In response to the ongoing corruption scandals unfolding in our nation's capitol, Congress has taken up efforts to pass lobby and ethics reform. Among the provisions proposed for inclusion in lobby reform legislation was one that simply seeks to uncover where taxpayer dollars are going, specifically money spent on government contracts and grants. Unfortunately, at this point the provision appears unlikely to be included in final legislation.

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) cosponsored Amendment 3175 that would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a free online database, which the public could search for contracts and grants by company, agency, dollar amount, geographic region, and other criteria. Currently, data for government contracts is available through a General Services Administration contractor, but the searchable features are widely considered inadequate, and downloading the data is extremely difficult. Federal grants data is available from the Census Bureau; while easily downloadable, information is not searchable with the existing service.

The Coburn-Obama contracts and grants amendment was stripped from the Senate lobby reform bill, along with all other amendments, as being non-germane. Undeterred, Coburn and Obama along with Sens. Thomas Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced the amendment on April 6 as the stand-alone bill, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

On the House side, Reps. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Davis (R-VA) introduced related legislation, H.R.5060, on March 30. Blunt and Davis' bill, however, would only establish online access to federal grants data, leaving contracts to remain largely hidden from public scrutiny. Critics charge that, without increased access to contracts data, neither Congress nor the public will be able to track where federal dollars are being spent. They also point out that spending on contracts is significantly greater than spending on grants. In general, nonprofits and state and local governments get grants; for-profit companies get contracts.

The Coburn-Obama legislation represents the more comprehensive and uniform approach to shining sunlight on the spending habits of our government. However, the Blunt-Davis legislation may have greater opportunity for movement, since it could still be attached to the lobby reform bill being developed in the House--a vehicle unavailable to the Coburn-Obama legislation.