May 11, 2010

Contact:
Gabriela Schneider
Communications Director
gschneider@sunlightfoundation.com
202-742-1520 ext 236

NEW EARMARK TRANSPARENCY LEGISLATION INTRODUCED

IN HOUSE AND SENATE
Bipartisan Legislation Would Require Online Database of All Earmark Requests
WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation lauds Senators Coburn (R-OK), Feingold
(D-WI), Gillibrand (D-NY) and McCain (R-AZ) in the Senate and Representatives Cassidy
(R-LA) and Speier (D-CA) in the House for introducing landmark legislation today that
would require Congress to create an online, searchable database for all earmark requests.
Sunlight has long advocated for technological solutions to ensure that earmarks reflect the
public interest, and formally proposed an online, searchable database of earmark request
disclosures in March of 2008 in its Transparency in Government Act, posted to its
PublicMarkup.org website (http://publicmarkup.org/bill/transparency-government-act-2008-
revised/1/104/).

“Currently, information on earmarks is scattered across more than 559 websites, making it
virtually impossible for even the most seasoned earmark researcher to follow the money,
let alone constituents,” said Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight
Foundation. “The Earmark Transparency Act introduced today in the House and Senate
solves that problem by unifying all earmark requests in one single database, therefore
giving constituents one place to look to learn what their elected representatives are
funding. This will empower them to then determine for themselves whether lawmakers are
using earmarks to meet pressing needs or reward political supporters.”

The legislation directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the
Senate, within six months of enactment, to establish a public searchable website that lists
all earmark requests, including detailed information such as the bill in which the request is
made, who originally asked the lawmaker to make the spending request, the amount of the
earmark request and more.

It is the Sunlight Foundation’s view that the Earmark Transparency Act improves upon
measures taken last year by the leadership in the House and Senate that required all
lawmakers requesting earmarks to post their requests on their official websites. These
requests were not disclosed in a standard method or location, making them difficult to
track. This new legislation proposes a single, Congress-wide access point, and also fulfills
the kind of earmark disclosure President Obama called for in the State of the Union
Address earlier this year.
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Sunlight Foundation, page 2

For more information on earmark reform legislation, visit Sunlight’s blog at

http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com and the OpenCongress.org Wiki at
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Earmark_Reform_Bills

The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to
make government transparent and accountable. Visit http://SunlightFoundation.com to learn more
about Sunlight’s projects, including http://PoliticalPartyTime.org and http://TransparencyData.com.

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