[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 19, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4301-S4302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LUGAR:
  S. 3310. A bill to direct the President, in consultation with the 
Department of State, United States Agency for International 
Development, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the Department of 
Defense, to establish guidelines for United States foreign assistance 
programs, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, last week heads of state, key policymakers, 
and foreign aid implementers met in Washington to examine ``Frontiers 
in Development.'' It was my pleasure to provide the conference keynote 
address Monday in which I pressed for greater transparency in global 
financial transactions and investments. This includes both U.S. foreign 
assistance funding and payments that companies make to foreign 
governments for oil, natural gas and mineral developments. Fuller 
disclosure improves accountability to citizens of both our country and 
the recipient country and would set an important example for other 
countries to provide more clarity about their own foreign assistance 
programs. Transparency in energy and mineral payments is already 
required for U.S.-listed companies by law in the Cardin-Lugar provision 
of the Dodd-Frank Act, and thanks to American leadership, the European 
Union is preparing similar legislation. Now, it is timely to enact 
legislation requiring the U.S. to disclose where and for what purpose 
it provides foreign assistance dollars across the globe. Further, 
taxpayers and foreign aid recipients have a right to know the impacts 
of these funds.
  That is why I am introducing The Foreign Aid Transparency and 
Accountability Act, which will require the President to disclose this 
information through a publicly accessible website in a timely manner.
  The U.S. provides assistance through a host of federal agencies 
including the Departments of State, Defense and Agriculture, as well as 
agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development, 
USAID, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC. While our Federal 
budget is available for public review, there is currently no single 
source required by law where one can review in what amount and for what 
purpose U.S. dollars flow to individual countries and programs. 
President Obama early in his administration promised to bring more 
transparency to our international development programs. But so far, the 
efforts by the State Department, USAID, the MCC and others to display 
this information through the Foreign Assistance Dashboard have been 
inadequate. There is a meager amount of data on the Dashboard, and it 
is often woefully out of date.
  My legislation is the identical version to that introduced earlier in 
this Congress by Congressman Ted Poe of Texas, which now has more than 
50 House co-sponsors. I compliment Representative Poe on the bill and 
appreciate the bipartisan support he has already garnered for it in the 
House. I look forward to working to enact the legislation in this 
Congress, bringing greater transparency and accountability to taxpayer 
funding of foreign assistance programs in a timely manner.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 3310

       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 ``Foreign Aid Transparency and 
     Accountability Act of 2012''.

     SEC. 2. GUIDELINES FOR UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE 
                   PROGRAMS.

       (a) Purpose.--The purpose of this section is to evaluate 
     the performance of United States foreign assistance programs 
     and their contribution to policy, strategies, projects, 
     program goals, and priorities undertaken by the Federal 
     Government, to foster and promote innovative programs to 
     improve the effectiveness of such programs, and to coordinate 
     the monitoring and evaluation processes of Federal 
     departments and agencies that administer such programs.
       (b) Establishment of Guidelines.--The President, in 
     consultation with the Department of State, United States 
     Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge 
     Corporation, and the Department of Defense, shall establish 
     guidelines regarding the establishment of measurable goals, 
     performance metrics, and monitoring and evaluation plans that 
     can be applied on a uniform basis to United States foreign 
     assistance programs, country assistance plans, and 
     international and multilateral assistance programs receiving 
     financial assistance from the United States. Such guidelines 
     shall be established according to best practices of 
     monitoring and evaluation studies and analyses.
       (c) Objectives of Guidelines.--
       (1) In general.--Such guidelines shall provide direction to 
     Federal departments and agencies that administer United 
     States foreign assistance programs on how to develop the 
     complete range of activities relating to the monitoring of 
     resources, the evaluation of projects, the evaluation of 
     program impacts, and analysis that is necessary for the 
     identification of findings, generalizations that can be 
     derived from those findings, and their applicability to 
     proposed project and program design.
       (2) Objectives.--Specifically, the guidelines shall provide 
     direction on how to achieve the following objectives for 
     monitoring and evaluation programs:
       (A) Building measurable goals, performance metrics and 
     monitoring and evaluation into program design at the outset, 
     including the provision of sufficient program resources to 
     conduct monitoring and evaluation.
       (B) Disseminating guidelines for the development and 
     implementation of monitoring and evaluation programs to all 
     personnel, especially in the field, who are responsible for 
     the design, implementation and management of foreign 
     assistance programs.
       (C) Developing a clearinghouse capacity for the 
     dissemination of knowledge and lessons learned to United 
     States development professionals, implementing partners, the 
     international aid community, and aid recipient governments, 
     and as a repository of knowledge on lessons learned.
       (D) Distributing evaluation reports internally and making 
     this material available online to the public. Furthermore, 
     providing a summary including a description of methods, key 
     findings and recommendations to the public on-line in a fully 
     searchable form within 90 days after the completion of the 
     evaluation. Principled exceptions will be made in cases of 
     classified or proprietary material.
       (E) Establishing annual monitoring and evaluation agendas 
     and objectives that are responsive to policy and programmatic 
     priorities.
       (F) Applying rigorous monitoring and evaluation 
     methodologies, choosing from among a wide variety of 
     qualitative and quantitative methods common in the field of 
     social scientific inquiry.
       (G) Partnering with the academic community, implementing 
     partners, and national and international institutions that 
     have expertise in monitoring and evaluation and analysis when 
     such partnerships will provide needed expertise or will 
     significantly improve the evaluation and analysis.
       (H) Developing and implementing a training plan for aid 
     personnel on the proper conduct of monitoring and evaluation 
     programs.
       (d) Role of Other Federal Departments and Agencies.--The 
     President shall carry out this section in conjunction with 
     the heads of Federal departments and agencies that administer 
     United States foreign assistance programs.
       (e) Report.--Not later than one year after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to Congress 
     a report that contains a detailed description of the 
     guidelines that have been developed on measurable goals, 
     performance metrics, and monitoring and evaluation plans for 
     United States foreign assistance programs established under 
     this section.
       (f) Evaluation Defined.--In this section, the term 
     ``evaluation'' means, with respect to a United States foreign 
     assistance program, the systematic collection and analysis of 
     information about the characteristics and outcomes of the 
     program and projects under the program as a basis for 
     judgments, to improve effectiveness, and to inform decisions 
     about current and future programming.

[[Page S4302]]

     SEC. 3. INTERNET WEB SITE TO MAKE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE 
                   COMPREHENSIVE, TIMELY, COMPARABLE, AND 
                   ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION ON UNITED STATES FOREIGN 
                   ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS.

       (a) Establishment; Publication and Updates.--Not later than 
     2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the 
     President shall establish and maintain an Internet Web site 
     to make publicly available comprehensive, timely, comparable, 
     and accessible information on United States foreign 
     assistance programs. The head of each Federal department or 
     agency that administers such programs shall on a regular 
     basis publish and update on the Web site such information 
     with respect to the programs of the department or agency.
       (b) Matters To Be Included.--
       (1) In general.--Such information shall be published on a 
     detailed program-by-program basis and country-by-country 
     basis.
       (2) Types of information.--To ensure transparency, 
     accountability, and effectiveness of United States foreign 
     assistance programs, the information shall include country 
     assistance strategies, annual budget documents, congressional 
     budget justifications, actual expenditures, and reports and 
     evaluations for such programs and projects under such 
     programs. Each type of information described in this 
     paragraph shall be published on the Web site not later than 
     30 days after the date of issuance of the information and 
     shall be continuously updated.
       (3) Report in lieu of inclusion.--If the head of a Federal 
     department or agency makes a determination that the inclusion 
     of a required item of information on the Web site would 
     jeopardize the health or security of an implementing partner 
     or program beneficiary or would be detrimental to the 
     national interests of the United States, such item of 
     information may be submitted to Congress in a written report 
     in lieu of including it on the Web site, along with the 
     reasons for not including it in the database required under 
     subsection (c)(2).
       (c) Scope of Information.--
       (1) In general.--The Web site shall contain such 
     information relating to the current fiscal year and the 
     immediately preceding 5 fiscal years.
       (2) Database.--
       (A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B), the Web site 
     shall also contain a link to a searchable database available 
     to the public containing such information relating to fiscal 
     years prior to the current fiscal year and the immediately 
     preceding 5 fiscal years.
       (B) Limitation.--The database shall not contain such 
     information relating to fiscal years prior to fiscal year 
     2006.
       (d) Form.--Such information shall be published on the Web 
     site in unclassified form. Any information determined to be 
     classified information may be submitted to Congress in 
     classified form and an unclassified summary of such 
     information shall be published on the Web site.
                                 ______