This data set took six years to create. Worth every moment.
Today, for the first time in history, the U.S. federal government's spending information is one single, unified data set. Under a deadline set by the DATA Act of 2014, today every federal agency must begin reporting spending to the Treasury Department using a common data format. And Treasury has published it all online, in one piece, offering a single electronic view of the world's largest organization. Today, we celebrate Darrell Issa, Mark Warner, Christina Ho, Tim Gribben, and all the other leaders who caught Jefferson's dream of a single, unified federal spending data set, and didn't let go.
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.
FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR HUDSON HOLLISTER: "We call on the new Trump Administration and the 115th Congress to enforce (and expand) the DATA Act, embrace a government-wide transformation of all information resources through the OPEN Government Data Act, and initiate regulatory reforms that use open data to reduce burdens, governed by the Financial Transparency Act and other reforms. I am optimistic that we will realize all three goals."
Subcommittee Chairman Mark Meadows (NC-11) opened the hearing stating that while agencies are ultimately responsible for their own data reporting, his committee is dedicated to conducting oversight and exploring what needs to be tweaked to assure success. The Chairman recognized the Data Coalition’s efforts to bring these issues to the Subcommittee's attention.
The DATA Act, the nation’s first open data law, hit two major milestones this May. Not only did it celebrate its two-year anniversary since being signed into law by President Obama on May 9th, 2014, but we are now seeing federal agencies, the White House, Congress, and the private sector embracing the law’s vision for government-wide spending transparency as a very real inevitability.
Last month, Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked OMB to present a new plan for contractor reporting that matches the ambitious vision of the DATA Act. With a letter to OMB, bipartisan members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have today done the same.