After a month of secret holds, back-room maneuvering, stall tactics and butting of heads, the Senate quietly passed the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) on Thursday, Sept. 7 by unanimous consent. The bill will dramatically increase government accountability and public access to federal spending data, by creating a free, public, searchable website of all federal spending, including government contracts and grants. The House is expected to amend the bill slightly before passing it this week. After amassing an impressive group of cosponsors including both the Senate Majority and Minority leaders, the bill was unanimously approved by the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in late July. It was widely expected the bill would pass the Senate quickly before the chamber broke for its summer recess in August, especially after Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the committee's chair and ranking member respectively, jointly requested the bill be fast-tracked and brought to the Senate floor for a quick vote. Yet the bill ran into some unexpected resistance when two Senators placed anonymous holds on the legislation, preventing it from passing quickly. The irony of a "secret hold" being used to stop a bill promoting transparency and disclosure of government information was not lost on supporters of the legislation nor the media. Blogs from across the political spectrum including Porkbusters and TPMMuckraker, public interest and watchdog groups teamed up to launch an effort to expose the mystery senator or senators. New of the effort spread quickly through the blogosphere and activists and regular citizens called senators' offices en masse to ask them to publicly disavow having placed the hold. Eventually this effort uncovered two senators who placed holds: Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Robert Byrd (D-WV). Once exposed, Byrd relinquished his hold - saying he had had sufficient time to review the bill and no longer objected. Stevens hold remained for a time, however, as he repeatedly claimed he was concerned that the legislation would be too costly and that it would create excessive bureaucracy. A number of Capitol Hill insiders, however, have speculated that the hold was placed as a personal pay-back against Coburn for holds he had placed in 2005 on legislation Stevens cosponsored. Nevertheless, the obstacle was eventually removed after increased public pressure on Sen. Majority Leader Frist led him to bring the bill for a vote despite the hold. Shortly after the Senate approved S. 2590, an agreement was reached with cosponsors of a weaker House version, which passed earlier this year, to bring up the Senate version for a House vote before adjournment. The weaker House bill only included required public access to information on grants and other kinds of federal assistance spending, omitting all federal contracts. The House will take up S. 2590 this week on the suspension calendar - a procedure for non-controversial legislation. It is expected to pass by a wide margin. Since it will be slightly modified from the Senate version, the bill passed by the House will quickly be passed by the Senate once again and then sent to the president for his signature. While the enactment of this bill is certainly a victory for transparency and access to information for the American people, it does not guarantee the online database will be easy to use and accessible for novice users and analysts alike. In order to make sure the government implements S. 2590 appropriately and adequately, OMB Watch will launch a similar database in early October. The new website, FedSpending.org, will allow users to search and download current government spending data in an easily accessible format for free.