UPDATE: The Senate has approved the bill 60-38.

UPDATE 2 (2/17/2009): President Obama has signed ARRA into law.

Today, the House approved, by a 246-183 vote, a $782 billion economic stimulus package (HR 1). Once again, Republicans uniformly opposed the measure that is intended to jumpstart the ailing economy.

If the bill is signed into law, it would be a landmark for transparency in federal spending. And although it's not perfect, it does represent a shifting attitude in Congress and the Executive that transparency is vital and that it requires a not insignificant amount of effort by the government and recipients of federal funds to accomplish.

We've compiled a summary and a comparison of what's in the conference report that's half-way to the president's desk.

While many of the provisions remain similar, if not virtually identical to House and Senate bill language, the conference report contains significant differences. The conference report generally combines the more specific and comprehensive transparency language from the two bills.