Sunlight Joins Coalition in Launching Website to Expose Earmarks

August 16, 2006

Contact: Gabriela Schneider 202-742-1520 ext 236

WASHINGTON, DC – A diverse coalition of groups and websites dedicated to a more open government are launching a coordinated effort today to get citizens involved in tracking and researching the more than 1,800 earmarks in the 2007 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The coalition includes the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, the National Taxpayers Union, Porkbusters.com, Townhall.com, Human Events Online, and the Examiner Newspapers at Examiner.com. The organizations collaboratively created a single database of the earmarks, but each is presenting the data and engaging citizens in different ways. For example, the Sunlight Foundation has geographically mapped each earmark with a user-friendly way of finding out what’s been allocated to whom in each zip code. The coalition of groups is asking citizens to do their own fact-finding on the earmarks, to find out which Member of Congress secured them and what the Member’s relationship is to the group receiving the earmark is. The Sunlight Foundation website (www.sunlightfoundation.com/exposingearmarks) will offer tips to citizens on how to do research, and create a blog post as a repository for the information people find. “The details of Congressional earmarks are shrouded in secrecy, because there are so few rules requiring Congress to disclose details of them. Not even the names of all the lawmakers who inserted various earmarks are known,” said Sunlight Foundation Executive Director, Ellen Miller. “Getting citizens involved in researching the who, what, when, and how of them is just one way to strengthen the relationship that people have with their Members of Congress, by bringing about more openness. Mashing the earmark database with a Google map provides a real simple way to present the information so that everyone can understand it.” The number of earmarks used by Congress has been on a steady rise In 2004 there were 14,211 earmarks in all bills, compared to 3,055 earmarks in 1996, according to The Washington Post. In 2004, the cost of earmarks totaled $52.69 billion. Last year’s Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill contained no earmarks. Even before the Senate added their earmarks, the 2007 Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, alone, contained a total of over 1,800 earmarks. Founded in January, 2006, the mission of the Sunlight Foundation is to strengthen the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. Sunlight puts information and tools in citizens’ hands so they can learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing. Our ultimate goal of full transparency by Congress, its Members and staff will help reduce corruption, ensure greater accountability, and foster public trust in this vital institution of democracy. ###