By an 11-5 vote today the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee passed  S.3335, the Earmark Transparency Act of 2010 . The bill requires Congress to create a free, publicly accessible database of all earmark requests and awards for any legislation containing earmarks.

Creating an earmarks “one-stop-shop” is vital for taxpayers to reorient Washington’s spending priorities. Since long before Congress even disclosed earmarks, staff at Taxpayers for Common Sense has spent countless hours reading bills, scouring press releases, and plumbing public records building the tools that the government has not: earmark databases that piece together the true story behind earmarks .

From the Bridge to Nowhere , to Rep. Duke Cunningham , to the PMA Group , we’ve uncovered connections and have seen how earmarks can be a petri dish of corruption and waste–too often benefiting pet projects and the politically powerful at the expense of more important national priorities.

The Earmark Transparency Act of 2010 will create a timely, free, easily accessible tool where taxpayers can not only see who requests an earmark and who will benefit from it, but also a mini “biography” for each earmark – how long it has been funded, if there are non-federal funding sources, an estimated completion date, etc. This is an important step in making government work for taxpayers…and not simply special interests.