[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 21, 2006)]
[House]
[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

[[Page H4338]]

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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