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Issa bill would create single website for government spending data
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) unveiled a bill Monday that would establish a single electronic platform to track federal spending, just hours before Vice President Biden was set to announce a similar effort.
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA) would establish an independent body to track all federal spending including grants, contracts, loans and agencies' internal expenses, with all of that information available online for the public.
“Americans have the right to know what their government is doing with their money, including both internal and external expenditures,” Issa said in a statement.
“Too many different systems, inaccurate data, and a lack of common standards impede transparency. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act will revolutionize the conduct of open government.”
The new Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board (FAST) would be based on the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which has been held up as a model of transparency and credited with preventing fraud and abuse in connection to the 2009 Recovery Act.
This is not the first time Congress has tried to force agencies to publish their spending data online. The DATA Act would eliminate existing transparency sites USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov, which the Recovery Board created to track stimulus.
Recovery Board chairman Earl Devaney will testify at an Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday to discuss the solutions proposed in the bill.
The FAST Board would be in charge of establishing consistent reporting and data standards for all federal spending data.
The committee's release notes Issa met with Biden in November to
discuss the spending transparency model used for the Recovery Act as a
model for accountable government.
Biden announced the creation of a similar board on Monday as part of the White House's campaign to cut government spending.
Then-Sen. Obama and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) sponsored the 2006 legislation that mandated the creation of USASpending.gov in 2006 along with an addition that expanded the range of spending data required on the site.
The site was supposed to publish all data on federal spending including subgrants and subcontracts but has encountered multiple roadblocks, such as agencies that either don't submit their data on time or do so in incompatible formats.
The Obama administration has repeatedly touted USASpending.gov and the technology-focused subsection the IT Dashboard as evidence of their commitment to transparency despite criticism from the open government community on the quality of the available data.
The sites' futures were jeopardized by large cuts to the E-Government fund during the last round of budget negotiations.
"We can't reduce waste, fraud and abuse without knowing how, where and why federal money is flowing out the door," Obama said in 2007 upon the launch of USASpending. "This site will provide a window into the federal budget so all Americans can see how their tax dollars are being spent."
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