Speaker Pelosi yesterday spoke on a panel to kick off the World eParliament Conference 2009, in the US House of Representatives.

Her prepared remarks are available here, and include the following:

“In the history of American democracy, there was a time when a message could travel only as fast as a horse could gallop or a ship could sail. Today, a message from the American people to their representatives in Congress travels as fast as a citizen can twitter, blog, or post to Facebook…

Led by the innovation and enthusiasm of young people, Americans and Members of Congress are holding a running conversation – in real time. There is no greater tool to increase transparency than the internet. Now, Americans can watch committee hearings, check votes, read bills, and review financial disclosures–all online. Next month, they will be able to see exactly how Members of Congress are spending their office funds, and at the start of next year, they will be able to watch and search our House floor proceedings in real time.

Clearly, Sunlight agrees that “there is no greater tools to increase transparency than the Internet.”

Also, “watch[ing] and search[ing] floor proceedings in real time” will be a welcome addition to the current real-time web presence of the House.

Speaker Pelosi also engaged in a long aside during her delivered remarks yesterday, invoking the distinction between disclosure through office-hours-basement-binder-public-inspection and disclosure in real time, online, expressing an explicit preference for the latter.

Ellen is presenting this morning, and I’ll also be tweeting from much of the event.