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What a year it’s been so far! The Data Coalition is leading the push for the policy changes that are needed to transform government information into open data. The first half of 2017 has been jam-packed with policy and event milestones. And we’re continuing to grow our community.
Our DATA Act Summit happened on Thursday, June 29th. This event may be our fourth annual, but it will be different. For the first time in history, the U.S. government has published a single open data set covering all its spending. This data set is changing the way the federal government manages itself. It will be the centerpiece of our event.
Watch Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-4) and Matt Lira, Special Assistant to the President for Innovation Policy and Initiatives discuss the DATA Act. The keynote addresses will be followed by a panel discussion.
The DATA Act is the first modern attempt to bring together three broad categories of federal spending reporting requirements: cash-based agency budgets, accrual-based accounting data, and award data. The open data law requires the federal government to define and apply standard data elements and a government-wide data format to all federal spending.
The DATA Act is arriving in the nick of time. The years ahead are unlikely to be a period of budgetary growth. The government pretty much has the resources they are going to have. The threats facing the U.S., however, are growing and coming at us at the speed of blur in an unforgiving environment.
It’s been a busy year for the world’s only open data trade association! We started a new sister organization, welcomed nearly two thousand people to our events, testified before Congress, and celebrated the Senate’s passage of landmark legislation. Our members made all this possible.
Rep. Stefanik, joined by Luke Messer (D-IN) introduced the Establishing Digital Interactive Transparency Act (EDIT Act) (H.R. 5493) on June 14th, 2016. The bill is currently pending in the House of Representatives’ Committee on House Administration. When this bill is signed into law, the Library of Congress would be charged with implementation and would have one year to comply.
Last month, Treasury DATA Act Product Manager Kaitlin Devine announced the release of the second iteration of OpenBeta.USAspending.gov at the Coalition’s DATA Act Summit. The site will eventually host all DATA Act mandated data sets, though no new data sets have been published there yet. Version 2 is now live for everybody to explore!
When it passed the DATA Act two years ago, Congress cited the need for the federal government to be more transparent to its people. That’s quite correct: once federal spending is published as fully-standardized, open data - instead of documents - it’ll be easier for taxpayers to understand what their government is doing. The Data Coalition and Esri will be exploring this story over breakfast on Tuesday, April 26, at 1776 Crystal City. Join us!
This brand-new video explains how the Financial Transparency Act (H.R. 2477) will transform financial regulation - and bring powerful new tools for the investors, companies, and researchers who use the valuable data collected by financial agencies.