[Pages H4335-H4338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

AMENDING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT ACT OF
1999

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules
and pass the bill (H.R. 5060) to amend the Federal Financial Assistance
Management Improvement Act of 1999 to require data with respect to
Federal financial assistance to be available for public access in a
searchable and user friendly form, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:

H.R. 5060

Be in enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. DATA WITH RESPECT TO FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
REQUIRED TO BE AVAILABLE FOR PUBLIC ACCESS IN
SEARCHABLE AND USER-FRIENDLY FORM.

(a) Data Requirements.--The Director of the Office of
Management and Budget shall, as part of the implementation of
the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act
of 1999 (Public Law 106-107; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note), work with
the Administrator of General Services and other agencies to
make available data with respect to Federal financial
assistance in accordance with this section and section 204 of
the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347; 44 U.S.C.
3501 note).
(b) Matters Covered.--The Director shall ensure that the
data required under subsection (a), at a minimum--
(1) are available on the Internet, from a single website
database, at no cost to the public;
(2) contain--
(A) all information and types of information (in this
section referred to as ``data fields'') collected through the
Federal Assistance Award Data System, Grants.gov, or any
other existing Federal database; and
(B) additional information about each Federal financial
assistance award, including program source or funding
authority, statutory or regulatory authority, renewability,
number of applicants and recipients, type of activity being
performed, required measurable outcomes, and any other
relevant information;
(3) are in a form that allows for full searching and
aggregation of all data fields across all agencies;
(4) include information about Federal financial assistance
awards within 30 days after award of the assistance;
(5) identify the Federal financial assistance that a
recipient has received during the preceding 10-year period,
including an itemized breakdown of that assistance by agency
and program source;
(6) include lists of Federal financial assistance awards
and the dates and amounts of Federal fund disbursements; and
(7) identify subgrantees that are non-Federal entities.
(c) Download Ability.--The Director also shall ensure that
the website containing the data allows for the public to
download--
(1) results of searches; and
(2) the entire database on a quarterly basis.
(d) Period Covered.--For purposes of subsection (b)(5), the
first 10-year period to be covered shall begin with the year
2006.
(e) Definitions.--In this Act:
(1) The term ``Federal financial assistance'' has the same
meaning as defined in section 7501(a)(5) of title 31, United
States Code, except that, in applying such definition, the
term ``non-Federal entity'' has the meaning provided in
paragraph (2).
(2) The term ``non-Federal entity'' means a State, local
government, nonprofit organization, corporation, association,
partnership, limited liability company, limited liability
partnership, or any other legal business entity.
(f) Compliance Requirement.--The website database made
available pursuant to this section shall not be considered in
compliance with this section if it only provides electronic
links to the Federal Assistance Award Data System,
Grants.gov, or other existing websites and databases, unless
each of those sites has information from all agencies and
meets the requirements of subsections (b) and (c).
(g) Effective Date.--The data shall be available for public
use not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of
this Act.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia.

General Leave

Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and
extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, Majority Whip Roy Blunt and I introduced H.R. 5060,
which would amend the Federal Assistance Management Improvement Act of
1999 to require data with respect to Federal financial assistance to be

[[Page H4336]]

available for public access in a searchable and user-friendly form. The
bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a Web
site for all grant awards to be displayed in a format that would be
easily accessible and free of charge. Each award would be required to
be listed on the Web site within 30 days of its enactment.
No such real-time disclosure is required today of grant awards, and
available data is often untimely. Currently there is no central
database of all entities receiving Federal funds, including the nearly
30,000 organizations that are awarded nearly $300 billion in Federal
grants each year. In fact, several agencies have taken different
approaches to making public information about grantees, and often
little or no information is available on line.
Our bill would put the framework in place for increased sunshine on
the Federal grant process, allowing anyone with access to the Internet
to review and search Federal assistance awards, thus providing greater
transparency to the grant-making process.
I congratulate my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Missouri,
for recognizing the importance of this issue and working so hard to
bring this measure forward. I also want to thank my ranking member Mr.
Waxman for working to move this legislation forward in a bipartisan
way. This bill adds much-needed transparency to the Federal grant
process. I also want to thank Mr. Davis, too, my colleague from
Illinois, for his assistance in this.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with the chairman of the Government
Reform Committee, Chairman Davis, in consideration of H.R. 5060, which
calls for the creation of a new searchable database of all Federal
grants to be made publicly available on the Internet.
I have always had serious concerns about any decision to bring a bill
to the floor without the opportunity for hearings or other committee
consideration, but I have been very pleased with Majority Whip Blunt
and Chairman Davis' willingness to work together over the past week to
address problems with the bill and to make revisions.
As revised, the bill will require the Office of Management and Budget
to develop a database that would be useful to individuals and
organizations researching Federal grant funding. The database will
provide a complete record of Federal grant funding, including
information about grantees and the purpose and requirements of each
grant. The requirement that the database be fully searchable and
available for download is also most important.
As Members of Congress, we have a responsibility to increase public
understanding of Federal spending and public access to information
about how taxpayer dollars are spent. Currently the public has access
to a data system, the Federal Assistance Award Data System, that
provides limited information about domestic grants, but this system is
unwieldy and difficult to use. Under this bill public oversight of
Federal spending will increase.
The bill is a step in the right direction, but it is missing a key
component that is essential to public oversight. I had hoped that the
legislation we are considering today would have required that
information on Federal contracts be included in the database or in a
similar separate database of Federal contracts. As Federal contract
spending increases, there is a vital need for the public to be able to
track and understand this spending.
As with the Federal Assistance Award Data System for grants, there is
a publicly available database of contracts, the Federal Procurement
Data System, but it, too, is plagued with problems. This data system is
often incomplete, and, like the grant data system, is unwieldy and
difficult to use. Currently it is virtually impossible for the public
to accurately track Federal contract spending.
I understand that Chairman Davis has agreed to work on improving the
FPDS with Ranking Member Waxman and others in order to make Federal
contract information freely and easily accessible to the public. I,
quite frankly, look forward to this collaboration, and I hope that when
the new database of Federal grants is made available on a Web site for
the public to search and download at no charge, there will also be a
new FPDS system or other new contracts database made available that is
just as accessible and usable as the new grants database that we are
dealing with.
I want to again commend the chairman of the Committee on Government
Reform and Oversight and its ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for the
tremendous leadership that they both provide in a very bipartisan way.
I think that is one of the reasons that you see us down here so often
with bills that have come through that committee ready for passage on
the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his
kind words and also thank him for his many, many contributions to the
committee and the bipartisan approach we have taken to issues.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the majority
whip, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), who is the chief author
of this legislation.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the chairman for yielding, Mr. Speaker, and I also
thank Mr. Davis for his generous comments and his hard work on this
bill.
Over the past several months, Mr. Speaker, we have had good
discussions in the House about earmarks and earmark reform. The House
has committed to pass and will pass earmark reform to increase sunshine
on the earmark process, yet there is another process in the Federal
Government that, despite spending over $300 billion a year, has almost
no disclosure. That is really the purpose of this bill.
Each year the Federal Government gives out thousands of grants to
various organizations and entities. All told, about 30,000
organizations a year receive grants, yet there is no central system
available to the public or even to the Congress to determine who is
receiving these taxpayer funds and how they are being spent.
Chairman Davis and I have introduced H.R. 5060, the bill we are
considering today, to correct this. This legislation requires the
Office of Management and Budget to establish a searchable public Web
site listing all recipients of Federal financial assistance, such as
grants and loans. Within 30 days of a grant award, the following
information would be available to the public through this single site
on the Internet and should be and would be required by law to be easily
searchable:
There would be the name of the grantee and the subgrantees who have
received the award; an itemized breakdown of that assistance by agency
and program source; and all of the grants that the grantee has received
in the past 10 years.
This database will serve as an invaluable tool enabling Congress, the
public, and the media to easily determine who is receiving taxpayer
funds. This information will be critical in uncovering wasteful
spending and ensuring compliance with existing Federal laws, including
the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act.
There are numerous examples of wasteful government grants, such as
millions of dollars spent by the National Institute of Mental Health to
study what makes a meaningful day for college students or to study how
college students decorate their dorm rooms.

{time} 1045

I was a college president for 4 years, and I will tell you that is a
study that is not only not worth having, but something that nobody
wants to know about.
Often such waste has been uncovered by the inspector general from the
various agencies, such as an effort made by the inspector general in
2003 that resulted in an EPA grant from the 1990s, where $700,000 was
spent, was granted, without any knowledge of what work the recipient
was going to perform. Under this law, that information will become
publicly and quickly available.
This bill will empower everybody with access to the Internet to begin
reviewing Federal grants and other forms of taxpayer assistance to look
for such waste, fraud and abuse. This, in turn, will help us become
better stewards of taxpayer funds.

[[Page H4337]]

This legislation will also help to ensure that Federal laws are
adhered to by those receiving Federal funds. Frequently, Federal law
imposes various restrictions or requirements on Federal grantees. For
example, Congress has required that entities receiving funds under our
global AIDS programs have a firm policy opposing prostitution and sex
trafficking. Yet last year, the Government Reform Subcommittee on
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources uncovered that a
USAID grantee was subgranting taxpayer funds to an organization that
was pro-prostitution. This bill requires grantees to also disclose
their subgrantees, thus making it easier to ensure compliance with
important Federal policies like those that would be applicable to this
and other funds.
This legislation will also ensure compliance with existing lobbying
restrictions. The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act prohibits organizations
that receive Federal grants from lobbying, even with their own funds.
The restriction has been difficult to enforce. This access to
information about who gets grants makes it easier to see that the
lobbying bill itself is enforced.
It is my belief that this bill will provide important information to
all Americans and serve as a powerful to tool to improve how the
government spends precious taxpayer funds.
I want to thank Chairman Davis and ranking member Waxman for their
assistance in moving this legislation forward. And in particular, I
want to thank the staff of the Committee on Government Reform,
particularly Ellen Brown, Mason Alinger, and Ed Puccarella for their
tremendous efforts to help my staff with this bill and to improve the
bill as it moved through the committee. I urge passage of this bill.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend from Branson for yielding, and I rise
in strong support of this legislation.
As my colleague knows, we have been focusing on the issue of
accountability, transparency and greater disclosure as we look at the
challenge of trying to put into place lobby and ethics reform which
passed in this House with bipartisan support. We are still working with
the Senate on that.
And the notion of oversight is something that is a very important
constitutional responsibility that we have. This measure that the
distinguished majority whip has pursued is, I believe, very important
in recognizing that greater transparency and disclosure is important.
I do appreciate his commitment to ensure that as information comes
forward, and his experience for 4 years as a college president
demonstrates, that we will not, in fact, have to have a greater degree
of transparency on what will be disclosed as to what is existing on the
walls of those college dormitories. But I do believe that the American
people should have an opportunity to gain access to as much information
as possible when it deals with the awarding of these grants.
I thank Chairman Davis and Mr. Davis and Mr. Waxman and all who have
been involved in this and believe that it very importantly gets right
at our core constitutional responsibility. I think this is a very, very
helpful measure, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his comments, his support of the
bill and his clear understanding that as we bring transparency to the
process of spending, that to not have transparency where most of the
money is really spent would be a huge, huge gap in our efforts to make
it easier to see how government money is spent, to see that it is more
accountable and that we have a real way to access that, and the public
as well as the Congress has a way to access that.
I thank the chairman and Mr. Waxman for the great work they have done
to advance this bill.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. And as we shed more light and sunshine on
congressional earmarks, grants are essentially executive earmarks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Indiana (Mr. Souder).
(Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank Chairman Davis and our
majority whip, Congressman Blunt, for their leadership on this
important legislation. I particularly want to thank the whip for making
sure that this gets to the floor.
Our chairman knows and is regularly hearing our frustrations at the
subcommittee level in Government Reform and Oversight because it has
been so hard to get information from this administration. It was not
easy from the last administration, either; and this is basic
information that is necessary to do oversight.
So I rise in support of this bill and I thank the chairman for being
persistent in backing up the subcommittee chairman in trying to receive
this grant information in a searchable and user-friendly form.
Let me illustrate why H.R. 5060 is necessary.
We battled this with multiple agencies, whether it is the faith-based
category as they give grants, National Parks, we have battled it in all
kinds of narcotics oversight, but let me illustrate the specifics and
detail in one of the most frustrating processes that I have ever dealt
with that our majority whip just referred to in his statement.
In my capacity as chairman of the Committee on Government Reform
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources on
October 6, 2005, I sent a letter to USAID seeking information about its
funding of the pro-prostitution nongovernmental organization called
SANGRAM in violation of Public Law 108-25, the United States Leadership
Against HIV-DS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003.
According to an unclassified State Department memorandum obtained by
subcommittee staff, Restore International, an anti-trafficking NGO that
works with law enforcement agencies in India, was confronted by an
USAID-funded NGO, SANGRAM, while the former attempted to rescue and
provide long-term care for child victims of sex trafficking. The
confrontation led to the release of 17 minor girls, victims of
trafficking, into the hands of traffickers and trafficking accomplices.
Now get this, a tax-funded organization in violation of Federal law
forced the release of girls who were being rescued from sex
trafficking. They were victims of trafficking and they turned them back
to the traffickers and trafficking accomplices.
According to this memorandum, SANGRAM ``allowed a brothel keeper into
a shelter to pressure the girls not to cooperate with counselors. The
girls are now back in the brothels, being subjected to rape for
profit.''
On November 16, 2005, a USAID briefer asserted to the Government
Reform Committee staff that USAID had ``nothing to do with'' the grant
to the pro-prostitution SANGRAM, and that the committee's inquiries
were ``destructive.'' The subcommittee is now in possession of
documents that demonstrate that USAID must provide a revised briefing
to Congress on its true role.
These documents prove that USAID money financed the pro-prostitution
SANGRAM through a second organization named Avert, which was
established with the assistance of four USAID employees as a pass-
through entity. USAID has held the ex-officio vice chairmanship of
Avert since inception.
According to these documents, the USAID board member of Avert voted
twice to award funding to SANGRAM, once on July 27, 2002, and again on
December 3, 2004, the last time being some 18 months after the
provisions of Public Law 108-25 prohibited taxpayer funding of pro-
prostitution like SANGRAM.
That SANGRAM was a high-risk candidate for not complying with Public
Law 108-25 should have been no surprise to USAID. SANGRAM was a
cosigner, along with many other high-risk candidates, of a May 18,
2005, letter to President Bush opposing the anti-prostitution pledge.
Subcommittee staff found posted on a USAID-sponsored Web site a 5-
year-old report from SANGRAM that states: ``We believe that when
involuntary initiation into prostitution occurs, a process of
socialization within the institution of prostitution exists, whereby
the involuntary nature of the business changes increasingly into one of

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active acceptance, not necessarily with resignation. This is not a
coercive process.''
I agree with President Bush that ``it takes a special kind of
depravity to exploit and hurt the most vulnerable members of society.
Human traffickers rob children of their innocence; they expose them to
the worst of life before they have seen much of life. Traffickers tear
families apart. They treat their victims as nothing more than goods and
commodities for sale to the highest bidder.''
It is inconceivable that an organization like SANGRAM could have
received funding from the American taxpayer had USAID put in place an
adequate management system to carry out Public Law 108-25.
On December 13, 2005, a large briefing team from the State Department
and USAID met with staff from my subcommittee in order to demonstrate
ownership of the problem and lay out corrective measures being taken.
To my dismay and astonishment, the briefers were not prepared to
discuss and exhibited little knowledge of the pass-through entity known
as Avert that USAID has established and which served as the mechanism
whereby NGOs in India were monitored and financed with American tax
dollars.
Subcommittee staff knew more than the State Department USAID briefing
team about this matter, thanks to Google searches on the Web for
critical documents that had not been provided to the subcommittee by
the administration.
At that meeting, USAID was requested by the subcommittee staff to
establish an electronic registry for grantees and subgrantees to
facilitate oversight by USAID Washington as well as by Congress and
ensure compliance with the Federal law. That request has not been
honored.
In the months since that December 13 appeal was made for an
electronic registry, the subcommittee request has inspired two pieces
of legislation: First in the other body, and the second we are debating
here today. This scandal of financing pro-prostitution groups by USAID
was highlighted by the authors in both Chambers as illustrating the
need for this legislation.
On April 7, I asked USAID in writing to provide legal advice to make
certain that all USAID grantees and subgrantees would be captured by
H.R. 5060. That request, too, has not been honored.
I, for one, am out of patience having to wait months for agencies to
reluctantly produce documents to shed light on how questionable
projects are funded.
I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 5060 and begin the process of
bringing sunshine on the processes of unelected bureaucrats doling out
grants to questionable organizations.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I again thank
Mr. Waxman and his staff and Mr. Davis for being here, and all of the
staff on the Government Reform Committee on the minority side, Anna
Luitin, Christopher Davis, Robin Appleberry, and Brian Cohen for their
contributions to this legislation as well. We thank you for working
with us.
I would just add that I would urge all Members to support the passage
of H.R. 5060, as amended.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5060 requires the Office of Management
and Budget to create a web-based database of Federal grants.
I want to thank Majority Whip Blunt and Chairman Davis for working
with us to make changes to the bill as originally drafted. Based on
these revisions, I am supporting the bill.
As modified, H.R. 5060 will create a robust, fully searchable
database of all Federal grants that is free for members of the public
to use. The database will contain a significant amount of information
about each grant awarded--including details about the grantee, the
process under which the grant was awarded, as well as the purpose and
requirements of the grant.
Currently, there is an existing grants data system that is available
to Members of Congress. The database that will be created under H.R.
5060 is an improvement over this existing system in two key ways: it
will include more information and it will be available to the public,
not just Members of Congress. As a result, this database will serve as
a useful tool for individuals and organizations hoping to understand
how the Federal Government distributes funds.
There is also an urgent need to improve the existing database of
Federal contracts. Earlier this week, I released a report finding that
the ``shadow government'' of private companies working under Federal
contract has exploded in size over the past 5 years. Far more taxpayer
dollars now go to contracts than to grants.
I had hoped that we would be able to add language improving the
current contracts database, the Federal Procurement Data System, to
this bill. The FPDS can be hard to use and is not fully accurate.
Although it contains a significant amount of information about Federal
contracts, it is not easily or freely searchable by members of the
public. It must be fixed in order to provide the public with the
ability to truly understand the role of contracts in the Federal
Government.
We were not able to reach agreement on language to add a contracts
database to this legislation. But Chairman Davis has pledged to work
with me to address this issue in separate legislation.
Again, I want to thank the Majority Whip and the Chairman for working
with us to amend H.R. 5060, and look forward to continuing this
collaboration as we address the problems with the existing database of
Federal contracts.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of
my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 5060, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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