DATA Act
updated May 2013
What is the DATA Act?
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act, which was simultaneously introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 2061) and Senate (S. 994) on May 21, 2013, will transform the U.S. government's spending information from inaccessible documents into open data.
The legislation will standardize and publish the U.S. government's wide variety of reports and data compilations related to financial management, procurement, and assistance. Better transparency, improved, efficiency, and high-tech business opportunities will be the results. Under the DATA Act:
o Watchdogs and the public will be able to track taxpayer dollars from Congressional appropriation, through agency obligation and expenditure, and all the way to their ultimate disposition by grantees, contractors, and their sub-awardees.
o Inspectors general and program managers will be able to deploy analytics to find waste and fraud.
o Submissions from agencies and recipients will be cross-checked against each other for accuracy.
o Agencies and recipients will be able to automate time-consuming reporting processes.
o Tech entrepreneurs will build new businesses offering compliance automation, republication, Big Data analytics, and cheaper infrastructure for spending data and reports.
DATA Act Summary
| Current publication | Under DATA Act | Result |
Awards | Grants and contracts are published on USASpending.gov. | Same, with USASpending.gov moved to Treasury Department. | Same. |
Sub-awards | Prime recipients must report sub-awards for publication on USASpending.gov, but the requirement is not enforced. | The sub-award reporting requirement will be enforced. | Complete data on sub-awards will be available. |
Budget actions | Reports summarizing each agency’s obligations, outlays, and transfers are published on OMB’s website, but are not connected to data on USASpending.gov. | Budget actions will be published on USASpending.gov, categorized by agency, component, appropriation, program, and object class. | Data on internal spending, program by program, will become available for the first time. In addition, existing data on grants and contracts will be linked to related budget action data. |
Payments | Checkbook-level data on federal payments is not published anywhere. | Checkbook-level payments data from the Treasury Department will be published on USASpending.gov, with security and privacy exceptions. | Checkbook-level payments, for both internal spending and external grants and contracts, will be available for the first time. Payments will be linked to the related expenditures and awards so that it is possible to see each payment from a particular program, grant, or contract. |
| Current data standards | Under DATA Act | Result |
Identifiers | The proprietary DUNS number identifies some recipients, but there are no common identifiers for awards, agencies, programs, etc. | Treasury will set government-wide data elements for recipients, awards, agencies, programs, and other items. | Aggregations by recipient, award, agency, program, account, program, award, recipient, account, etc., will become possible for the first time. |
Formats | Awards data is reported in PDF and summarized in XML. Budget actions are reported in PDF and Excel. Each agency uses its own format for reports by recipients. | Treasury will set government-wide structured data formats for reports on awards, budget actions, payments, and financials. | Federal spending will become fully interoperable. |
DATA Act Resources
Posts tagged 'DATA Act' on Data Transparency Coalition blog, 2012-13
DATA Act resources at House Oversight Committee, May 2013
Coalition announcement on unanimous House Oversight Committee passage of the DATA Act, May 22, 2013
Coalition announcement on DATA Act re-introduction, May 21, 2013
Announcement by Sen. Mark Warner on DATA Act re-introduction, May 21, 2013
DATA Demo Day, May 16, 2013
DATA Act discussion draft, posted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the Open Gov Foundation's Madison project, May 14, 2013
Op-ed by Rep. Darrell Issa, winter 2013
Coalition applauds DATA Act re-introduction, Sept. 25, 2012
Announcement by Sen. Mark Warner on DATA Act re-introduction, Sept. 21, 2012
Coalition white paper on DATA Act, prepared for annual meeting of American Bar Association Section of Public Contract Law, July 2012
DATA Demo Day, July 10, 2012
DATA Act on Majority Leader's Citizen CoSponsor Platform, March 2012
DATA Act resorces at House Oversight Committee, March 2012
DATA Act on Thomas.gov
