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Senate OKs database legislation
By Chris Casteel
The Oklahoman
September 9, 2006
WASHINGTON - After intense efforts by Internet bloggers, the U.S. Senate late Thursday approved legislation by Sen. Tom Coburn to create an online database of federal government grants, contracts and loans.
Given the Internet uproar over senators secretly blocking the bill, the vote was somewhat anticlimactic: The legislation was approved by unanimous consent, without debate. Coburn, R-Muskogee, wasn't even present; he was in a car heading to the airport for a trip to Iraq.
Coburn and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., introduced the bill several weeks ago calling for a searchable database that would allow the public to access information about the recipients of U.S. government spending.
Bloggers took up cause
The bill calls for the database to be available on the Internet by 2008; its estimated cost is $15 million over five years.
The legislation moved quickly through committee and was co-sponsored by 43 senators from both parties, but it stalled before the summer recess because some senators had put secret "holds" blocking it from floor action.
Senate rules allow for any senator to block consideration of a bill or nomination and to do so anonymously.
Internet bloggers took up the cause and tried to identify which senators were holding the bill.
After contacting Senate offices, the bloggers, led by a site called porkbusters.org, named Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va, as those blocking the bill.
Senators praise response
Coburn, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., credit the bloggers and outside groups that pushed for the legislation. According to Coburn's office, groups ranging from Americans for Prosperity and Taxpayers for Common Sense to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Greenpeace endorsed the bill. It also was championed in newspaper editorials across the country.
"The group that deserves credit for passing this bill ... is not Congress, but the army of bloggers and concerned citizens who told Congress that transparency is a just demand for all citizens, not a special privilege for political insiders," Coburn said.
It is unclear when the House will act on the bill, but Coburn told reporters Thursday that he hopes to see it signed by the president before lawmakers leave Washington next month for the fall campaign season.
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