[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1134 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1134

 To maximize transparency and accountability for direct appropriations 
   to non-Federal entities, including those instances when Congress 
    appropriates funds to a Federal agency specifically in order to 
     contract with a congressionally identified non-Federal entity.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 17, 2007

 Mr. Nelson of Nebraska (for himself and Mr. Brownback) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
               Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To maximize transparency and accountability for direct appropriations 
   to non-Federal entities, including those instances when Congress 
    appropriates funds to a Federal agency specifically in order to 
     contract with a congressionally identified non-Federal entity.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Transparency in Federal Funding Act 
of 2007''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Article I of the Constitution provides Congress with 
        the power to set the spending policies of the United States. 
        This power includes the authority to direct funding to 
        identified entities within the 50 States and territories of 
        this Nation and to direct executive branch agencies to enter 
        into contracts with identified entities within these same 
        States and territories. As such, Congress expects executive 
        branch agencies to comply with congressional funding 
        directives.
            (2) Our system of Government has checks and balances, and 
        it has come to the attention of Congress that executive branch 
        departments and their component agencies occasionally retain a 
        portion of funds appropriated by Congress to non-Federal 
        entities, including those instances when Congress appropriates 
        funds to a Federal agency specifically in order to contract 
        with a congressionally identified non-Federal entity.
            (3) Members of Congress are required to provide 
        justification for earmarks and, likewise, the executive branch 
        should provide justification as to why earmarked funds are used 
        for another purpose.
            (4) Our constituents are entitled to know, in advance, 
        whether they will receive the full amount of an appropriation, 
        or only a percentage of it, so they can plan accordingly.
            (5) The practice of agency take-downs results in increased 
        and unintentional spending in the Federal bureaucracy.
            (6) The practice of widespread and unaccountable agency 
        take-downs is likely to result in artificially inflated 
        appropriations requests in order to account for the agency 
        take-downs.
            (7) Full transparency with respect to agency take-downs 
        will lead to better decision-making by Members of Congress when 
        allocating constituent request amongst departments, agencies, 
        and accounts.
            (8) Accountability and transparency are vitally important 
        to the legislative process.

SEC. 3. EARMARK.

    In this Act--
            (1) the term ``administrative take-down'' means any action 
        by an agency administering a congressionally directed earmark 
        which results in the congressionally directed recipient of such 
        earmark or the congressionally directed recipient of a 
        Government contract receiving less than 100 percent of such 
        earmark or contract;
            (2) the term ``assistance'' means budget authority, 
        contract authority, loan authority, and other expenditures; and
            (3) the term ``earmark'' means a legislative provision or 
        report language included primarily at the request of a Senator, 
        Member of the House, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, that 
        provides, authorizes, or recommends a specific amount of 
        discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other 
        spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, 
        loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or 
        targeted to a specific state, locality, or Congressional 
        district, other than through a statutory or administrative 
        formula driven or competitive award process.

SEC. 4. DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING.

    (a) In General.--Not later than January 31 of each year, each 
cabinet-level department and independent agency that administers a 
program that contained an earmark in the preceding year shall report to 
Congress disclosing whether any portion of the earmarked funds in the 
preceding year were retained by the agency or any other organization 
tasked with distributing them.
    (b) Contents.--A report required by this section shall include an 
accounting of all funds retained including--
            (1) how much money and the percentage retained;
            (2) the purpose for which these retained funds were used;
            (3) a justification for the purpose for which these funds 
        were spent; and
            (4) the authority by which the agency retained the funds.
                                 <all>