Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006
FEDERAL FUNDING ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 13, 2006)
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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
Mr. Speaker, S. 2590 calls for the creation of a new searchable database of all Federal grants and contracts to be made publicly available on the Internet. This will require the Office of Management and Budget to develop a database that can be useful to individuals and organizations researching Federal grant funding. In addition, it should allow the public to better access information about the billions of dollars spent on Federal contracting.
I would like to highlight one important difference between this bill and H.R. 5060, which passed the House in June. The database created under H.R. 5060 was missing a key component, information about Federal contract spending. Contract information is essential to meaningful public oversight. As Federal contract spending increases, and from 2000 to 2005, it has soared by 86 percent from $203.2 billion to $377.5 billion. There is a vital need for the public to be able to track and understand this spending.
I want to thank Chairman Davis and Majority Whip Blunt for reconsidering their position on the contract information issue and hope that our efforts today will make Federal contract information freely and easily accessible to the public.
I also want to commend the hard work of Senator Coburn and Senator Obama on this legislation. As Members of Congress, we have a responsibility to increase public understanding of Federal spending and public access to information about how taxpayer dollars are spent.
Currently, the public has access to a grants data system, the Federal Assistance Award Data System, that provides limited information about domestic grants. But this system is unwieldy and difficult to use. In addition, there is a publicly available database of contracts, the Federal Procurement Data System, FPDS; but it is too plagued with problems.
So, today, we try to improve on those systems. The key to success will be implementation. Without it, we will be where we are now, with poor access to information. If implemented properly, public oversight of Federal spending will, indeed, increase.
In closing, I must admit that I find it incredible that it has taken an act of Congress to make this information public. All of this information should be already available to the public. This is just one victory in our continuing fight for public access to government information.
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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I will close by just simply saying that I don't believe that we can overemphasize the importance of transparency in government, and especially as it relates to contracting. I would urge passage of this legislation. I am proud to be a cosponsor of it
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