Lankford's GRANT Act Passes Oversight Committee

Press Release

Representative James Lankford (R-OK) recently reintroduced H.R. 3316, the Grant Reform and New Transparency (GRANT) Act of 2013, which today passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a vote of 19-15. The bill now awaits consideration by the full House of Representatives.

"I am proud of the work the Oversight Committee did today to increase transparency and accountability to American taxpayers in the federal grant process by passing the GRANT Act," said Lankford.

The GRANT Act would direct federal agencies to establish uniform standards for how they notice, award and disclose discretionary competitive grants.

"The process by which the government manages federal grant awards should be open and honest, but unfortunately many agencies lack disclosure standards and consistent procedures. I was elected to fix as many broken federal processes and laws as possible. Taxpayer dollars fund these federal grants, and lawmakers have a duty to be good stewards of those dollars. I look forward to consideration of the GRANT Act by the full House, so we can finally take steps to fix the opaque and nebulous federal grant process," concluded Lankford.

The GRANT Act would provide much needed transparency by requiring each agency to post on a central grants website:

*basic information about each grant opportunity, including a description of the factors that will be used to evaluate and rank grant applications;

*grant award information, such as a copy of the successful grant abstract or application

*award decision documentation, including rankings of successful applicants' proposals and

*the final report at the conclusion of the performance of the grant.

The bill protects national security and certain proprietary information by not requiring agencies to post information on the website that would otherwise be exempt under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Agencies will also be required to screen potential grantees to make sure they are capable of actually performing the grant and have the necessary financial systems in place to protect taxpayer dollars. Additionally, the agencies will be required to provide losing applicants for grants valued at more than $100,000 with an opportunity for a debriefing, if requested. Finally, the bill requires agencies to post on the website a grant solicitation forecast identifying potential grant opportunities expected in the upcoming year. By agreement in committee, further changes will occur on the bill before it moves to the House floor to protect peer reviewers, intellectual property and transparency.

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