I 
110TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6411 
To strengthen transparency and accountability in Federal spending. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 26, 2008 
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut (for himself, Mr. SOUDER, Mr. CLAY, Mr. 
TOWNS, Ms. FOXX, Mr. SHADEGG, and Mr. WAXMAN) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Gov-
ernment Reform 
A BILL 
To strengthen transparency and accountability in Federal 
spending. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Fed-
eral Spending Act of 2008’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Improving application programming interface and website data ele-
ments. 
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Sec. 3. Improving data quality. 
Sec. 4. Recipient performance transparency. 
SEC. 2. IMPROVING APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTER-
FACE AND WEBSITE DATA ELEMENTS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 2 of the Federal Funding 
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Public Law 
109–282; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note) (referred to in this Act 
as the ‘‘Act’’ for purposes of any amendment) is amend-
ed— 
(1) in subsection (a)— 
(A) in paragraph (2)(A)(ii), by striking 
‘‘and delivery orders’’ and inserting ‘‘lease 
agreements and assignments, and delivery or-
ders’’; and 
(B) in paragraph (3)— 
(i) in subparagraph (C), by striking 
‘‘and’’ after the semicolon; 
(ii) in subparagraph (D), by striking 
the period and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 
(iii) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(E) programmatically search and access 
all data in a serialized machine readable format 
(such as XML) via a web-services application 
programming interface.’’; 
(2) in subsection (b)— 
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(A) in paragraph (1)— 
(i) in subparagraph (E), by striking 
‘‘and’’ after the semicolon; 
(ii) in subparagraph (F), by striking 
the period and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 
(iii) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(G) a unique award identifier that identi-
fies each individual award vehicle; 
‘‘(H) the date that the financial award was 
made; 
‘‘(I) the date that the financial award re-
quirements began; 
‘‘(J) the date that the financial obligations 
are dispersed to the recipient; 
‘‘(K) to the extent possible, the agency and 
department as well as subagencies and sub-
offices that have authorized the Federal award; 
‘‘(L) in negotiated procurements, the high-
est, lowest, and median offered price among all 
technically acceptable proposals or bids; 
‘‘(M) after January 1, 2010, for all con-
tracts, subcontracts, purchase orders, task or-
ders, lease agreements and assignments, and 
delivery orders— 
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‘‘(i) both a copy in a format that re-
produces the original image of each page 
and a copy in searchable text format of the 
request for proposals, the announcement of 
the award, the contract, and the scope of 
work to be performed; 
‘‘(ii) a product or service code that 
identifies the general category of product 
or service procured under the transaction; 
‘‘(iii) information about the extent of 
competition in making the award, includ-
ing the number of qualified bids or pro-
posals during the competitive process, and 
if the award was not competed, the legal 
authority and specific rationale for making 
the award without full and open competi-
tion; 
‘‘(iv) the full amount of money that is 
awarded under a contract or, in the case of 
lease agreements or assignments, the 
amount paid to the Government, and the 
full amount of any options to expand or 
extend under a contract; 
‘‘(v) the amount and nature of the 
profit incentive offered to contractors for 
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achieving or exceeding specified goals such 
as fixed price, cost plus pricing, labor hour 
contracts, and time and materials con-
tracts; 
‘‘(vi) an indication if the contract is 
the result of legislative mandates, set- 
asides, preference program requirements, 
or other criteria, and whether the contract 
is multiyear, consolidated, or performance 
based; 
‘‘(vii) an indication if the contract is 
a congressionally directed spending item as 
defined in Public Law 110–81; and 
‘‘(viii) socioeconomic characteristics of 
the entity that receives an award including 
its size, industrial classification (NAICS 
code), and whether the entity is owned by 
minority individuals, women, veterans, or 
other special categories; and 
‘‘(N) after January 1, 2009, for all grants, 
subgrants, loans, awards, cooperative agree-
ments, and other forms of financial assist-
ance— 
‘‘(i) the type of recipient receiving the 
award, such as State government, local 
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government, Indian tribe, individual, small 
business, for-profit, or nonprofit; 
‘‘(ii) the type of financial assistance 
each transaction represents including di-
rect payments, insurance, loans, grants, 
and cooperative agreements; 
‘‘(iii) the amount of money from non- 
Federal sources that is required to obtain 
the award; and 
‘‘(iv) an indication if the funding is a 
congressionally directed spending item as 
defined in Public Law 110–81.’’; 
(B) by redesignating paragraphs (2), (3), 
and (4) as paragraphs (3), (4), and (5), respec-
tively; and 
(C) by adding after paragraph (1) the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(2) PRESENTATION
OF
DATA.—The website 
shall present information about Federal awards and 
recipients of Federal awards in ways that meet the 
needs of users with different levels of understanding 
about government spending and abilities using 
searching websites by— 
‘‘(A) providing search results for novices 
displayed in summary form and with top level 
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information such as amount of money received 
in a fiscal year, basic information about the re-
cipient, purpose of the Federal award, what 
Federal agencies are providing the money, 
where the work is performed, and extent of 
competition, if applicable; and 
‘‘(B) providing more detailed information 
for more sophisticated users, including all data 
in paragraph (1).’’; and 
(3) in subsection (c), by striking paragraph (4) 
and inserting the following: 
‘‘(4) shall be updated at least once every 30 
days with new information required by this Act; 
and’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—Except as otherwise pro-
vided, amendments made by subsection (a) shall be imple-
mented not later than 6 months after the date of enact-
ment of this Act. 
SEC. 3. IMPROVING DATA QUALITY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Act is amended by adding at 
the end the following: 
‘‘SEC. 5. IMPROVING DATA QUALITY. 
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The Director of the Office of 
Management and Budget shall ensure the following: 
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‘‘(1) A simple method for the public to report 
errors is available on the website created by this Act 
which should— 
‘‘(A) allow the public to report errors on 
single records as well as problems affecting 
multiple records; 
‘‘(B) allow the public to provide contact in-
formation, including e-mail address, mail ad-
dress, or telephone number, to be used for in-
forming the reporter of the outcome of the 
records review; 
‘‘(C) send copies of the error report to 
both an official responsible for the data quality 
at the agency that generated the data and to 
the Office of Management and Budget; 
‘‘(D) if reported errors are deemed to be 
nonfrivolous, place an indicator on the records 
on the website that informs users that the accu-
racy of the record has been brought into ques-
tion, until the information is either confirmed 
as correct or updated to be correct; and 
‘‘(E) maintain a public record organized by 
agency of the total number of records which 
have had nonfrivolous reports of errors, the 
number of records which have been corrected, 
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and number of records for which error reports 
remain unresolved. 
‘‘(2) Each agency inspector general— 
‘‘(A) reviews a statistically representative 
sample of agency Federal awards every 6 
months to verify accuracy of the data and that 
data standards are being followed; 
‘‘(B) reports to the Director of the Office 
of Management and Budget the findings of the 
review; and 
‘‘(C) makes publicly available, including 
through the website created by this Act, the 
findings of the review. 
‘‘(3) The data used on the website created by 
this Act is audited for quality every 6 months with 
the audit to include at least the following steps: 
‘‘(A) Review and report publicly on the ac-
tivity in the error reporting system created by 
this section with an analysis for each agency 
and combined for agencies that includes at least 
the following indicators: 
‘‘(i) Number of errors reported. 
‘‘(ii) Number of reported errors re-
solved. 
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‘‘(iii) Number of reported errors that 
remain unresolved. 
‘‘(iv) Number of reported errors that 
led to corrections. 
‘‘(v) Number of reported errors on 
records that proved to be correct. 
‘‘(vi) Average number of days to re-
solve error report. 
‘‘(vii) Longest number of days to re-
solve an error report. 
‘‘(viii) Longest held reported error 
that remains unresolved. 
‘‘(B) An independent review every 6 
months of data used for the website to verify 
accuracy of the data and assess the process 
used for improving data quality with an ability 
for the public to review these findings. 
‘‘(C) Identify and report new standards 
that should be implemented by agencies to im-
prove data quality. 
‘‘(4)(A) No personally identifiable information 
is made available through the website created by this 
Act and a common standard is created across the 
Government for assigning a unique award identifier 
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across both contract and Federal assistance award 
transactions. 
‘‘(B) A report is submitted within 6 months of 
the date of enactment of this Act to Congress (and 
made publicly available on the Internet) that no per-
sonally identifiable information is available on the 
website. 
‘‘(C) Agencies are required to correct data for 
past years when personally identifiable information 
was used. 
‘‘(D) The unique recipient identifier and parent 
company identifier are— 
‘‘(i) accurate; 
‘‘(ii) able to identify past and current sub-
sidiary ownership; and 
‘‘(iii) 
publicly 
available 
through 
the 
download and application programming inter-
faces in section 2(a)(3). 
‘‘(5) The data on the website created by this 
Act is normalized to correct nonstandard ways of re-
porting names and other information. 
‘‘(6) The Consolidated Federal Funds Report is 
published not later than 6 months after the end of 
the fiscal year. 
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‘‘(7) A plan for improving the management and 
accuracy of agency financial information about Fed-
eral awards, including public access to such data, is 
submitted to the Committee on Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of 
the House of Representatives and made publicly 
available through the Internet not later than Decem-
ber 31, 2009. 
‘‘(8) Findings from the agency inspectors gen-
eral reports, the data quality audits, and other infor-
mation are used to develop standards or guidance 
for agency implementation of, and compliance with, 
the requirements of this Act. 
‘‘(b) STATUTORY OBLIGATIONS.—Nothing in this Act 
relieves the director or any Federal agency of any statu-
tory obligation to develop, maintain, or provide access to 
complete, accurate, and timely Federal financial data.’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—Except as otherwise pro-
vided, the amendments made by subsection (a) shall be 
implemented not later than June 30, 2009. 
SEC. 4. RECIPIENT PERFORMANCE TRANSPARENCY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Act as amended by section 
4 is amended by adding at the end the following: 
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‘‘SEC. 7. RECIPIENT PERFORMANCE TRANSPARENCY AND 
TAX COMPLIANCE. 
‘‘(a) PERFORMANCE TRANSPARENCY.—The Director 
of the Office of Management and Budget shall ensure that 
the unique identifier required in section 2(b)(1)(E) that 
is used to link information on the website described in sec-
tion 2 is also used to link information about performance 
of individual contractors and recipients of financial assist-
ance starting with awards given in fiscal year 2008 includ-
ing— 
‘‘(1) an assessment of the quality of work per-
formed on Federal awards during the past 5 years, 
but not before fiscal year 2008; 
‘‘(2) information about Federal audit disputes 
and resolutions; 
‘‘(3) information regarding civil, criminal, and 
administrative actions initiated or concluded by the 
Federal Government or a State government against 
Federal awards recipients or violations of Federal or 
State laws or regulations during the preceding 5 
years including, but not limited to— 
‘‘(A) with respect to each proceeding— 
‘‘(i) a brief description of the pro-
ceeding and its disposition; 
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‘‘(ii) any amount paid by the person 
to the Federal Government or a State gov-
ernment; and 
‘‘(iii) any violation of law or regula-
tions, if applicable, related to the work-
place, environmental protection, fraud, se-
curities, and consumer protections includ-
ing— 
‘‘(I) those affecting worker safety 
and health; 
‘‘(II) working pay and leave 
rights; 
‘‘(III) workplace discrimination, 
including trafficking in persons; 
‘‘(IV) labor relations; 
‘‘(V) the Clean Air Act, Clean 
Water Act, the Resource Conservation 
and Recovery Act, and other environ-
mental enforcement actions; 
‘‘(VI) whistleblower protections; 
‘‘(VII) Security and Exchange 
Commission actions; and 
‘‘(VIII) Federal Trade Commis-
sion actions; 
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‘‘(B) all Federal contracts and assistance 
awarded to the Federal awards recipient that 
were terminated in such period due to default; 
‘‘(C) 
all 
Federal 
suspensions 
and 
debarments of the Federal awards recipient in 
that period; 
‘‘(D) all Federal suspension and debar-
ment show cause orders received by the Federal 
awards recipient in that period; and 
‘‘(E) all administrative agreements signed 
with such Federal awards recipient in that pe-
riod; and 
‘‘(4) publicly available Government reports, in-
cluding those from the Government Accountability 
Office, Congressional Research Service, Congres-
sional Budget Office, and agency inspectors general, 
concerning general contractor or assistance recipient 
performance or specific instances of waste, fraud, 
and abuse. 
‘‘(b) TAX COMPLIANCE.— 
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The chief executive officer 
of an entity that receives a Federal award shall be 
required to certify whether— 
‘‘(A) the entity has filed all Federal tax re-
turns required during the preceding 5 years; 
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‘‘(B) the entity has been convicted of a 
criminal offense under the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986; and 
‘‘(C) the entity has an outstanding debt 
under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for 
which a notice of lien has been filed in public 
records pursuant to section 6323 of such Code 
that is not— 
‘‘(i) being paid in a timely manner 
pursuant to an agreement under section 
6159 or section 7122 of such Code; or 
‘‘(ii) a debt with respect to which a 
collection due process hearing under sec-
tion 6330 of such Code, or relief under 
subsection (a), (b), or (f) of section 6015 
of such Code, is requested or pending. 
‘‘(2) OMB.—The Director of the Office of Man-
agement and Budget shall— 
‘‘(A) develop the certification forms re-
quired by paragraph (1); 
‘‘(B) ensure that each agency providing 
Federal awards complies with the requirements 
of this subsection; and 
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‘‘(C) after January 1, 2009, ensure that 
the website described in section 2 contains in-
formation collected under paragraph (1).’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by 
subsection (a) shall be implemented not later than June 
30, 2009. 
Æ 
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