Porkbusters was an effort led by mostly conservative and libertarian bloggers to cut pork barrel spending by the U.S. Congress used to help pay for projects. The effort was launched on September 18, 2005, after the massive scale of the reconstruction effort necessary for the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina had become apparent. It quickly picked up steam as blogger Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit") began promoting the idea and the influential-though-anonymous blogger NZ Bear set up a website showing which members of the U.S. Congress had committed to cutting projects in their own districts to help offset the disaster recovery effort.