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1 

49–010 

" ! SENATE 109TH CONGRESS

2d Session 

REPORT

2006

109–329 

Calendar No. 576 

FEDERAL FUNDING ACCOUNTABILITY AND 

TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2006 

R E P O R T 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

TO ACCOMPANY

S. 2590 

together with 

ADDITIONAL VIEWS 

TO REQUIRE FULL DISCLOSURE OF ALL ENTITIES AND 

ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING FEDERAL FUNDS 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006.—Ordered to be printed 


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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

AMY L. HALL, Professional Staff Member 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Minority Staff Director 

KEVIN J. LANDY, Minority Senior Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

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Calendar No. 576 

109TH CONGRESS REPORT " ! SENATE 2d Session 109–329 

FEDERAL FUNDING ACCOUNTABILITY AND 

TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2006 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006.—Ordered to be printed 

Ms. COLLINS, from the Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, submitted the following 

R E P O R T 

together with 

ADDITIONAL VIEWS 

[To accompany S. 2590] 

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 

to which was referred the bill (S. 2590) to require full disclosure 

of all entities and organizations receiving Federal funds, having 

considered the same reports favorably thereon with an amendment 

and recommends that the bill do pass. 

CONTENTS 

Page 

I. Purpose and Summary .................................................................................. 1 

II. Background .................................................................................................... 2 

III. Legislative History ......................................................................................... 5 

IV. Section-by-Section Analysis .......................................................................... 5 

V. Estimated Cost of Legislation ....................................................................... 8 

VI. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact .................................................................. 10 

VII. Changes in Existing Law .............................................................................. 10 

VIII. Additional Views ............................................................................................ 11 

I. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY

The purpose of S. 2590 is to increase transparency and accountability of Federal government expenditures by providing access to 

information on Federal funding awards through a single, searchable, publicly-available Web site. The Office of Management and 

Budget is required to ensure that the Web site is up-to-date, easily 

searchable and available to the public at no cost, so that informamstockstill on PROD1PC61 with HEARINGS

2 

1Office of Management and Budget, Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the United States of 

America, Fiscal Year 2007, pg. 389, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/ 

spec.pdf. 

tion on Federal awards may be accessed by the public in a timely 

way. 

The bill requires the Web site to be fully accessible to the public 

by January 1, 2008, at which point data for fiscal year 2007 should 

be available on the Web site. After October 1, 2008, information 

about credit card transactions is required to be available on the 

Web site. By January 1, 2009, the bill requires the single Web site 

to provide information on subgrants and subcontracts. However, 

the bill does give the Director of the Office of Management and 

Budget the authority to extend, by no more than 18 months, the 

deadline for implementing the subaward reporting requirement for 

recipients of federal funds through State, local and tribal governments. Individual award transactions below $25,000 are not required to be included on the Web site. 

Specific elements of information about Federal awards are required to be available on the Web site, including the name of the 

recipient, award amount, award type (e.g., grant, contract, 

subgrant, etc.), industry classification or Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance indicator, 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, a unique 

identifier for each entity or parent entity receiving Federal funds 

is also required to be available on the Web site. 

The bill includes a temporary subaward reporting exemption for 

small entities. Entities that can demonstrate that they earned less 

than $300,000 in gross income in the previous tax year would not 

be required to report on subawards until the Director of the Office 

of Management and Budget determines that the imposition of the 

reporting requirements would not create an undue burden on those 

entities. 

In order to best determine the most cost-effective and efficient 

way to provide information on subawards, the bill establishes a 

pilot program to test methods of subaward data collection and reporting and to receive public feedback. 

Finally, the bill requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit annual reports to the Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and 

the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives, including data regarding the usage of the site and public 

feedback received, an assessment of the reporting burden placed on 

recipients of Federal funding, and an explanation of any reporting 

deadline extension for subaward recipients of Federal funding 

through State, local, or tribal governments. 

II. BACKGROUND

As Federal spending approaches $3 trillion in fiscal year 2007,1

the public’s ability to track how their tax dollars are used remains 

a monumental task. There is currently no comprehensive, publiclyavailable source of detailed, accurate, complete and timely information on Federal government spending. Even within the Federal government, information on all spending decisions is not compiled in 

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2 U.S. Census Bureau, Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Fiscal Year 2004, p. v, December 2005, at http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/cffr–04.pdf. 3FPDS–NG, Federal Procurement Report: FY2004, Section 1: Total Federal Views, p. 1, 2004, 

at http://www.fpdsng.com/downloads/FPR—Reports/fpr—section—I—federal—views.pdf; U.S. 

Census Bureau, Governments Division, Federal Assistance Awards Database System, 2005 3rd 

Quarter—Summary Table, at http://www.census.gov/govs/faads/053sumus.html. 

one place. There is a lack of transparency and accountability for all 

but the very largest spending decisions. 

Most Federal expenditures fall within several broad categories, 

and yet most are largely unseen by the public. According to the 

Census Bureau, the $2.2 trillion in Federal direct spending or obligations reported in the Consolidated Federal Funds Report for fiscal year 2004—the most recent year for which this data is available—can be broken into the following categories: 

Retirement and Disability—$667 billion 

Grants—$460 billion 

Procurement Contracts—$340 billion 

Salaries and Wages—$226 billion 

Direct Loans—$30 billion 

Guaranteed or Insured Loans—$29 billion 

Insurance—$773 billion 

Other Direct Payments—$773 billion 2

Grants and procurement contracts, two of the categories listed 

above, are just a small subset of the millions of financial transactions that the Federal government engages in on an annual 

basis. Yet in 2004, there were nearly 1.8 million contract actions 

and hundreds of thousands of grants awarded through more than 

1,000 Federal programs.3 The Committee believes it is important 

that detailed information on these and other types of Federal 

spending be not only collected by the government for its own use, 

but also made available to the public. 

Without a rigorous and transparent accountability system in 

place to provide visibility into who is receiving Federal funds 

through contracts and grants, and for what purpose, there is a 

greater potential for fraud and abuse. One goal of S. 2590 is to 

mitigate the potential for fraud and abuse by allowing citizens to 

see how their tax dollars are spent. Greater transparency allows 

taxpayers to judge whether government funds are being used for 

purposes they consider valuable, or whether spending in certain 

areas is excessive or wasteful. It also allows the public to better understand, assess, and appreciate the scope and value of federal investments in their communities and to more fully participate in 

shaping priorities for Federal spending. The Web site will also 

allow state governments to better evaluate what funds flow to their 

states, what needs are or are not being met through federal funding, and may foster greater coordination between the Federal government and states, and between states and their subawardees. 

The Federal Government currently makes some information on 

Federal expenditures available through various databases and reports. These include, but are not limited to, the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS, currently the Federal Procurement Data 

System-Next Generation (FPDS–NG)), the Federal Assistance 

Awards Data System (FAADS), and the Consolidated Federal 

Funds Report (CFFR). However, each system is limited in its capabilities and usefulness, and the systems are largely not compatible 

with one another. 

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4 

4GAO has long documented the data problems associated with FPDS, and specifically in a 

letter to The Honorable Joshua Bolten, Director Office of Management and Budget on December 

30, 2003, regarding Reliability of Federal Procurement Data, at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 

d04295r.pdf. 5Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Census Bureau, Federal Assistance Awards Database System User’s Guide, for Federal Fiscal Year 2005, Appendix A, October 2005, at http:// 

ftp2.census.gov/govs/faads/guide2005.pdf. 

FPDS–NG is the primary source of information on Federal contracting. It was created in 1978 to provide a central repository for 

all Federal contracting information, and to make that information 

publicly available. GSA is the agency responsible for administering 

the system (41 U.S.C. 405(d)(4)(A)). 

There are a number of weaknesses with FPDS that make it ineffective for providing timely, accurate information on procurement 

actions: first, not every agency is required to report to FPDS, 

meaning that the only way to gain an accurate count of procurement spending is to ask each agency individually. Second, the database is undependable, often providing data that is unusable or unreliable.4

The Federal Assistance Awards Data System, or FAADS, is the 

primary source of information on Federal grants. It was created in 

1980 to be the central source for information on all Federal assistance awards and is administered by the Census Bureau (31 U.S.C. 

6102(a)). FAADS collects information mainly in two formats: (1) an 

aggregate of all Federal assistance at the county level; and (2) an 

account of individual awards, including the amount awarded and 

the name of the recipient. Currently, 33 Federal agencies report to 

FAADS, which is nearly all Federal agencies that make awards. 

There remain, however, a few scattered small agencies that are not 

yet required to report.5

FAADS is more reliable than FPDS for its data quality and timeliness, but it also has limitations, making it far from adequate for 

needed transparency. The following are the biggest limitations to 

FAADS: first, each quarterly report is independent of the one that 

came before it and does not reflect total awards given in a certain 

fiscal year (or over any time period other than the quarter being 

reported). In order to obtain a comprehensive picture of Federal 

grants and awards, one would have to collect all previous reports 

and compile the information independently. Second, the Census 

Bureau emphasizes the fact that FAADS is not a ‘‘database’’ and 

is therefore not searchable. Instead, FAADS is a ‘‘sequential text 

file’’ that can only be read with special computer software. 

Searches for information are then only permitted on a ‘‘one-termat-a-time’’ basis, and then not across years. Third, FAADS only reports information on the identity of the initial recipient, and not 

the identity of second- or third-tier recipients. This means that 

grants given to States are only tracked to the State level, not 

through to subawards. Fourth, FAADS is only updated with new 

information on a quarterly basis, meaning that information may be 

as old as three months by the time it is released. 

The Consolidated Federal Funds Report, or CFFR, is a summary 

report of Federal spending on a geographic basis by State, county 

and sub-county areas. This report is published every year by the 

Census Bureau and is distributed publicly, as well as to Congress 

(31 U.S.C. 6202). The CFFR utilizes data collected from FAADS, 

FPDS and a collection of Federal agencies to track Federal funding 

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5 

within a number of high-level spending categories: retirement and 

disability; other direct payments; grants; procurement contracts; 

salaries and wages; direct loans; guaranteed or insured loans; and 

insurance. One of the biggest problems with the CFFR is that the 

data is released on a two-year delay. Therefore, the most recent 

data currently available is from FY2004. 

The inability of FPDS, FAADS and CFFR to easily provide more 

than high-level spending totals demonstrates the government’s general inability to provide transparency in its spending. Strides have 

been made in recent years to make some information available online, but more must be done. Real accountability for specific funding actions requires that better information be made available. The 

databases and Web sites currently available do not provide that 

level of accountability. 

III. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

S. 2590 was introduced on April 6, 2006 by Senator Coburn, 

along with Senators Obama, McCain and Carper as original cosponsors. The bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. As of August 3, 2006, additional 

co-sponsors include: Chairman Collins, Ranking Member 

Lieberman and Senators Alexander, Allen, Bayh, Boxer, 

Chambliss, Clinton, Coleman, Cornyn, DeMint, DeWine, Durbin, 

Frist, Isakson, Kerry, Landrieu, McConnell, Reid, Santorum, Sessions, Snowe, Sununu, Thune, Vitter and Voinovich. 

On July 18, 2006, the Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security, held a 

hearing entitled What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: S. 2590, the 

‘‘Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.’’

The Subcommittee heard testimony from The Honorable John 

McCain and The Honorable Barack Obama, as well as Gary D. 

Bass, Executive Director, OMB Watch; Eric Brenner, Director, 

Maryland Governor’s Grants Office, Office of the Governor; and 

Mark Tapscott, Editorial Page Editor, The Washington Examiner. 

On July 26, 2006, the Committee met in a business session 

where it considered the bill. An amendment in the nature of a substitute was offered by Senators Collins, Lieberman, Coburn, and 

Carper and adopted by voice vote. The Committee voted to report 

the bill favorably, as amended. Senators present: Collins, 

Lieberman, Bennett, Akaka, Carper, Coburn, Dayton, Lautenberg, 

and Pryor. 

IV. SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS

Section 1. Short title 

This section provides that the bill may be referred to as the ‘‘Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.’’

Section 2. Full disclosure of entities receiving Federal funding 

Subsection (a) defines key terms used throughout the bill: entity, 

Federal award, and searchable Web site. 

‘‘Entity’’ is defined as any of the following type of for-profit or 

non-profit organizations: corporation, association, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), limited liability partnership (LLP), 

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6 

sole proprietorship, other legal business entities and States or localities. The bill does not require the Web site to provide information about Federal funding received by individuals, such as a Social 

Security check or the salary of a Federal employee. The definition 

was drafted broadly with the intention of ensuring that information 

on financial transactions with all types of entities is included on 

the Web site. In addition, nothing in this bill prevents the Office 

of Management and Budget from making available on the Web site 

additional publicly-available Federal funding information. 

The definition of ‘‘Entity’’ exempts subcontractors and subgrantees until January 1, 2009. In place of a requirement to provide subaward information concurrently with other required information, this bill establishes a pilot program for collecting and reporting subaward information, as detailed in subsection (d). The 

exception for subaward recipient information is made to address 

the concern that collecting subaward information will be more difficult than collecting information on prime funding recipients, and 

more time is needed to identify best practices for collection and reporting of subaward information. The presence of the delayed timetable in the bill is not intended to indicate that this information 

is less important than information on prime awards, but it does 

recognize that additional time might be needed to develop a system 

that balances access to information with the burden of reporting 

subaward data. ‘‘Federal award’’ is defined as any expenditure of Federal funds 

through: grants, subgrants, contracts, subcontracts, loans, awards, 

cooperative agreements, purchase orders, task orders, delivery orders, or other forms of financial assistance. The definition does not 

include individual transactions below $25,000 and, before October 

1, 2008, does not include credit card transactions. The definition of 

this term is intentionally broad so as to capture as much Federal 

funding as possible. The inclusion of various types of financial arrangements is not in any way intended to limit the types of transactions that should be recorded on the Web site. The purpose of 

this legislation is to provide the public with a broad and highly detailed view of Federal funding, and the definition of what constitutes a Federal award is to be interpreted equally broadly. 

‘‘Searchable Web site’’ means a Web site that allows the public 

to search by any of the elements listed and explained in subsection 

(b)(1). This definition is intended to guarantee that the Web site is 

not only available to the general public, but that it is also easily 

usable. The bill is intended to ensure that the Web site can be 

searched using similar techniques as those used on popular search 

engine Web sites. The language of this bill does not preclude the 

inclusion of an advanced search capability on the Web site. 

Subsection (b) provides general provisions regarding the Web site 

and the data to be submitted to the Web site. 

Paragraph (1) requires the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) to ensure that the Web site is operational and available to 

the general public no later than January 1, 2008. This provision 

does not preclude OMB from making the Web site available prior 

to January 2008. It also requires that the Web site comply with 

Section 204 of the E-Government Act of 2002, which states that the 

Director of OMB ‘‘shall work with the Administrator of the General 

Services Administration and other agencies to maintain and promstockstill on PROD1PC61 with HEARINGS

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mote an integrated Internet-based system of providing the public 

with access to Government information and services.’’ This paragraph also requires that there be no cost to the public 

to access the Web site. 

Finally, this paragraph requires that the Web site include certain 

data regarding each ‘‘Federal award’’ including: (1) the name of the 

entity receiving the award; (2) the dollar amount of the award; (3) 

information on the award including—transaction type, funding 

agency (as well as the program within the agency), the North 

American Industry Classification System code (used to identify 

market sector) or Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance number, 

and purpose of the funding; (4) location of the entity receiving the 

award as well as the primary location of performance under the 

award, including city, State, congressional district, and country; (5) 

a unique identifier of the entity receiving the award and of the parent entity of the recipient, when applicable; and (6) other information that OMB deems relevant. 

Paragraph (2) specifies that the Web site shall include data for 

fiscal year 2007 and each fiscal year thereafter. 

Paragraphs (3) and (4) authorize OMB to delegate the work of 

developing and maintaining the Web site to one or more Federal 

agencies. 

Subsection (c) of the bill addresses several provisions related to 

the operation of the Web site. 

Paragraph (1) specifies that OMB may use existing Federal databases, such as the Federal Procurement Data System, Federal Assistance Award Data System, and Grants.gov, as sources of data 

for the searchable Web site. Paragraph (2), however, specifies that 

the Web site will not be in compliance with the requirements of the 

bill if it simply hyperlinks to other Federal databases. The objective 

in establishing the Web site is to prevent the need for citizens to 

search multiple sites and learn the operations of multiple databases to know where their tax dollars are being spent. Citizens 

should be able to access information on all Federal awards through 

a single Web site, regardless of how many separate systems feed 

into it. 

Paragraph (3) requires that the Web site provide an opportunity 

for public feedback on the utility of the site and recommendations 

for improvements. This should provide an opportunity for feedback 

from entities receiving Federal funds and thus required to provide 

information, as well as anyone from the general public who uses 

the Web site for private research. Opportunities to provide feedback should be continuous, and improvements to the Web site 

should be on-going. 

Paragraph (4) requires that all funding information required in 

the bill be posted to the Web site no later than thirty (30) days 

after the transaction has occurred. This means thirty calendar days 

and not thirty business days. 

The Committee believes that the Web site should be easy for the 

public to locate and access, either through its own domain name or 

through prominence on a central Federal Web site, such as 

Firstgov.gov. 

Subsection (d) requires the Director of OMB to establish a pilot 

program to address the issue of collecting subaward data. The 

Committee expects the Director of the Office of Management and 

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Budget to incorporate the lessons learned and public feedback from 

the pilot program as it implements the subaward reporting requirements of this bill. 

The Director is required to establish the pilot program no later 

than July 1, 2007, to determine the most efficient and least burdensome means of collecting subaward data. The pilot project will 

last for two years, after which all subaward data will begin to be 

collected and integrated into the Web site. The Director of OMB 

may extend the subaward reporting requirement for subawardees 

that receive funding through State, local, and tribal governments 

for up to 18 months, to prevent imposing an undue burden on 

subaward recipients. 

Subsection (e) allows that any entity with a gross income of less 

than $300,000 in the previous tax year will be exempt from the 

subaward reporting requirements until the Director of OMB determines that the reporting requirements do not cause an undue burden on these entities. 

Subsection (f) specifies that nothing in the Act shall prohibit 

OMB from including on the Web site information that is publicly 

available from any other Federal database. 

Subsection (g) requires the Director of OMB to report to appropriate congressional committees regarding usage and public feedback on the Web site, the reporting burden placed on prime and 

subaward recipients, and the Director’s use of the extension allowed in subsection (d). 

Section 3. Classified information. 

This section clarifies that the Act shall not require disclosure of 

classified information. 

V. ESTIMATED COST OF LEGISLATION

U.S. CONGRESS, 

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE, 

Washington, DC, August 9, 2006. 

Hon. SUSAN M. COLLINS, 

Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. 

DEAR MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Congressional Budget Office has 

prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. 

If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased 

to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Matthew Pickford. 

Sincerely, 

DONALD B. MARRON, Acting Director. 

Enclosure. 

S. 2590—Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 

2006 

Summary: S. 2590 would direct the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) to oversee the creation of a single comprehensive 

searchable Web site that would include information on all federal 

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grants, contracts, and other funding awarded to public and private 

organizations. CBO estimates that implementing S. 2590 would cost $4 million in 2007 and about $15 million over the 2007–2011 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts. Enacting the legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues. S. 2590 contains 

no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the 

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA); any costs to state, local, 

or tribal governments would result from complying with the conditions for receiving federal assistance. 

Estimated cost to the Federal Government: The estimated budgetary impact of S. 2590 is shown in the following table. The cost 

of this legislation falls within budget function 800 (general government). 

By fiscal year, in millions of dollars— 

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 

CHANGES IN SPENDING SUBJECT TO APPROPRIATION 

Estimated authorization level ................................................................................. 5 5 2 2 2 

Estimated outlays ................................................................................................... 4 5 2 2 2 

Basis of estimate: For this estimate, CBO assumes that the bill 

will be enacted near the start of fiscal year 2007, that the necessary funds will be provided for each year, and that spending will 

follow historical patterns for similar programs. 

The federal government has many databases to monitor and report on federal spending. Three of the major government databases 

are the U.S. Census Bureau’s Federal Assistance Award Data System (FAADS), the General Services Administration’s Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), and the U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services’ Web site, www.Grants.gov. FAADS contains 

information supplied by most federal agencies regarding most types 

of federal spending except contracts. FPDS includes information 

provided by federal agencies regarding federal contracts. 

Grants.gov is a Web site that can be used to apply for many federal 

grants. FAADS, FPDS, and Grants.gov do not comprise a comprehensive information source of all federal spending and reportedly are not timely nor easily queried for information. 

S. 2590 would expand the current federal databases related to 

government spending to establish a single comprehensive database 

of federal spending that would be available through a public Web 

site listing all entities receiving federal funds, including the name 

of each entity with a unique identifier, information on the award, 

the amount of the award, the location of the entity, and the purpose of the funding by January 1, 2008. In addition, under the bill, 

OMB would initiate an 18-month pilot program beginning in July 

2007 to identify spending by subcontractors and subgrantees. That 

information would be incorporated into the comprehensive federal 

spending database. 

According to OMB, the government currently collects all the information needed to create a comprehensive database of federal 

spending. Using that information, CBO estimates that updating 

and expanding the government’s current data collection efforts and 

adding a search engine through a Web site to create a single comprehensive database would cost nearly $10 million over the 2007–

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10 

2008 period. In addition, CBO estimates that OMB would need $2 

million annually to update and maintain the database after it is established. Thus, we estimate that the creation of a single comprehensive searchable database would cost about $15 million over 

the 2007–2011 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary 

amounts. 

Intergovernmental and private-sector impact: S. 2590 contains no 

intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in UMRA. 

The bill would require state, local, and tribal governments to provide OMB with information on how they spend money received 

from the federal government. Such requirements could be costly to 

intergovernmental entities, but any costs would result from complying with conditions for federal assistance. 

Estimate prepared by: Federal Costs: Matthew Pickford. Impact 

on State, Local, and Tribal Governments: Sarah Puro. Impact on 

the Private Sector: Carla-Marie Ulerie. 

Estimate approved by: Peter H. Fontaine, Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis. 

VI. EVALUATION OF REGULATORY IMPACT

Pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of 

the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee has considered 

the regulatory impact of this bill and determined that enactment 

of this legislation would have no regulatory impact. 

VII. CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW

In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the Standing 

Rules of the Senate, there are no changes to existing law made by 

the bill as reported. 

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(11) 

VIII. ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF SENATORS LAUTENBERG AND 

COBURN 

Transparency in government decision-making should not be limited simply to spending; it should also be extended to the decisions 

Congress makes about the tax code. The tax code is currently over 

60,000 pages long, and it is filled with obscure and little-known tax 

breaks. Because we believe that transparency is one of the best 

tools we have to curb wasteful behavior, we look forward to working together and with the Committee to develop bipartisan legislation like S. 2590 that will bring increased transparency to the tax 

code. Tax code matters can be extremely complex but the American 

public has a right to know how the tax code affects them. American 

taxpayers also deserve to know if they’re paying higher taxes in 

order to offset the loss of revenue due to special treatment for special interest groups. This is a complex issue that will require careful study. We intend to address this issue in the Subcommittee on 

Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and 

International Security. We believe that a hearing addressing this 

issue will help us all to better understand the ultimate effects of 

targeted tax expenditures. Further study will also help to inform 

us on how to address the issue of greater transparency more comprehensively. 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG. 

TOM A. COBURN. 

Æ 

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