Communities, Non-Profits And Taxpayers Could Face Problem Accessing Recovery Funds

Press Release

Today, Congressman Bill Foster (IL-14) and Congressman Steve Driehaus (OH-01), both members of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns and Ranking Member Darrell Issa to request a hearing to ensure that constituents can continue to access the federal grant Web site as they attempt to obtain federal funding.

Since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, the government Web site grants.gov has received a substantial increase in traffic - levels that may overwhelm the site, preventing individuals from getting the information they need to apply for federal grants.

"The economic downturn has created an increased need for federal assistance to fund worthy programs," Foster said. "While the Recovery Act will provide additional grants to help boost our economy, we must make sure that all Americans are able to access the grants.gov Web site without incident. Holding a hearing on the subject is the first step in fixing the problem and making sure we have a fully effective Web site that does the job."

The text of the letter appears below.

Dear Chairman Towns and Ranking Member Issa:

On Monday, March 9, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag issued a memo (OMB M-09-14) warning that rapidly increasing levels of internet traffic threaten to overwhelm Grants.gov, the government's main portal for federal grant research and application. Maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, this tool is critical to the effective implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included significant funding increases for numerous federal grant programs.

According to the memo, the increased volume of activity on Grants.gov poses "a significant risk of failure." Mr. Orszag writes, "[t]his load has far exceeded the throughput originally anticipated by the system and has at times resulted in noticeably degraded performance. […] After a close and diligent review of system limitations, we have determined the risk to be unacceptably high."

Anticipating an application increase that could spike as high as 60 percent over current volume, Mr. Orszag directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration to improve their systems to accommodate a surge in internet activity. According to a March 11 report in the Washington Post, HHS recently added storage space and is currently working to modernize the site, but users continue to experience system slowness.

Mr. Chairman, we believe the House Oversight Committee should take immediate steps to investigate system risks that could slow the effective implementation of the Recovery Act and to identify secure and transparent alternatives for funding application. Congress also has a duty to rigorously oversee the distribution of taxpayer money, and by acting quickly this Committee can prevent mistakes and disruptions in the grant making process. We thank you for your consideration, and look forward to working with you to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money throughout the implementation of the Recovery Act.

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