HR 6411
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6411
To strengthen transparency and accountability in Federal spending.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 26, 2008
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut (for himself, Mr. SOUDER, Mr. CLAY, Mr. TOWNS,
Ms. FOXX, Mr. SHADEGG, and Mr. WAXMAN) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
A BILL
To strengthen transparency and accountability in Federal spending.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Strengthening Transparency
and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008'.
(b) Table of Contents- The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents.
Sec. 2. Improving application programming interface and website data elements.
Sec. 3. Improving data quality.
Sec. 4. Recipient performance transparency.
SEC. 2. IMPROVING APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE AND WEBSITE DATA ELEMENTS.
(a) In General- Section 2 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-282; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note) (referred to in this
Act as the `Act' for purposes of any amendment) is amended--
(A) in paragraph (2)(A)(ii), by striking `and delivery orders' and inserting
`lease agreements and assignments, and delivery orders'; and
(i) in subparagraph (C), by striking `and' after the semicolon;
(ii) in subparagraph (D), by striking the period and inserting `; and';
and
(iii) by adding at the end the following:
`(E) programmatically search and access all data in a serialized machine
readable format (such as XML) via a web-services application programming
interface.';
(i) in subparagraph (E), by striking `and' after the semicolon;
(ii) in subparagraph (F), by striking the period and inserting `; and';
and
(iii) by adding at the end the following:
`(G) a unique award identifier that identifies each individual award vehicle;
`(H) the date that the financial award was made;
`(I) the date that the financial award requirements began;
`(J) the date that the financial obligations are dispersed to the recipient;
`(K) to the extent possible, the agency and department as well as subagencies
and suboffices that have authorized the Federal award;
`(L) in negotiated procurements, the highest, lowest, and median offered
price among all technically acceptable proposals or bids;
`(M) after January 1, 2010, for all contracts, subcontracts, purchase
orders, task orders, lease agreements and assignments, and delivery orders--
`(i) both a copy in a format that reproduces the original image of each
page and a copy in searchable text format of the request for proposals,
the announcement of the award, the contract, and the scope of work to
be performed;
`(ii) a product or service code that identifies the general category
of product or service procured under the transaction;
`(iii) information about the extent of competition in making the award,
including the number of qualified bids or proposals during the competitive
process, and if the award was not competed, the legal authority and
specific rationale for making the award without full and open competition;
`(iv) the full amount of money that is awarded under a contract or,
in the case of lease agreements or assignments, the amount paid to the
Government, and the full amount of any options to expand or extend under
a contract;
`(v) the amount and nature of the profit incentive offered to contractors
for achieving or exceeding specified goals such as fixed price, cost
plus pricing, labor hour contracts, and time and materials contracts;
`(vi) an indication if the contract is the result of legislative mandates,
set-asides, preference program requirements, or other criteria, and
whether the contract is multiyear, consolidated, or performance based;
`(vii) an indication if the contract is a congressionally directed spending
item as defined in Public Law 110-81; and
`(viii) socioeconomic characteristics of the entity that receives an
award including its size, industrial classification (NAICS code), and
whether the entity is owned by minority individuals, women, veterans,
or other special categories; and
`(N) after January 1, 2009, for all grants, subgrants, loans, awards,
cooperative agreements, and other forms of financial assistance--
`(i) the type of recipient receiving the award, such as State government,
local government, Indian tribe, individual, small business, for-profit,
or nonprofit;
`(ii) the type of financial assistance each transaction represents including
direct payments, insurance, loans, grants, and cooperative agreements;
`(iii) the amount of money from non-Federal sources that is required
to obtain the award; and
`(iv) an indication if the funding is a congressionally directed spending
item as defined in Public Law 110-81.';
(B) by redesignating paragraphs (2), (3), and (4) as paragraphs (3), (4),
and (5), respectively; and
(C) by adding after paragraph (1) the following:
`(2) PRESENTATION OF DATA- The website shall present information about Federal
awards and recipients of Federal awards in ways that meet the needs of users
with different levels of understanding about government spending and abilities
using searching websites by--
`(A) providing search results for novices displayed in summary form and
with top level information such as amount of money received in a fiscal
year, basic information about the recipient, purpose of the Federal award,
what Federal agencies are providing the money, where the work is performed,
and extent of competition, if applicable; and
`(B) providing more detailed information for more sophisticated users,
including all data in paragraph (1).'; and
(3) in subsection (c), by striking paragraph (4) and inserting the following:
`(4) shall be updated at least once every 30 days with new information required
by this Act; and'.
(b) Effective Date- Except as otherwise provided, amendments made by subsection
(a) shall be implemented not later than 6 months after the date of enactment
of this Act.
SEC. 3. IMPROVING DATA QUALITY.
(a) In General- The Act is amended by adding at the end the following:
`SEC. 5. IMPROVING DATA QUALITY.
`(a) In General- The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall
ensure the following:
`(1) A simple method for the public to report errors is available on the
website created by this Act which should--
`(A) allow the public to report errors on single records as well as problems
affecting multiple records;
`(B) allow the public to provide contact information, including e-mail
address, mail address, or telephone number, to be used for informing the
reporter of the outcome of the records review;
`(C) send copies of the error report to both an official responsible for
the data quality at the agency that generated the data and to the Office
of Management and Budget;
`(D) if reported errors are deemed to be nonfrivolous, place an indicator
on the records on the website that informs users that the accuracy of
the record has been brought into question, until the information is either
confirmed as correct or updated to be correct; and
`(E) maintain a public record organized by agency of the total number
of records which have had nonfrivolous reports of errors, the number of
records which have been corrected, and number of records for which error
reports remain unresolved.
`(2) Each agency inspector general--
`(A) reviews a statistically representative sample of agency Federal awards
every 6 months to verify accuracy of the data and that data standards
are being followed;
`(B) reports to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget the
findings of the review; and
`(C) makes publicly available, including through the website created by
this Act, the findings of the review.
`(3) The data used on the website created by this Act is audited for quality
every 6 months with the audit to include at least the following steps:
`(A) Review and report publicly on the activity in the error reporting
system created by this section with an analysis for each agency and combined
for agencies that includes at least the following indicators:
`(i) Number of errors reported.
`(ii) Number of reported errors resolved.
`(iii) Number of reported errors that remain unresolved.
`(iv) Number of reported errors that led to corrections.
`(v) Number of reported errors on records that proved to be correct.
`(vi) Average number of days to resolve error report.
`(vii) Longest number of days to resolve an error report.
`(viii) Longest held reported error that remains unresolved.
`(B) An independent review every 6 months of data used for the website
to verify accuracy of the data and assess the process used for improving
data quality with an ability for the public to review these findings.
`(C) Identify and report new standards that should be implemented by agencies
to improve data quality.
`(4)(A) No personally identifiable information is made available through
the website created by this Act and a common standard is created across
the Government for assigning a unique award identifier across both contract
and Federal assistance award transactions.
`(B) A report is submitted within 6 months of the date of enactment of this
Act to Congress (and made publicly available on the Internet) that no personally
identifiable information is available on the website.
`(C) Agencies are required to correct data for past years when personally
identifiable information was used.
`(D) The unique recipient identifier and parent company identifier are--
`(ii) able to identify past and current subsidiary ownership; and
`(iii) publicly available through the download and application programming
interfaces in section 2(a)(3).
`(5) The data on the website created by this Act is normalized to correct
nonstandard ways of reporting names and other information.
`(6) The Consolidated Federal Funds Report is published not later than 6
months after the end of the fiscal year.
`(7) A plan for improving the management and accuracy of agency financial
information about Federal awards, including public access to such data,
is submitted to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
of the Senate and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the
House of Representatives and made publicly available through the Internet
not later than December 31, 2009.
`(8) Findings from the agency inspectors general reports, the data quality
audits, and other information are used to develop standards or guidance
for agency implementation of, and compliance with, the requirements of this
Act.
`(b) Statutory Obligations- Nothing in this Act relieves the director or any
Federal agency of any statutory obligation to develop, maintain, or provide
access to complete, accurate, and timely Federal financial data.'.
(b) Effective Date- Except as otherwise provided, the amendments made by subsection
(a) shall be implemented not later than June 30, 2009.
SEC. 4. RECIPIENT PERFORMANCE TRANSPARENCY.
(a) In General- The Act as amended by section 4 is amended by adding at the
end the following:
`SEC. 7. RECIPIENT PERFORMANCE TRANSPARENCY AND TAX COMPLIANCE.
`(a) Performance Transparency- The Director of the Office of Management and
Budget shall ensure that the unique identifier required in section 2(b)(1)(E)
that is used to link information on the website described in section 2 is
also used to link information about performance of individual contractors
and recipients of financial assistance starting with awards given in fiscal
year 2008 including--
`(1) an assessment of the quality of work performed on Federal awards during
the past 5 years, but not before fiscal year 2008;
`(2) information about Federal audit disputes and resolutions;
`(3) information regarding civil, criminal, and administrative actions initiated
or concluded by the Federal Government or a State government against Federal
awards recipients or violations of Federal or State laws or regulations
during the preceding 5 years including, but not limited to--
`(A) with respect to each proceeding--
`(i) a brief description of the proceeding and its disposition;
`(ii) any amount paid by the person to the Federal Government or a State
government; and
`(iii) any violation of law or regulations, if applicable, related to
the workplace, environmental protection, fraud, securities, and consumer
protections including--
`(I) those affecting worker safety and health;
`(II) working pay and leave rights;
`(III) workplace discrimination, including trafficking in persons;
`(V) the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act, and other environmental enforcement actions;
`(VI) whistleblower protections;
`(VII) Security and Exchange Commission actions; and
`(VIII) Federal Trade Commission actions;
`(B) all Federal contracts and assistance awarded to the Federal awards
recipient that were terminated in such period due to default;
`(C) all Federal suspensions and debarments of the Federal awards recipient
in that period;
`(D) all Federal suspension and debarment show cause orders received by
the Federal awards recipient in that period; and
`(E) all administrative agreements signed with such Federal awards recipient
in that period; and
`(4) publicly available Government reports, including those from the Government
Accountability Office, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget
Office, and agency inspectors general, concerning general contractor or
assistance recipient performance or specific instances of waste, fraud,
and abuse.
`(1) IN GENERAL- The chief executive officer of an entity that receives
a Federal award shall be required to certify whether--
`(A) the entity has filed all Federal tax returns required during the
preceding 5 years;
`(B) the entity has been convicted of a criminal offense under the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986; and
`(C) the entity has an outstanding debt under the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986 for which a notice of lien has been filed in public records pursuant
to section 6323 of such Code that is not--
`(i) being paid in a timely manner pursuant to an agreement under section
6159 or section 7122 of such Code; or
`(ii) a debt with respect to which a collection due process hearing
under section 6330 of such Code, or relief under subsection (a), (b),
or (f) of section 6015 of such Code, is requested or pending.
`(2) OMB- The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall--
`(A) develop the certification forms required by paragraph (1);
`(B) ensure that each agency providing Federal awards complies with the
requirements of this subsection; and
`(C) after January 1, 2009, ensure that the website described in section
2 contains information collected under paragraph (1).'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall be implemented
not later than June 30, 2009.
END
