Coburn and Obama’s Federal Spending Transparency Bill (S. 2590)
The bill described below passed. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) cleared the Senate by unanimous consent on September 7, 2006, after bloggers helped expose two senators who had put secret holds on it. President George W. Bush signed it on September 26, 2006, as Public Law 109-282. The database it required went live as USAspending.gov on December 13, 2007, and the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service manages it today.
Earmarks, the pork-barrel spending this campaign was aimed at, followed a different path. Congress banned them through a moratorium from 2011. They came back in 2021 as Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending in the Senate, with caps and public disclosure. As of November 2026, FY2027 earmark requests are written into the House and Senate spending bills. Those projects get money only if full-year bills are enacted. For now the government runs on a stopgap that expires December 11, 2026.
The April 2006 announcement
Crossposted from Instapundit.com
This post first ran on Instapundit in April 2006 as a PorkBusters update. PorkBusters was a campaign by bloggers against congressional earmarks, launched in September 2005, and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds was one of the people behind it. The post shared an announcement from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), sent out by email:
U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today announced the introduction of legislation that would publicly disclose all recipients of federal funding and financial assistance. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) will allow taxpayers to see how their money is being spent, Dr. Coburn said. The federal government awards roughly $300 billion in grants annually to 30,000 different organizations across the United States, according to the General Services Administration. This bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to establish and maintain a single public Web site that lists all entities receiving federal funds, including the name of each entity, the amount of federal funds the entity has received annually by program, and the location of the entity. All federal assistance must be posted within 30 days of such funding being awarded to an organization.
“This public database will provide transparency to federal spending and will provide an important weapon taxpayers can use to hold the government accountable. The database also would help to reduce fraud, abuse and misallocation of federal funds by requiring greater accounting of federal expenditures,” Dr. Coburn said. “Every citizen in this country, after all, should have the right to know what organizations and activities are being funded with their hard-earned tax dollars.”
“At the very least, taxpayers deserve to know where their money is being spent,” Senator Obama said. “This common-sense legislation would shine a bright light on all federal spending to help prevent tax dollars from being wasted. If government spending can’t withstand public scrutiny, then the money shouldn’t be spent.”
Over the past year, the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management on which Dr. Coburn serves as chairman has uncovered tens of billions of dollars in fraud, abuse and wasteful spending, ranging from expensive leasing schemes to corporate welfare to bloated bureaucracy. “This database would ensure such spending is better tracked and the public can hold policy makers and government agencies accountable for questionable spending decisions,” Dr. Coburn said. “If enacted, this legislation will finally ensure true accountability and transparency in how the government spends our money, which will hopefully lead to more fiscal responsibility by the federal government.”
The $300 billion and 30,000-organization figures are the senators’ 2006 estimates, which they credited to the General Services Administration. The final law was broader than this first description. It covered grants, contracts, loans and other federal awards of $25,000 or more.
What Bill Frist said about transparency
In the podcast interview posted yesterday, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said more transparency was vital. The post asked whether he would back the Coburn-Obama proposal.
A later addition quoted the key part of Frist’s answer. “GR” is Glenn Reynolds and “BF” is Frist:
GR: Do you think we’re going to see any progress in bringing pork under control before this Congress is over? BF: We absolutely have to, and the first step is transparency, holding people accountable and making sure that if somebody has a particular interest or a particular project, and not all projects are bad, as you know, that it have the opportunity to be seen, sunlight shining on it, debated, voted upon. The age of Pork has got to be destroyed, we’ve got to get a handle on it.
The post said the interview went on longer than this excerpt. It joked that Reynolds was no match as a transcriptionist for Duane Patterson, producer of Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Frist left the Senate in January 2007.
The cartoon update
A last update to the post praised a cartoon on the subject from CoxandForkum!, the editorial cartoon site run by John Cox and Allen Forkum.
What happened to S. 2590 next
The bill passed in about five months, but only after a public fight over anonymous holds. Under Senate practice, a hold lets one senator quietly block a bill from getting a quick vote by unanimous consent. In August 2006, S. 2590 was stuck behind secret holds.
Bloggers on the right and left, PorkBusters among them, worked with groups such as the Sunlight Foundation and called Senate offices to find out who had placed them. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) admitted to one hold. Coburn’s staff said they suspected Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) had used the same procedure. After their names came out, both holds were lifted.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 2006 | Coburn and Obama introduce S. 2590 |
| August 2006 | Secret holds stall the bill; bloggers and the Sunlight Foundation hunt for the senators behind them |
| September 7, 2006 | Senate passes the bill by unanimous consent |
| September 2006 | House passes it by voice vote |
| September 26, 2006 | President Bush signs it as Public Law 109-282 |
| December 13, 2007 | OMB launches USAspending.gov |
| May 9, 2014 | DATA Act (Public Law 113-101) moves the site from OMB to Treasury |
Where the bill’s sponsors went
Obama served as president from 2009 to 2017. Coburn kept pressing on spending issues until he retired from the Senate in January 2015, and he died in March 2020.
USAspending.gov today
USAspending.gov is the database that S. 2590 required. The Office of Management and Budget opened it on December 13, 2007. In 2014 the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) moved responsibility for the site from OMB to the Treasury Department, where the Bureau of the Fiscal Service now manages it. That law also required government-wide data standards and added spending data to the award data the site already had.
On the site you can search contracts, grants, loans and other awards by recipient, agency, location and fiscal year. Its data has gaps, though. The Government Accountability Office and agency inspectors general have repeatedly reported that agencies submit incomplete or inaccurate data. That is still one of the open problems with the transparency the 2006 law set out to create.
From the earmark ban to Community Project Funding
The 2006 law made federal awards easier to see, but it did not end earmarks. Congress did that later, for a while, and then brought them back under new names.
The 2011 moratorium
Starting in the 112th Congress (2011 to 2012), both chambers stopped approving earmarks. The Congressional Research Service notes that this was never a change to chamber rules. It rested on party rules and committee practice, enforced by leaders and appropriators. The House earmark disclosure rules written in 2007 and 2008 stayed on the books the whole time.
The 2021 return
In the 117th Congress, appropriators lifted the moratorium for FY2022. The House called its version Community Project Funding (CPF) and the Senate called its version Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS). The new rules added safeguards. Members must post their requests online, certify that they and their families have no financial interest in the project, and keep within a cap on total earmark spending.
How earmarks work as of November 2026
- Each member sends requests to the Appropriations Committees. For FY2027, the House let each member submit up to 20 Community Project Funding requests across all bills, up from 15.
- Members post their requests publicly and sign financial-interest certifications.
- The committees choose projects within an overall ceiling. In the House it is half of one percent of discretionary spending. In the Senate it is one percent.
- Approved projects are listed in tables that name the sponsor and amount in each bill’s report.
- The money is spent only once a full-year appropriations bill becomes law.
Not every member takes part. For FY2027, 42 House members did not submit any earmark requests.
Recent figures
FY2026 shows how large this spending has become. The FY2026 Agriculture bill, enacted November 12, 2025, as Division B of Public Law 119-37, funded 746 earmarked projects worth $931 million. According to CRS, the FY2026 Transportation-HUD law provided $2.4 billion for earmarks, 14% less than in FY2024. The FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science law included about $939 million in Justice Department earmarks.
FY2027 began October 1, 2026, under the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (H.R. 6500, Public Law 119-103). President Donald Trump signed it on September 2, 2026, after a House vote of 370-48 and a Senate vote of 90-6. It funds all 12 regular spending bills through December 11, 2026, or until each full-year bill is enacted, if that comes first.
Opinions on the return of earmarks still split along lines the 2006 debate would recognize. Supporters say members know their districts better than agency staff do and that disclosure keeps the process honest. Critics, including taxpayer groups such as the National Taxpayers Union, say earmarks still channel money to well-connected members and make spending bills harder to cut.
FAQ
Did the Coburn-Obama transparency bill become law?
Yes. S. 2590 passed the Senate by unanimous consent on September 7, 2006, and then passed the House. President Bush signed it on September 26, 2006, as Public Law 109-282, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.
What website did the bill create?
It created USAspending.gov, which OMB launched on December 13, 2007. The DATA Act of 2014 moved the site from OMB to the Treasury Department and expanded the data it must carry. Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service manages it today. You can use it to search federal contracts, grants and loans by recipient, place and agency.
Who placed the secret holds on S. 2590?
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) admitted to a hold. Coburn’s staff said they suspected Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) had placed one too. Bloggers and groups such as the Sunlight Foundation helped identify both senators in late August 2006. Byrd dropped his hold on August 31, 2006, Stevens lifted his soon after, and the Senate passed the bill on September 7, 2006.
What was PorkBusters?
PorkBusters was a campaign against congressional earmarks that bloggers N.Z. Bear and Glenn Reynolds launched in September 2005, at first in response to Hurricane Katrina spending. Reynolds ran Instapundit. It urged readers to contact their members of Congress and pushed for more spending transparency, including S. 2590.
Are earmarks still banned?
No. A moratorium blocked earmarks from 2011, but Congress brought them back for FY2022. They are now called Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending in the Senate. They come with posted requests, financial-interest certifications and caps tied to total discretionary spending.
How can I see earmarks for my state?
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees publish members’ requests and the tables of funded projects. Each project lists its sponsor, recipient and amount. Once the money is awarded, you can follow the grant to its recipient on USAspending.gov.
Sources
- Public Law 109-282, Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Congress.gov)
- CRS: The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act: Implementation and Proposed Amendments
- CRS: Tracking Federal Awards: USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources
- Treasury: Data Transparency, About
- CRS: Earmark Disclosure Rules in the House
- CRS: Community Project Funding: House Rules and Committee Protocols
- CRS: Agriculture and Related Agencies: FY2026 Appropriations
- CRS: THUD Appropriations for FY2026
- CRS: Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027
- H.R. 6500, Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (Congress.gov)
- CRS: Appropriations Status Table FY2027
About this article
- Fact-checked before publication.
- Published · Updated
