What better celebration of Ada Lovelace Day – celebrating the achievements of women in technology – could we have than to honor the women who are key to the government transparency movement to which technology is so key?  These women are using technology to pry open the doors of government, and are creating a new style of transparency powered by the Internet. By either making more political and spending data available online, facilitating others to do the same, addressing questions that arise in the age of technology or by creating new tools and context to help all of us connect the dots and understand what the data has to tell us, these women are empowering all of us to hold our government accountable in ways we never could before. As I look around to my colleagues, I see a remarkable number of us – too many to really mention in one column. So here are a few: Ryan Alexander became President of Taxpayers for Common Sense in November 2006, after more than seven years of serving on the board. Taxpayers, under her leadership, has become the go-to organization if you want to find out anything about earmarks. She’s had a long history working on behalf of the public interest: in the past 20 years she has worked as a non-profit advocate, litigator, manager, funder and consultant on issues from media policy, election reform, public health policy, transparency, privacy, women’s economic security and citizen participation. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ryanalxndr.

Danielle Brian’s been battling government secrecy for two decades as the Executive Director of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) — a group that investigates, exposes, and remedies corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open and ethical federal government. POGO’s investigations have led to major reforms and cuts in wasteful spending in such areas as government secrecy, nuclear security, drug industry influence on health policy, and defense contractor waste and fraud. When she started there – there was no such thing as a fax or even a feeder in the copy machine, let alone the Internet. You can follow her on twitter at http://twitter.com/daniellebrian.

Leslie Harris is the President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, where she is responsible for the overall vision and direction of the organization and serves as its chief strategist and spokesperson. Under her leadership, CDT has grown significantly, opened a West Coast office and launched an influential Health Privacy Project. Leslie is widely known for her work on policy issues related to civil liberties, new technologies and the Internet including free expression, government and consumer privacy, cyber security and global Internet freedom. She frequently testifies before Congress and federal agencies, is a regular contributor to several online publications and blogs, including the Huffington Post, and in 2009 was named one of Washington's Tech Titans by Washingtonian magazine.  You can follow her on twitter at http://twittter.com/Leslie_Harris

Sheila Krumholz has been the Executive Director of the Center of Responsive Politics since 2007. She has been at the Center since 1989 (with a few years off) working her way up through the research ranks, overseeing the internal data compilation and analyses found on CRP’s site, OpenSecrets.org, as well as customized research for CRP’s clients. Under her leadership, CRP has increased its reputation as a reliable source for accurate, nonpartisan research and the premier resource on political finance, lobbying, revolving door and other influence data at the federal level. Sheila also a heads an organization where three of their four senior staff members – including the directors of IT and research – are women, representing a combined 40 years of work at the Center. You can follow her on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/skrmhlz.

Jen Palkha spent 15 years in technology media before deciding to focus on transparency at the municipal level with the founding of her new organization – Code for America – that works with city governments to identify web apps that drive transparency, efficiency and participation, and that are reusable by other cities. Code for America recruits teams of fellows from the web industry to build these apps through a structured program of public service. Jennifer is currently working with the 11 cities who applied for their first development cycle to decide which three to five projects will be built starting in January 2011. You can follow her on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pahlkadot.

Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and Hill staffer, started Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in Washington in 2003. CREW has used litigation as a tactic to force our government to be more transparent. Melanie and CREW were instrumental in revealing that millions of emails disappeared from Bush White House servers. It is also thanks to CREW’s lawsuits against both the Bush and Obama administrations that the Obama White House now makes White House visitor records available online. You can follow CREW's work on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/CREWCREW

And my colleagues would berate me for not including my own story. I am co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to using the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency. I am the founder of two other prominent Washington-based organizations in the field of money and politics – the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign – and an expert on transparency and the influence of money in politics. You can follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ellnmllr

It’s been an enormous pleasure to work with  Ryan, Danielle, Sheila, Leslie, Jen and Melanie for many years.  We all say “thank you, Ada” for paving the way.

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

Jonathan D. Salant and Lizzie O’Leary with Bloomberg.com have an article showing how there are six lobbyists attempting to influence the health care reform debate for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate. That figure is three times the number of lobbyists registered to lobby on defense. They used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to illustrate how every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is attempting to influence the debate on behalf of some interest or another, spending $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009 alone. They quote Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, “Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street.” Multiple other outlets picked up the article and Bill's quote, including Kate Barrett at ABC News. And David Schechter, CNN's senior national editor, wrote a column about the lobbying feeding frenzy surrounding the health care reform debate. He lists Sunlight and OpenSecrets.org as good sources for information on the "lobbying largesse."

In light of the increasingly heated debate over how to reform health care policy, Lisa Stone at BlogHer wrote about the new partnership between BlogHer and OpenCongress, the joint project between the Participatory Politics Foundation and Sunlight, to provide a forum to move the discourse in a more civil and positive direction. They have asked Nancy Watzman, Sunlight's director of the Party Time project, to share her investigations on their site multiple times a week. Be sure to check their coverage out, which starts today.

Writing at Forbes, Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, wrote about what he calls the promise of innovation provided by Government 2.0. And he asked, "How does government itself become an open platform that allows people inside and outside government to innovate?" O'Reilly points to the Apps for America contests as an example of the "virtuous circle of citizen innovation" using the information made available through the White House's Data.gov. PC World published a piece by Grant Gross with IDB News Service on how the contest is asking developer to use the raw data released on Data.gov and elsewhere to demonstrate the power of data-publishing and number-crunching services. Gross discussed with Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs' director, about how the Labs works to assist traditional and citizen journalists with investigative reporting. "As the Obama administration begins to release more data, there aren't enough fingers on keyboards here in Sunlight Labs to handle all this," Clay said. "Has the Obama administration succeeded in making more government data available? You're talking to the guy with the most unquenchable thirst for that, who will never say that they're successful."

The Boston Globe's "Political Notebook" column makes note of two of Sunlight's closest friends, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Responsive Politics, teaming up to create a database showing campaign cash to congressional lawmakers and the earmarks that they requested. Taxpayers is providing the data showing more than 20,000 earmarks totaling more than $35 billion. And CRP has detailed $227 million in campaign donations and lobbying expenses. The article quotes Ryan Alexander, Taxpayer's president, “Earmarks and campaign contributions are part and parcel of the pay-to-play system that permeates Washington...Companies making thousands of dollars in campaign contributions get millions of earmarked taxpayer dollars from lawmakers." The database can be searched here.

Speaking of earmarks, Greenwire's Anne C. Mulkern wrote about how lawmakers, while crafting legislation meant to finance the Department of Energy, inserted $75.2 million in earmarks for research at schools and universities in their home states and districts. Mulkern quotes Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, questioning the use of earmarks to fund research. "The gold standard in academic research is peer-reviewed analysis," Ellis said. "Picking the winners and losers based on geography and not who has conducted the best research is a recipe for wasting precious taxpayer dollars."  The New York Times republished Mulkern's article.

FederalNewsRadio's Max Cacas reported on the Project on Government Oversight's (POGO) new guide, "The Art of Congressional Oversight: A Users Guide to Doing it Right." The 83-page volume contains insights into how to be a successful congressional committee investigator, Cacas writes. POGO put on paper what they've been teaching over the past three years via monthly training sessions, free lunchtime skill-building seminars designed to educate Hill staffers about their rights, responsibilities and powers working in the realm of congressional oversight. The trainings and book are part of POGO's effort to teach congressional staffers about the constitutionally-mandated jobs of Congress -- providing oversight over the cabinet-level agencies and other organizations within the executive branch.

Special note: As National Journal's "Hotline On Call" pointed out on their list of upcoming weekend public policy programming, Ellen Miller, Sunlight's executive director, will be appearing on C-SPAN's "Communicators" program Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. (EST).

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney wrote about how the health care industry is unleashing big money as the health care debate in Congress intensifies. She notes the blog post from Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight's senior writer, about how five of Sen. Max Baucus' (Mont.) former staff members now work for a total of 27 different organizations that either represent the health care or insurance industries, or have a vested interest in the debate. She also quotes Paul, "We thought it was important to show the public that the senators aren't crafting the policy by themselves. They have all these other connections, through relationships, that have a huge stake in this legislation." Trudy Lieberman with the Columbia Journalism Review also highlighted and linked to Paul's post and the graphic he and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, produced. The "study shows exactly what advocates of real and substantive health reform are up against," Lieberman wrote, adding that Sunlight provides clarity on just who has the senator’s ear.

Speaking of Kerry's graphic art skills, The New York Times' "First Look" blog includes one of his illustrations in a post highlighting great visualizations created by designers using the Times APIs that "both beautify and clarify information." Kerry's graphic illustrates the Times' usage of the word "transparency" since 1990.

David Talbot at MIT's Technology Review, in an article how volunteers are using the Web to help make the U.S. government more accountable, highlighted Transparency Corps. Talbot quoted Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, "Government puts out a ton of data that is really interesting about what it does, but people can't understand it." Transparency Corps launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the White House's IT Dashboard, the administration's effort to chart the progress of information-technology projects in various federal agencies. The article quotes Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight's senior technology advisor and co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, saying the dashboard may be just the tip of the iceberg heralding a new age of transparency regarding federal spending. "Once people get used to this type of information being so readily accessible, they will demand to see (it) for all other federal spending too, and then the genie will be completely out of the bottle."

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote how the debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of the 52 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Eggan used Party Time data to show show U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dogs, has had a steady schedule of fundraising events sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. Eggen used data from the Center for Responsive Politics that showed Ross had received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health-care sector and insurance industry during his five terms in Congress. On the topic of Party Time, be sure not to miss National Journal's interview with Party Time's director Nancy Watzman.

The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise quotes data from Taxpayers for Common Sense that shows the $636 billion military spending bill passed Thursday by the House contains 1,100 earmarks totaling roughly $2.75 billion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) inserted 19 earmarks worth more than $70 million for defense firms with Inland Southern California branches and other area institutions, according to Taxpayers.

Joe Davidson, "Federal Diary" columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about how 10 years of work paid off Wednesday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, meant to further protect federal whistleblowers. Because of important differences between the House and the Senate on the bill, there was real concern that the legislation would flounder. But "shuttle diplomacy" conducted by the Obama White House "left those involved feeling as if they gained more than they gave up," Davidson wrote. He quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, "There were genuine concerns that people worked through. It's the way you want government to work."

PC World reports on a call from the Center for Democracy and Technology to the Obama administration to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read email. On Tuesday, CDT released a report (PDF) calling on the administration to provide information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system currently being employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Resource Shelf, a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists, highlighted OpenCongress' redesign. "If you or those you work with have any interest in the workings of the U.S. Congress and related matters, OpenCongress is one impressive (and free) resource," the post says. "We strongly recommend taking a look at it."

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

CQ Weekly's Maura Reynolds wrote about the Obama administration's successes and failures in achieving its transparency goals six months into the term. Reynolds quoted Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, about how many of their transparency initiatives are still in development and how the kinks are being worked out. "A default position that government data will be accessible to the public in machine-readable format is a huge step forward," Ellen said. "Is it moving as fast as I'd like? Of course not. But I can be patient while this unfolds." Ellen also commented on some of the administration's initiatives, such as "town hall" meetings, that have been tightly controlled. "There is real transparency, and then there is transparency theater,'' she said. "I can distinguish between the two." Reynolds wrote that the more people expect the Internet to deliver the information they want, the more kinds of information they will expect to access that way. "It's kind of a genie out of the bottle," Ellen said. "The Internet has raised expectations. I fundamentally believe that the way technology pushes information out to the edges will have a powerful effect on the power structure." Reynolds reports that open government advocates praise two federal Web sites, USAspending.gov, a site that tracks all federal spending and was set up as a result of a bill co-sponsored by then-Sen. Obama, and Data.gov, the site the new administration designed as a "one-stop shop for number crunchers that consolidates statistics across federal agencies in standard, machine-readable formats." The article quotes Gary Bass, director of OMB Watch, saying the sites could be vehicles for connecting government performance to spending. "From the point of view of the average user, there has been nothing like this before. That is truly a credit to this administration." Reynolds notes that it was OMB Watch's FedSpending.org that served as the technical platform for USAspending.gov.

Despite the existence of rules requiring congressional lawmakers to disclose earmarks they request, rules do not exist requiring them to disclose items classified as "program support." The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig illustrates this problem with a report on how $160 million intended to help Mexico's police buy U.S.-made first-responder radios was tucked into the voluminous congressional plan for U.S. military spending next year. Leonnig quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, "It kind of makes a mockery of the disclosure requirements we have. They will disclose the little things, the $1 million projects, but when you have the big-ticket items, you don't have members willing to take responsibility for those."

Stephanie Condon, writing at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" column, cited a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense that found that lawmakers serving on the the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense included 1,080 earmarks worth $2.7 billion dollars in the fiscal-year 2010 defense appropriations bill they approved last week. The lawmakers specifically requested more than $1.6 billion in earmarks for their campaign contributors, entities who had donated nearly $1 million to the committee members.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and Taxpayers for Common Sense achieved a major victory when the Senate voted to halt production of the Air Force's top fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, as reported by The Boston Globe. POGO called it a “landmark vote" that “marks the end of business as usual, and the beginning of real reform, in Washington." And Taxpayers termed it a “giant step for fiscal sanity (that) affirms the government’s ability to stop unneeded weapons programs even when they are firmly entrenched in the American industrial and congressional base."

Tom Hamburger and Peter Nicholas at The Los Angeles Times reported on Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, asked a simple question: What had the nation's banks done with all their bailout money? And the Treasury Department answered that they don't know. The Times reporters quoted Ellen crediting the Obama administration for making more government data public. She cited Data.gov as an example of a genuine attempt to put a wealth of government information on the Internet. But at the same time, Ellen said: "We don't see any radical changes from what we've seen in the past." The Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp" blog picked up the story, as did a number of other outlets across the country.

National Journal's Eliza Krigman reported on Cato's Jim Harper launching a contest at WashingtonWatch.com. The contest, supported by Sunlight, is meant to encourage citizens to contribute online to an earmark database to track how congressional lawmakers steer federal funds to special interests and projects in their districts. Krigman notes that the project is similar to Sunlight's Transparency Corps. Amanda Carpenter at The Washington Times, Ryan Singel at Wired's "Epicenter" blog and Nate Anderson at Ars Technica wrote about WashingtonWatch.com's earmark contest as well.

In their headlines for Monday, Democracy Now reported on a bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators who called on Democratic and Republican leaders to put off a vote on health care reform legislation for 70 days. In the report they cite info from Paul Blumenthal's blog post on how each of these senators has raised at least $1 million from the health and insurance sectors combined over the course of their respective careers.

National Public Radio's Andrea Seabrook and Peter Overby, in a report the network broadcast on Wednesday afternoon's edition of "All Things Considered," asked the question, "Who has access to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee?" They highlight and link to the graphic produced by Paul and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, that traces health care lobbyists' ties to Baucus and other senators on the Finance Committee. They also interviewed Paul who said, "In Washington, relationships are part of the huge game of influence. If you don't have a relationship with someone on the Hill, then you aren't going to have the kind of access that you need for your client." And so, Paul said, these lobbyists — and their clients — have a unique brand of access to one man at the center of the health-care debate.

Anne Mulkern of Greenwire (subscription required) reported on an analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics of a portion of lobbying disclosures for the second quarter of 2009 by energy companies, which show that electric utilities increased their expenditures, nearly catching up with oil and gas. While Congress debated and voted on the Cap and Trade Energy Conservation Bill, electric utilities spent $12 million, while oil and gas spent $13.9 million, attempting to influence the outcome. The New York Times republished Mulkern's piece.

The the Financial Times and Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi have picked up LittleSis.org's profiling of Bob Hormats, Obama's pick to be under secretary of state for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs. Hormats, as vice chair of Goldman Sachs (International), has dubious ties to the genocidal regime in Sudan through a Chinese oil company.

Quinn Norton at the Irish Times highlights Transparency Corps in an article about how crowdsourcing can be an effective means of getting labor-intensive work done online. Norton quotes Clay extensively, “Right now we’re just trying to keep up with the users, which is a nice problem to have.” Clay said that next up will be a project from LittleSis.org.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), the second annual Women Who Tech TeleSummit is being held via phone and the Web. Hundreds of women from across the US and the globe will be participating in the event. The purpose of the summit is to raise the profile of women in the tech world, show case female talent in the field and to build a network of women technology experts.  The organizers have pulled together fascinating and exciting lineup of panels featuring renowned women who are breaking new ground in technology.

One of the panels is titled “Transparency and Government 2.0,” where three of my friends and colleagues (Ryan Alexander, director of Taxpayers for Common Sense, Sheila Krumholz, director of the Center for Responsive Politics and Sunlight’s own Denver-based consultant Nancy Watzman) will be discussing Web tools you need to track who is funding lawmakers, how they vote, what earmarks they are sponsoring and more. They will also discuss the moves the Obama administration is taking to open government via technology. This panel is scheduled to kick off at 5:00 pm (Eastern time).

Here’s the link to sign up. You can also follow the telesummit via Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Linkedin.

See you tomorrow at Women Who Tech!

In the wake of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and while Congress debates the massive stimulus bill,  the  Coalition for an Accountable Recovery was created to promote accountability for both federal government agencies doling out the trillions of dollars,  for the states and for the companies that benefit from recovery funds. The best way to assure taxpayers that the funds are being used responsibly is to provide "radical" transparency on stimulus spending and to make the details of the stimulus available in online, in real time.

No great surprise to here that the Coalition (of which Sunlight is a member)  is calling on Congress to require online reporting that allows the public to easily search, sort, track and download data on the use of recovery. Each state should be required to report on all funds they receive and all data should be presented in a uniform manner, making sure it is compatible with the USASpending.gov Web site. The Coalition has also state that   the newest technology should be applied to both the Recovery.gov Web site and USASpending.gov to make the information more accessible for everyone

Sunlight has joined the over 30  groups as part of the coalition, including the Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, National Institute for Money in State Politics, OMB Watch, OpenTheGovernment.org, Project on Government Oversight and Taxpayers for Commonsense.

Here's some potentially encouraging news. On Wednesday, Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General of TARP, disclosed that recently-approved agreements with the automakers and Citibank contain requirements for better disclosure. In a letter he sent Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman of Senate Finance Committee, Barofsky reported that the agreements give his office access to Citigroup's records and requires that the company report how they are using the bailout funds.

As our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense wrote, we all hope he gets the remaining 280 banks who also get bailout funds to start disclosing how they are spending the money.

Michael Smallberg at Project on Government Oversight adds that the new agreements also put limits on executive compensation. He calls on Congress to pass a bill that would beef up Barofsky's oversight ability by giving his office more tools.

Lots of crossed fingers here.

Our friends at Change Congress have asked their members and supporters to take a survey to help them decide what they should be focused on for the coming year. And a number of questions they asked dealt with government transparency: Are earmarks fundamentally wrong or just need to be more open and transparent to the public? What's one thing that would create a more open and transparent government? And finally, should lobbyists have a role in government? All good questions.

Japhet Els, Change Congress' political director, lists some of the responses they have received. Regarding earmarks:, "I believe that if earmarks are going to exist, they ought to be transparent." Another, "Nothing is 100% wrong or right. Earmarks have their use and full and timely transparency should check abuses." We agree with these sentiments. That's why we worked with our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense to create Earmark Watch, where we've placed over 3,000 earmarks online, and ask citizens to research them.

Regarding reforms to foster transparency, one respondent wrote, "All info must be available on the web within a short time." That's a great idea. Since Sunlight's founding in the spring of 2006, this is what we've been doing. We have assembled and funded an array of web-based databases and tools including OpenCongress.org, Congresspedia.org, FedSpending.org, OpenSecrets.org, Public Markup and others. These sites make millions of bits of information available online about the members of Congress, their staff, legislation, federal spending and lobbyists. Regarding transparency, another person wrote, "I would suggest a daily e-mail to all constituents listing the complete activity of an elected official the day before." Again, we agree. That's why we built Punch Clock Campaign, where we've asked all candidates for congressional office - challengers and incumbents - to promise, if elected, to post their daily schedules on the Internet. Lawmakers who agree to share their schedules, including who they've met with and why, show that they are responsive, open, transparent and above all accountable, leading to greater public trust. Regarding lobbyists: "This is a tough one. Our democracy and principle of freedom of speech pretty much demands that we not eliminate lobbying altogether. At the same time, it badly needs reform. Don't have a clue how to approach that reform." Here's an idea, total transparency, where every lobbyist visiting a member of Congress or the executive branch to influence government policy or vote should be required to register online about the meeting with all sorts of relevant details about the meeting. The listing should include the name of the lobbyist, who he or she represents, the amount the client pays the lobbyist, the meeting's purpose, a listing of specific policy or bills discussed, what the lobbyist is asking the official to do, and a list of campaign contributions made by the lobbyists and the client. The transparency provided would go along way to prevent lobbying abuses.

LegiStorm, the sister company of the for-profit Storming Media, provides information about the U.S. Congress to the public. In line with their goal to make Congress more transparent, they have just launched an earmark database using 2008 data from Taxpayers for Common Sense. Taxpayers' data is currently displayed via a massive Excel spreadsheet. LegiStorm has integrated the data with their other data sets, creating this helpful tool to shine light on congressional and executive spending. LegiStorm says they will add the earmark spending data for 2009 after the budget process is complete.

The site allows you to easily learn earmark details such as who the sponsoring members are, which were sponsored by the president, all the earmarks designated to each state, what organizations received the funds, and what bills authorized each earmark. It also lists the number and dollar amounts each state received (Virginia just edged out Texas and California for the top in earmark dollars), the number and amounts designated by each member, a listing of the most expensive earmarks, top receiving organizations, as well as a list of "airdropped earmarks," an earmark that is not included in the original legislation as approved by either the House or Senate but is later mysteriously inserted into the conference committee reports, which combine both chambers' versions of the bill.

Sunlight is working with Taxpayers to build a site that will allow users to more easily search their earmark data too. And in the meantime congrats to them for completely making their data available to LegiStorm. And thanks, LegiStorm, for making this data more accessible.