H.R. 2146 (112th): DATA Act

Introduced:
Jun 13, 2011 (112th Congress, 2011–2013)
Sponsor:
Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA49]
Status:
Died (Passed House)

The bill’s title was written by the bill’s sponsor. H.R. stands for House of Representatives bill.

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Status

This bill was introduced in a previous session of Congress and was passed by the House on April 25, 2012 but was never passed by the Senate.

Progress
Introduced Jun 13, 2011
Referred to Committee Jun 13, 2011
Reported by Committee Jun 22, 2011
Passed House Apr 25, 2012
Cosponsors
14 cosponsors (10R, 4D) (show)
Committees

House Oversight and Government Reform

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The committee chair determines whether a bill will move past the committee stage.

Full Title

To amend title 31, United States Code, to require accountability and transparency in Federal spending, and for other purposes.

Summary

No summaries available.

Text

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Last updated Apr 26, 2012.
84 pages

Primary Source

View on THOMAS (The Library of Congress)

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Citation

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GovTrack’s Bill Summary

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Library of Congress Summary

The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.

4/25/2012--Passed House amended. Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2012 or DATA Act -
Title I - Accountability and Transparency in Federal Spending
Section 101 -
Requires each person, state, local, or tribal government, or any government corporation (recipient) that receives appropriated funds, either directly or through a subgrant or subcontract at any tier, to report at least once quarterly each receipt and use of such funds to the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Commission established by this Act. Requires the Commission to:
(1) specify deadlines by which a particular receipt or use of federal funds must be reported by a recipient;
(2) permit prime awardees to fulfill the reporting requirements on behalf of subawardees, so long as all subaward tiers are reported; and
(3) prepopulate its electronic systems with data submitted by specified agencies, permitting recipients either to confirm that prepopulated data is correct or, if it is incorrect, to make corrections.
Requires recipients subject to these reporting requirements to register with the Central Contractor Registration database.
Requires each executive agency to report at least quarterly to the Commission all federal obligations and expenditures, identifying programs, budget functions, Treasury accounts, and appropriations categories.
Directs the Commission to require continuous or automatic reporting to the extent practicable.
Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to make similar reports for disbursements of federal funds.
Exempts an individual recipient from such reporting requirements if:
(1) the total amount of federal funds received does not exceed $100,000 in the current calendar year or fiscal year, or
(2) no transaction in which the recipient has received federal funds during the current calendar year or fiscal year has exceeded $24,999.
Authorizes the Commission to grant additional exemptions for classes or categories of recipients.
Requires the Commission to provide for an inflation adjustment of such dollar thresholds to maintain their constant dollar value.
Section 102 -
Requires the Commission to designate:
(1) common data elements for information required to be reported; as well as
(2) data reporting standards, including a widely accepted, nonproprietary, searchable, platform-independent computer-readable format.
Requires the Commission to publish online all information submitted by recipients and agencies in accordance with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.
Directs the Commission to establish a federal accountability portal (a government-wide Internet-based data access system) to:
(1) combine information submitted by recipients and agencies with other compilations of information, including information maintained by federal, state, local, and foreign government agencies, or other commercially and publicly available information;
(2) permit executive agencies to verify the eligibility and responsibility of recipients and potential recipients with respect to the receipt and use of federal funds;
(3) permit executive agencies, Inspectors General (IGs), law enforcement agencies, and appropriate state authorities to track federal awards and recipients to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse; and
(4) serve as the primary accountability portal for the entire federal government.
Prescribes civil penalties for recipient noncompliance with data reporting requirements.
Requires each executive agency to issue guidance that requires every recipient of federal funds under any of its federal awards to use the Commission's common data element or data reporting standard for any information reported to such agency to which the element or standard applies.
Requires each executive agency to use data from the website maintained by the Commission under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA) to prepopulate any electronic systems maintained by that agency for the submission of reports on the receipt and use of federal funds distributed by it.
Requires each executive agency to report to the President, Congress, and the Commission on:
(1) any agency-specific financial reporting requirements for fund recipients,
(2) every element of information that such recipients must regularly submit, and
(3) whether each element or a similar element is already being reported to the Commission by such recipients.
Specifies responsibilities of the Director of OMB, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) regarding implementation of the required common data element or data reporting standard.
Section 103 -
Amends the FFATA to add requirements that USASpending.gov:
(1) publish data in a manner compliant with applicable principles and best practices in the private sector for the publication of open government data;
(2) serve as a public portal for federal financial information, all federal awards, and federal expenditures; and
(3) make available the published information in a reasonably timely manner using Commission-designated common data elements and data reporting standards.
Repeals certain requirements for USASpending.gov use as the source of its data the Federal Procurement Data System, Federal Assistance Award Data System, and Grants.gov. Requires the Commission to publish on USASpending.gov:
(1) all information submitted by recipients and agencies under this Act, including aggregate information exempt from recipient reporting requirements, but reported by an Executive agency in the aggregate; and
(2) all information contained in the computerized information system maintained by GSA. Eliminates the OMB pilot program to:
(1) test the collection and accession of data about subgrants and subcontracts, and
(2) determine how to implement a subaward reporting program across the federal government.
Transfers from OMB to the Commission the management of USASpending.gov.
Title II - Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board
Section 201 -
Establishes the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Commission in the executive branch.
Transfers to it all functions of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, including its employees.
Requires the Commission to audit, investigate, and review the spending of federal funds, giving high priority to funds awarded:
(1) without the use of competitive procedures, or
(2) to any contractor found to be in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
Requires the Commission to report to appropriate congressional committees on tax expenditures data that includes a description of processes that could be put in place to collect and disseminate such data, and the potential effects of making such data publicly available on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), taxpayers, and other relevant parties.
Requires such report to be publicly available.
Requires the Commission to make recommendations to executive agencies on measures to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse relating to federal funds.
Authorizes the Commission to enter into contracts with any federal agency (within or outside the executive branch) to enable it to identify waste, fraud, and abuse.
Establishes the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Advisory Committee. Authorizes appropriations for FY2012-FY2019.
Section 203 -
Makes conforming amendments to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to terminate the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on October 1, 2013.
Title III - Additional Provisions
Section 301 -
Declares that nothing in this Act or the amendments made by it shall be construed to require the disclosure of classified information.
Section 302 -
Amends the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Inspector General Act of 1978 with respect to certain administrative matters under this Act.
Section 305 -
Transfers to the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Commission: (1) the authority of the GSA Administrator over the computer information system and the catalog of federal domestic assistance, and (2) the management and control of the Director of OMB over the assistance awards information system.
Section 306 -
Authorizes the Comptroller General (GAO) to perform certain activities in connection with the discharge of audit, evaluation, investigative, and other specified duties.
Section 307 -
Amends the Inspector General Act of 1978 to require classification of Inspector Generals (IGs) of a designated federal entity at a grade, level, or rank designation at or above those of a majority of the entity's senior level executives.
Authorizes the Integrity Committee for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to receive, review, and refer all allegations and wrongdoing against the Special Council or the Deputy Special Counsel to the same extent and in the same manner as in the case of an allegation against an IG or an IG office staff member, as long as the Special Counsel recuses himself or herself from considering the allegation.
Revises requirements for posting of IG reports and audits on their respective websites.
Section 308 -
Prohibits a federal agency from paying the travel expenses for more than 50 of its employees stationed in the United States for any international conference occurring outside the United States, unless the Secretary of State determines that their attendanceis in the national interest.
Requires each federal agency to post on its respective public Internet website quarterly reports, in an electronic searchable format, on each conference for which it paid specified travel expenses during the preceding quarter.
Prohibits a federal agency, during FY2012-FY2016, from making or obligating to make expenditures for travel expenses in an aggregate amount greater than 80% of the aggregate amount for FY2010. Directs the Director of OMB to establish guidelinesfor the determination of what expenses constitute travel expenses other than for military travel.
Requires military travel expenses to include those involving military combat, the training or deployment of uniformed military personnel, and other expenses determined under those guidelines.
Requires each agency to post on its public Internet website specified detailed information on any presentation made by its employee at a conference.
Limits an agency's single conference expenditure to $500,000.
Declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed to preclude an agency from receiving financial support or other assistance from a foundation or other nonfederal source to pay or defray conference costs exceeding that amount.
Prohibits an agency from expending funds on more than one conference sponsored or organized by an organization during any fiscal year, unless the agency is the conference's primary sponsor and organizer.

House Republican Conference Summary

The summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.

This summary can be found at http://www.gop.gov/bill/112/2/hr2146.

Background

According to Committee Report 112-260, for the past two years, the Committee has examined the need to improve the transparency of federal information, particularly federal spending data.  The Committee's efforts have included seven hearings, the formation of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, and extensive outreach and research by Republican and Democratic Committee staff.  H.R. 2146 would apply the lessons learned from these activities to open federal spending to closer scrutiny by the public, watchdog groups, media, executive branch management, and Congress.

According to the Committee, American taxpayers have the right to expect free access to accurate, comprehensive, and useful information describing how the federal government uses their money.  Transparency can provide a check on waste, fraud, and abuse in government but only if federal data is reliably published in formats that make it easy to analyze.  Decision-makers within the government--including managers in the executive branch and members serving on the Congressional appropriations and oversight committees--also need this information to make informed choices.

Despite groundbreaking efforts to make federal spending transparent to Americans, the information currently made available by the government often lacks accuracy, comprehensiveness, and usefulness.  For example, the Sunlight Foundation in 2010 reported that USASpending.gov provided accurate information for only 35 percent of federal grant programs.

Moreover, USASpending.gov covers federal grants, contracts, or loans, but not internal agency spending, which means that it cannot provide taxpayers or decision-makers with a complete picture of the cost of a given program, office, or department.  The Sunlight Foundation study covered only grant programs, because grant information on USASpending.gov may be compared to corresponding information in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, but there is no independent compilation of contract information to which contract data on USASpending.gov may be compared.  On September 29, 2010, the Sunlight Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for data quality reports covering the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), which feeds contract data into USASpending.gov.  The FPDS data quality reports would have permitted the Sunlight Foundation to evaluate the accuracy of USASpending.gov's contract data.  OMB had not responded to the Sunlight Foundation's FOIA request as of July 2011, and on May 25, 2011, refused a request by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the same documents.

Recovery.gov has demonstrated better accuracy and relevance than USASpending.gov.  Its recipient-reported data has proved more useful for government-wide oversight than USASpending.gov's data.  First, Recovery.gov's recipient-supplied reports are received quarterly, permitting activity to be tracked across time; by contrast, USASpending.gov only publishes data once for each contract, grant, or loan transaction.  Second, the recipients of stimulus grants, contracts, and loans have a strong incentive to report accurately under ARRA, because they run the risk of losing their stimulus funding if they do not.  Meanwhile, federal agencies have a weaker incentive to provide accurate data to the government-wide databases that feed USASpending.gov because the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (`FFATA') mandate applies to OMB but not to the agencies, and imposes no penalties for noncompliance.  However, Recovery.gov's scope is even more limited than that of USASpending.gov; it covers only the grants, loans, and contracts that are funded by the stimulus.

In contrast with the extensive use of the Recovery Operations Center by the Recovery Board and inspectors general throughout the executive branch to detect irregularities and fraud, federal authorities do not use USASpending.gov for any oversight-related purpose.

Finally, the usefulness of both USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov is hampered by the federal government's long-term failure to adopt common data elements and reporting standards for electronic financial information.  For example, there is no system of identifier codes for all federal awards; instead, every agency separately tracks grants, contracts, and loans using its own distinct system.

Similarly, there is no system of identifier codes for all recipients of federal grants, contracts, and loans; no master list of all federal programs; and, in fact, no agreed system of agency codes. Without government-wide identifiers for awards, recipients, programs, agencies, and other data elements, sophisticated electronic searches and comparisons will be impossible, even under a comprehensive spending transparency mandate.

Summary

H.R. 2146 would impose a universal reporting requirement for recipients of federal grants, loans, and contracts.  It would also require federal agencies to publicly report all of their obligations and expenditures—encompassing both external spending (i.e. grants, loans, and contracts, and internal spending on salaries, supplies, and facilities).

The DATA Act would provide for recipient-reported and agency-reported spending information to be disclosed publicly on a single online platform.  To ensure that these two categories of information be checked against one another and easily searched and analyzed, the DATA Act would impose common data identifiers and electronic reporting standards on recipients and agencies.

The DATA Act would establish a new independent federal entity, the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board (FAST Board).  The FAST Board would be charged with collecting federal spending information and publishing that information in formats that make it easy to search, sort, and download.  

The DATA Act would expressly remove responsibility for federal spending transparency from OMB and would assign it to the FAST Board.  The DATA Act would empower the FAST Board to collect periodic reports from recipients of all federal grants, contracts, and loans that describe each recipient's receipt and use of federal funds.  To ensure compliance by recipients, each Executive agency would be directed to make the bill's recipient reporting requirement a condition of receiving funds under all of the agency's grant, contract, and loan programs.  

The DATA Act would also require every Executive agency to report all of its receipts and disbursements of federal funds to the FAST Board.  The bill would direct the Board to permit agencies to comply with this requirement by submitting information that they already submit to existing government-wide financial systems.

The bill would direct the FAST Board to designate common electronic data elements and reporting standards for the spending information it collects.  The bill would also require recipients and agencies to use the elements and standards designated by the Board.  

The DATA Act would require the FAST Board to publish, online, all of the information it receives from recipients and agencies.  The bill would require that the information be made available to the public in a timely manner, in its original format, without any charge, registration, or license requirement, and be easily searchable.  

To effectuate the FAST Board's mission, the DATA Act would require that the Board's regulations and guidance are binding on recipients and agencies.  The bill would also require the FAST Board to set up a Federal accountability portal—an electronic platform combining spending information with other Federal databases and commercially-available information sources—that will replicate the current ROC across all Federal spending.   

Cost

Assuming appropriation of amounts authorized and estimated to be necessary to improve the collection and reporting of government financial data, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $575 million over the 2012-2016 period.  Enacting H.R. 2146 could increase revenues from the collection of civil and criminal penalties and direct spending of those amounts; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply.  However, CBO estimates that the net budgetary impact of any additional collections would be negligible for each year.

House Democratic Caucus Summary

The House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.

So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference’s summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That’s because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.

We’ll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.

The bill contains the following citations to other parts of U.S. law:

Slip Laws

Slip laws refer to enacted bills and joint resolutions in their original form as enacted by Congress, that is, before other laws amend them. Slip laws are cited as “Public Law XXX-YYY”, where XXX is the number of the Congress in which the bill or resolution was introduced.

United States Code

The United States Code is the compilation of permanent laws enacted by Congress. Temporary and other non-permanent laws do not appear in the United States Code. (About half of the United States Code is the law itself, called positive law. The other half is merely a compilation of the laws but has no legal significance.)

Statutes at Large

The United States Statutes at Large is the compilation of all laws enacted by Congress.

  • 122 Stat. 4304
  • 122 Stat. 4312
  • 122 Stat. 4313
  • 123 Stat. 287
  • 123 Stat. 693

Other Citations

  • 5 U.S.C. Chapter 57
  • 31 U.S.C. Chapter 36
  • 31 U.S.C. Chapter 7