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The Data Coalition seeks a Communications Associate to work as part of its fast-paced communications team.

Though transparency and evidence communities are immersed in data and policies to encourage greater data access and use, they seem to speak different languages. Now their objectives are joined in common legislation that advances both causes, the Foundations for Evidence-based Policymaking Act of 2017 (FEBP Act) (HR 4174).

The Data Transparency Coalition has gone mobile. Keep up with the latest happenings of the Coalition and minute-by-minute updates during events with the Data Transparency Coalition App for iPhones.

It's time for FOIA reform. The Sunlight Foundation is joined by 46 other public interest groups in making that call and celebrating the movement that's already happened. Some background: The House and Senate both passed FOIA reform last year. The Senate bill in particular was the product of months of negotiations, which pushed the process up until the last second. Despite some very real concessions – notably the loss of the public interest balancing test in the Senate version – some eleventh hour stalling tactics from agencies and, strangely, the banks they regulate, managed to stall the bill to death.

Less than one week after an unexpected, but temporary procedural defeat, H.R. 37 will be back on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon. As House leaders moved to bring the multi-part financial services legislation to consideration, data transparency supporters offered an amendment to remove the crucial anti-XBRL provision from the package. Meanwhile, the White House signaled President Obama will veto the entire bill if it reaches his desk.

This afternoon the House of Representatives barely fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass H.R. 37, Rep. Michael Fittzpatrick's Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act. H.R. 37 included, as one of 11 separate pieces, Rep. Robert Hurt's proposal to require the SEC to stop collecting standardized financial data from most U.S. public companies and regress to documents. The bill received 276 yeas and 146 nays, with five members not voting. A two-thirds majority required 285.

Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick's "Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act" (H.R. 37) is on the House of Representatives' calendar TODAY. This is bad news for supporters of data transparency. H.R. 37 is the same package bill that the House passed last September that included Rep. Robert Hurt's proposal to require the SEC to stop collecting standardized financial data, and regress to documents-only, from 60 percent of public companies - hastily reintroduced for the new Congress.

Today the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced it is publishing a database of corporate financial statement information. That announcement is more consequential than it might appear.

It was standing room only on Monday for the final installment of this year’s Data Transparency Breakfast series, presented by PwC, exploring the impact of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) and similar reforms across government.

Enigma.io offers users a simple search feature. Analysts, journalists, and citizens seeking to use government records to trace a company’s activities face a daunting task. Since the U.S. federal and state governments don’t use common identifiers, researchers often expend considerable time and resources to identify information reported by the same company to different government agencies. […]