committee will come to order today the committee will consider legislation to reauthorize and improve the federal financial assistance management improvement act of ninety nine now we also have several commemoratives and postal naman bills to consider s three zero three the committee's first agenda item today is s three o three the federal financial assistance management improvement act of two thousand and nine this bill reauthorize and improves the website grants dot gov this website provides a central location for granting applicants to read to search and to apply for federal grants as well as to submit the necessary financial reports the federal government offers over one thousand federal grant programs and minister by two dozen different agencies in the past each agency and sometimes each grant had its own application process and reporting requirements this created  necessary red tape for state local and tribal governments nonprofit groups and other entities seeking federal grant grants dot gov provides a one stop shop for grant recipients allowing them to focus on serving the public instead of wasting time on paperwork the programs available through grants dod gov covers such areas as community development education job training sastre relief scientific research and many other worthy efforts in addition to reauthorize and grants dot gov s d o three directs the office of management and budget to improve the administrator federal grants and to submit reports to congress on its progress this is a good bill reauthorization senate bill three o three which reauthorizes the federal financial assistance management act of one nine hundred ninety nine comes to us as a small but necessary reauthorization as jointly agreed with the chairman and myself we will be offering a manager's amendment which is substantially the language of h r twenty three ninety two this will in fact begin in this particular area in the grant g to make into law what the chairman and i have worked on which is transparency through the use of exparel and other technologies that allow for the public to have full and unfettered access to the material which is rightfully theirs but which before this time was often requested and ultimately granted in a form that made it very hard to search if accepted by the senate when this bill goes back we will in fact have moved a long way toward public transparency in this case in the granting area an area in which both the those applying for grants and quite candidly those who feel that they should have gotten them that should have in fact competed successfully will have an opportunity to look additionally the public will be able to rightfully so ask is a grand process open and fair and watchdog groups will be able to say was it properly considered as read i ask unanimous consent that the town's an ice amendment in the nature of a substitute be considered as base text for the purpose of any additional amendments to this bill without objection so the substitute amendment makes a number of important technical changes to the bill that incorporates the provisions of h r twenty three ninety two the government's information transparency at which this committe reported favorably by voice vote on june the fourth two thousand and nine i was happy to co sponsor this bill along with the ranking member congressman i see this legislation will help address a number of concerns that the committee raised in march of this year and oversight hearings by the subcommittee on domestic policy and by the full committee the amendment directs the office of management and budget to adopt a single data standards for collection analysis and dissemination of business and financial information the standard must be common across all federal agencies and make the data widely available to the public it must also be consistent with the federal financial accounting standards and industry best practices and it must be able to be updated as technology technology changes in the future this standard also must be applied to the data on federal grants additionally the amendment directs the office of management and budget to ensure that the grants dot gov website is available to grant applicants using in a computer platform this is an response to an instance of what happened a few years ago in which the application system was not available to applicants use the mac on the this amendment will make federal financial information much more accessible to the public improving the trans of this data and allowing the public to analyze it more easily it will also improve the availability and into op ability of financial data we put it to the government by the private sector i encourage all of the members to support this amendment and i yield to the ranking member for five minutes for any comments he may have on the amendment thank you mr chairman and again thank you for your willingness to work together on a bipartisan effort to include the language from h twenty three ninety two as the manager's amendment to chairman as i think this committee knows very well that which we disagree about that which is controversial is loud loud publicly and it's loud sometimes here but that which is most important often is done silently or quietly today in a quiet markup with your leadership we are in fact moving the federal government to standardization of collection analysis and dissemination of business and financial information regardless of the business activities that companies are involved in and providing a single data standard to chairman if you will no today as in fact such an important day but for those who wish to have transparency in government for those who have been frustrated whether they're using macs or linux or other data platforms computer platforms to know that because of what we do here today and what we do following all the way through to the signature of the president mr chairman you are creating transparency in government you are creating the opportunity for citizens around the united states to analyze if you will to look over our shoulder and for them to quietly decide where the flaws are in government where there can be improvements and allow them to make accurate and timely recommendations for improvements  two weeks ago or we could go we had a fairly loud hearing on some of the problems that government is having dealing with reform the recovery dot gov  website it wasn't a quiet hearing but it was a good hearing and it told us that in fact when the public has access to information they find the errors they bring them to us and they will be fixed and are being fixed as we speak your leadership in this area will mean that for the remainder of this president's administration and those to follow government will be more can transfer and more accountable i thank you mr chairman this is a very special thing you do here today in the now we have naming of several postal and resolutions the next lot of business will be resolutions and post a name in bills i ask unanimous consent that these resolutions and bills be considered in block and read and open to amendment at any time these resolutions and post a name and bills include h red seven zero eight and to do so by representative aaron schock of illinois congratulates nancy goodman brinker for receiving the presidential medal of freedom h with seven seventy nine introduced by representative judy biggert of illinois recognizing and supports the goal and ideals of national run away prevention so by representative jim matheson of utah commands the real salt lake soccer club for winning the two thousand and nine major league soccer cup h conrad is once a date introduced by representative bob etheridge of north carolina expresses support for the designation of an early detection much for breast cancer and all forms of cancer h conrads one six introduced by representative david price of north carolina this measure recognizes the five introduced by representative dennis moore of kansas designate a facility of the united states postal service in overland park kansas as a congresswoman jan myers post office building h r forty one thirty nine introduced by represent a grade hopper mississippi designated facility of the united states postal service and hickory mississippi as a sergeant matthew l ingram post office haven't mr chairman we have received and reviewed these posts of names and resolutions and find they meet the requirements of the committee additionally and briefly i would like to comment on only one of them h r s seven our weight recognizing when she founded the susan g komen race for the cure in fact a small and at that time grassroots organization designed to bring greater awareness to breast cancer she did so with little fanfare and did so in the name of her deceased sister who in fact had we had self examinations had we had the level of awareness that we have here in america today would not have died since that time her efforts her dedication has led to over one point three billion dollars in raised funds for research health services and education since the founding fishley in one thousand nine hundred two so i for one in addition to all of these namings want to point out that this is a long overdue effort and i would like to thank mr shot for bringing this building to the floor in a timely fashion and i thank the chairman you know back and i think the ranking member for his statement to any of the members recognition  her good work and especially last month with the record work of the breast cancer awareness that it couldn't come at a better time so i appreciate mr chairman and ranking member i you're allowing this to come forward and i appreciate the broad base of support that the resolution is has received and i know that mr brinker and her family are very grateful for the recognition i yield back thank you gentlemen for gentlewoman from california secret commission thank you mr chairman i was wondering when and if it would be appropriate for us to attempt to streamline the process by which many of these bills are taken up on the floor and do them want in block like we have just done here in committee i don't know about my colleagues that i think that we spend a lot of time on the floor voting post office by post office when our that often it takes quite a bit of time and as before i sat in the ranking position one of the things that i found worked very well and perhaps you'll be the majority person on the next markup over the next time on the floor is if there are no significant speakers the truth is that the two people controlling the time on the floor can reduce each one to less than a minute if they choose to by simply having it called up saying we move move support have no speakers the minority does the same and it is something where it's very good to look at that statement and have it just put in the record if there are no speakers i'm certain for example erin shock's bill that we will fill the time with people who want to speak about the importance of breast cancer research and awareness so that would be an example where i doubt that the people managing on the floor would fail to fill the time but it is something where the chairman and i often delegate that and you very much would be in control of cutting that time down to just a minute per and i agree with the chairman that often that's the best thing to do if there are no significant speakers so thank the chairman for his words on that