On September 26, 2006, President Bush signed into law S. 2590 , the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act ( P.L. 109-282 ). According to supporters of the new law, P.L. 109-282 was an attempt to reduce "wasteful and unnecessary spending" by the federal government, including spending on funds earmarked for special projects. To that end, the legislation required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish a publicly available, online database containing information about entities that are awarded federal grants, loans, contracts, and other forms of assistance. Using the database, supporters asserted, a citizen or watchdog group would be able to easily determine how much money was given to which organizations, and for what purposes. The premise of the new law was that by making the details of federal spending available to the public, government officials would be less likely to fund projects that might be perceived as wasteful. Supporters of the legislation also suggested that the new database would give citizens the opportunity to better understand how the government distributes funds and enable the public to become more involved in the discussion of federal spending priorities. Three of the primary categories of federal expenditures and obligations to be included in the database—federal grants, loans, and contracts—represent a significant element of federal spending. According to the most recently published Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR), federal agencies award over $880 billion in those three categories of financial assistance alone: $470 billion in grants, $381 billion in contracts, and $29 billion in direct loans. OMB launched the database, USAspending.gov , on December 13, 2007. While the new database has been praised as a step toward a worthy objective—enhancing the transparency of government expenditures—government officials and members of the public have expressed concern about the quality of the data it provides, and about the cost of enhancing and expanding data collection efforts. This report initially discusses the background of S. 2590 , noting in particular how it compared to similar legislation in the House of Representatives. It then discusses the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act's provisions, noting what types of assistance are to be part of the new database, the primary sources of the data, and deadlines for implementation. Finally, the report identifies and discusses issues that might affect the act's implementation, and that therefore might prove to be areas for future congressional oversight. Senator Tom Coburn, along with three cosponsors, introduced S. 2590 on April 6, 2006. On August 2, 2006, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously reported S. 2590 , with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. That same day, the committee's chair, Senator Susan Collins, and its ranking member, Senator Joseph Lieberman, requested that the bill be brought to the floor for a unanimous consent vote before the August recess commenced. This motion was blocked by an unnamed Senator, which delayed action on the bill until after the recess. On September 7, all holds were lifted and the Senate passed S. 2590 by unanimous consent. The House approved S. 2590 , as passed by the Senate, by voice vote on September 13. Later that same day both chambers agreed to S.Con.Res. 114 , making enrollment corrections to S. 2590 . As noted previously, the President signed the bill into law on September 26, 2006. S. 2590 received extensive bipartisan support at each stage of the legislative process. In the Senate, the bill was introduced with bipartisan sponsors, voted unanimously out of committee, and passed by unanimous consent. The legislation was ultimately cosponsored by 47 Senators, including Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid. In the House, S. 2590 was passed by voice vote under suspension of the rules, with members of both parties speaking in support of the Senate bill and none speaking against it. The White House did not issue a Statement of Administrative Policy on S. 2590 , but President Bush did express his support in a press release distributed the same day the bill was enrolled, making it apparent he would sign the measure once he received it. According to Senator Coburn, S. 2590 was endorsed by over 150 organizations with a wide range of political leanings. The Senator's list of supporters included representatives of private enterprise, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; unions, like the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; media groups, such as the American Society of Newspaper Editors; and government watchdog organizations, like OMB Watch. As evidence of the unusual alliance in support of S. 2590 , the list indicated that both People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Gun Owners of America supported the bill, as did both the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Traditional Values Coalition. S. 2590 was a companion bill to H.R. 5060 , which Representative Roy Blunt introduced on March 30, 2006, as an amendment to the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999. On June 21, 2006, the House passed H.R. 5060 , as amended, by voice vote. According to Representative Blunt, the bill was intended to "increase accountability and transparency in the federal awards process" by establishing a public database with information on award recipients. While both S. 2590 and H.R. 5060 had similar objectives, the bills differed in important ways. Table 1 highlights three of the most important differences between the engrossed bills. Most notably, contracts were exempt from the public database under the House bill, but were covered in S. 2590 . Since contracts are one of the largest categories of federal domestic assistance, their exclusion would have significantly reduced the comprehensiveness of the database. When H.R. 5060 was first brought to the House floor in June, critics argued that a database without information on federal contracts was "missing a key component that is essential to public oversight." Even some Members who ultimately voted to pass the bill expressed concern that it did not include contracts. Supporters of H.R. 5060 maintained that a database primarily covering grants would still be a valuable tool, and the bill's sponsors reportedly pledged to develop separate legislation enhancing public access to federal contract information. After S. 2590 passed the Senate, some House members expressed a clear preference for the Senate version, which they argued was "stronger and more comprehensive" because it included contracts. Both S. 2590 and H.R. 5060 required the public database to include information on subrecipients, but only the Senate bill provided funding to cover the costs associated with collecting and reporting that information. Currently, data on subgrantees and subcontractors are not gathered uniformly across the government. Some experts believe that recipients of federal financial assistance—particularly states and local governments—will incur substantial costs as they begin to collect and report information on their subrecipients. Under S. 2590 , recipients and subrecipients of federal assistance might recover the costs associated with new reporting requirements by incorporating those costs into their indirect cost rates; H.R. 5060 had no similar feature, leaving it open to the charge of being an unfunded mandate imposed on award recipients by the federal government. Because no uniform method of collecting detailed information on subcontractors and subgrantees existed, S. 2590 directed OMB to conduct a pilot program to determine the most cost-effective and least administratively burdensome approach to implementing a government-wide subaward reporting process. The pilot program was not included in the Senate bill when it was first introduced by Senator Coburn. It was added after concerns were raised about the potential administrative and financial burden new reporting requirements would place on grant award recipients. H.R. 5060 did not contain provisions for a pilot program, and was criticized in congressional hearings as being "an attack" on federally funded grantees. The database required in the act was to be implemented in two phases. By January 1, 2008, the new database was required to provide information on entities that were awarded funds directly from the federal government. Entities covered in the first phase of the database include corporations, associations, partnerships, sole proprietorships, limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships, states, and localities. By January 1, 2009, the database must include information on subgrantees and subcontractors that receive federal funds through a primary award recipient. The act excluded individual recipients of federal assistance, and organizations with less than $300,000 in total income were not required to report on subawards. Consistent with the objective of providing to the public comprehensive information on federal financial assistance, virtually all categories of awards will ultimately be covered by the database, including grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, loans, cooperative agreements, delivery orders, task orders, and purchase orders. Two special provisions addressed particular types of transactions: individual transactions of less than $25,000 are exempt, and credit card transactions will not be included until October 1, 2008. To achieve greater transparency, the act required the database to provide the following information about each federal award: Name of entity receiving award Amount of award Type of award (e.g., grant, loan, contract) Agency funding award A North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for contracts or a Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number for grants and loans Program source Award title that describes the purpose of the funding Location of recipient City, state, congressional district, and country in which award performance primarily takes place Unique identifier for entity receiving award and of the parent entity of recipient, if one exists Any other information specified by OMB S. 2590 's sponsors, mindful of the criticism that government databases are often difficult for non-experts to use, included language that required OMB to ensure the database is accessible through a "searchable website."