Data Act passes U.S. Senate, moves to house

The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA), sponsored by Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and co-sponsored by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) passed the Senate on April 10 and was sent to the House where its prospects for passage look very good. The bill “will establish an open and accountable system for tracking every dollar spent by the federal government,” according to Warner in a release late last year.

According to the summary, the bill would:

• Expand the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 by disclosing direct federal agency expenditures and linking federal contract, loan, and grant spending information to federal programs to enable taxpayers and policy makers to track federal spending more effectively;
• Provide consistent, reliable, and searchable government-wide spending data that is displayed on USASpending.gov;
• Simplify reporting for entities receiving federal funds by streamlining reporting requirements and reducing compliance costs while improving transparency; and
• Improve the quality of data submitted to USASpending.gov by holding federal agencies accountable for the completeness and accuracy of the data submitted.

State and  local governments have pioneered open data and transparency initiatives for some years, and currently 39 states and 46 localities provide data sets to data.gov, the federal government’s online open data repository.