Senate, House Transparency Bill, Disclose Federal Funding Greater than $25K

[Guest guest]

Senate, House Approve Earmark Transparency Bill

The House Sept. 13 passed by a voice vote the " Federal Funding Accountability

and Transparency Act of 2006 " (_S. 2590_

(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.02590:) ), clearing the measure

for the President. The Senate

approved the bill Sept. 7. S. 2590, introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.),

directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to create a free public

database of entities that receive federal funding greater than $25,000.

The Web site will provide data for FY 2007 and subsequent years, including

the name of the recipient, award amount, award type (e.g., grant, contract,

subgrant), industry classification, location of the recipient and the primary

place of performance, federal agency and program source, and detailed title and

description of each award. In addition, each entity or parent entity

receiving federal funds will be assigned a unique identifier.

The bill also establishes a pilot program to test methods of subaward data

collection and reporting. Entities with gross incomes that do not exceed

$300,000 temporarily will be exempt from reporting subawards until such time as

OMB determines the reporting requirements will not cause an undue burden.

Finally, the bill requires the OMB Director to submit annual reports to

Congress, including data regarding the usage of the site and public feedback

received and an assessment of the reporting burden placed on recipients of

federal funding.

Information:

Shick, Legislative Analyst

AAMC Office of Governmental Relations

_mshick@..._ (mailto:mshick@...)

(202) 828-0525