Senate Passes Government Performance Task Force Chairman Mark Warner's DATA Act

Press Release

Today, the Senate passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA), which was led by the Budget Committee's Government Performance Task Force. This legislation, sponsored by Task Force Chairman Senator Warner (D-VA), is based on the simple idea that in order to ensure that every dollar the federal government spends is spent in the best possible way, there needs to be a transparent and accountable system for tracking it.

Unfortunately, too often, data is incomplete, inconsistent, and difficult to access or analyze. Different agencies may report identical spending in different ways or different spending with identical terms. Individuals, groups, and businesses that try to comply with financial reporting requirements may face daunting challenges as different agencies ask for the same information in their own formats and along different time frames.

The DATA Act has four main components to address these problems. First, it reduces the cost of compliance for groups and businesses that receive government contracts, loans, and grants. As Gerald Kane, Assistant Vice President for Research at the University of Virginia, testified before the Task Force, researchers and universities devote large sums of time and money into filing financial compliance reports. He gave an example of a $15 million grant to research heart disease that the university had received. In order to comply, the University had to file yearly and quarterly financial reports, subcontractor monthly reports, and annual principal investigator progress reports. Instead of focusing on innovation, researchers are spending their time putting together and submitting duplicative financial reports. The DATA Act requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review these compliance costs and reduce them.

Second, the DATA Act requires OMB and the Department of the Treasury to create data standards, which include requiring that federal agencies use consistent terminology and identifiers, and have all data available in searchable, open data formats. Universal standards will allow watchdog groups and everyday Americans to more easily understand and compare agencies' spending.

Third, the legislation requires the Inspectors General in each agency to report on the quality of the financial data that is being provided. As data is only helpful if it is accurate, these rigorous reviews will dramatically increase the effectiveness of oversight.

Finally, the DATA Act expands the information currently reported on USASpending.gov to include spending data for all federal funds down to the level of accounts and contracts, including internal expenditures for the first time. Recent studies by the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) have found that the focus on transparency with the Recovery Act, including the use of Recovery.gov, increased accountability and reduced improper spending. The DATA Act applies these lessons across the federal government.

"This legislation is a victory for everyday Americans who want to know more about what the federal government does, businesses that want to spend more time creating jobs and less time filing duplicative forms, researchers who want to learn more about a disease rather than a new invoice system, and good government groups that want to make sure that every dollar is spent efficiently," said Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Support for the DATA Act is broad and bipartisan. In addition to Senators Warner (D-WA) and Murray (D-WA), other bill sponsors on the Budget Committee include Senators Ayotte (R-NH), Coons (D-DE), Johnson (R-WI), Portman (R-OH), and Whitehouse (D-RI). The House companion to the DATA Act, led by Representatives Issa (R-CA) and Cummings (D-MD), was passed in April 2013 almost unanimously. Groups as diverse as the Sunlight Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Association of Research Libraries signed on a letter stating their "strong support" of the DATA Act.

For more information about the DATA Act, please view the hearing on the legislation or read this fact sheet.

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