Bush has threatened to veto the Homeland bill, and the vote for passage suggests he would have enough support in the House to sustain such a move.

“It would be kind of nice every once in a while if the 98 percent of the bill that represents substance,” Obey said, “it would be kind of nice if that gets at least a modicum of attention.”

Politics and earmarks aside, the main fallout from last week’s stalemate is that Democrats scaled back their ambitious goal of passing 11 of the 12 fiscal 2008 spending bills by the July Fourth recess.

The hope was that the month of June could be dedicated to appropriations work, leaving room in July for other parts of Democrats’ agenda that leaders chose to highlight.

The revised House plan is to pass eight spending bills in June. The Energy-Water measure (HR 2641) is scheduled to come to the House floor this week. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., announced that the other likely candidates for floor action include bills funding the Legislative Branch and State-Foreign Operations.

The other spending bills expected to be passed in the House in June include Interior-Environment, Financial Services and Commerce-Justice-Science.

Three spending bills will be pushed back to July: Labor-HHS-Education, Transportation-HUD and Agriculture. Hoyer said they hoped to pass those the first week after the July Fourth recess. The Defense spending bill — which was set for consideration in July all along — will be taken up the week of July 16. Democrats decided to delay the Defense bill until July because the president is scheduled to deliver a progress report on the Iraq War that month, as well as in September.

In the Senate, no floor action has been scheduled on appropriations bills, but the Labor-HHS-Education, Interior-Environment and Legislative Branch bills will be marked up by the full committee June 21. The Labor-HHS-Education bill will be marked up in subcommittee June 19, as will the Interior-Environment measure.

Democrats’ ability to keep to the revised appropriations schedule in the House will hinge on both parties respecting the deal brokered June 14.

Democrats pledged to continue to allow for open rules on the spending bills, and said they would rely on unanimous consent agreements to limit debate. Yet some Republicans were concerned that their ability to offer amendments would suffer.

“The proof is in the execution,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “It’s maybe more of a cease-fire than a deal.”

And some Democrats worried that the Republicans would continue their stalling tactics.

“We’re trying to treat the minority as though they are responsible. That may or may not work,” said Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

Alan K. Ota contributed to this story.