[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6411 Introduced in House (IH)]
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--
(1) in subsection (a)--
(A) in paragraph (2)(A)(ii), by striking ``and
delivery orders'' and inserting ``lease agreements and
assignments, and delivery orders''; and
(B) in paragraph (3)--
(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.'';
(2) in subsection (b)--
(A) in paragraph (1)--
(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--
``(i) accurate;
``(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;
``(IV) labor relations;
``(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.
``(b) Tax Compliance.--
``(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.
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