Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have joined forces again to craft legislation that would increase the transparency of how the federal government spends taxpayers' money. The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), introduced June 3, is a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act, which was also spearheaded by the two senators. Obama and Coburn, along with Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), introduced the new legislation with the goals of making important new data easily accessible and enabling citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources. In 2006, Obama and Coburn worked together to introduce and pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which led to the creation of the government website USASpending.gov. The law required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to make it easier for the public to search and understand the complex information on federal government spending. The site allows people to quickly get answers to questions such as who is getting federal funds, what the money is for, which agencies are spending it, and where in the country the money is going. The effort was heralded by many as a key example of progressives and conservatives finding common ground on the issue of increased government transparency.

The new Obama-Coburn bill has three key sections: technical corrections to the first bill, provisions to improve the quality of data in USASpending.gov, and requirements to make information on contractor and grantee performance easily accessible.

The provisions offering technical corrections would expand the data available to the public by requiring:

• Additional information about when payments are approved and disbursed;
• The name of the agency, department, subagency, or suboffice that approved the award, and whether the award is the result of a legislative mandate, set-aside, or other criteria;
• More detailed data on number and size of all bids submitted for contracts; and
• Socioeconomic characteristics of all recipients.

This additional data is important for the public to understand exactly how the government is spending federal resources. Several of these data fields are already being tracked and provided to the public on USASpending.gov, but the provisions would codify the process to ensure ongoing access.

A major new improvement created within the technical corrections is the requirement that the government provide copies of the request for proposal, announcement of award, actual contract, and scope of work documents, linked to the spending information. This information will allow citizens to more easily assess the value contractors are providing. Additionally, the bill requires all information on USASpending.gov to be accessible through an application programming interface (API), which will create an open architecture that promotes innovative use of the data by Internet programmers and public interest groups.

The data quality section of the bill proposes creation of a robust, user-generated, error reporting system that would enable users to report any suspected errors directly to federal agencies. Such a system will provide useful data on not only the extent of data problems but also on the efforts of the government to correct problems based on legitimate reports of incorrect data from the public. The provisions also include requirements for a government review system for data quality, with biannual audits from Inspectors General offices, to ensure the data is accurate and that agencies are following data standards. Another provision would mandate that company identifiers, including parent ownership, are correct and regularly updated and made available to the public, including through the API.

The new legislation's section on combining and disseminating information about contractor and grantee performance would create a new and useful accountability tool. The bill requires disclosure of instances of default, suspension, debarment, and any information regarding civil, criminal, and administrative actions initiated or concluded by either federal or state governments in the preceding five years against federal award recipients. Publicly available data concerning worker safety, pay and leave rights, workplace discrimination, labor relations, civil rights, environmental protection, whistleblower protection, tax compliance, and other regulatory protections would be brought together to provide the public with a more complete picture of the entities receiving public funds. In providing such information about recipients of federal funds, the government will enable the public to easily see whether agencies are doing business with scofflaws.

The Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act was introduced the same day that Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. The bill garnered attention not only because of Obama's involvement, but also because he partnered with McCain, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president. It is rare that two presidential nominees would jointly sponsor legislation, particularly during an election year. The fact that Obama and McCain did bespeaks strong support for the legislation.

Some have already speculated that, this being an election year, the bill has little chance of making it into law. Many have thought that federal contractors will attempt to slow down, if not derail the bill. Yet with both Obama and McCain as co-sponsors, it is much more likely the bill could be enacted before 2008 is over. Carper's subcommittee of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will likely hold a hearing on the bill sometime during the summer.