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Today a bicameral and bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act (H.R. 1770). The OPEN Government Data Act will require all federal agencies to publish their information online, using non-proprietary, machine-readable data formats. Senators Ben Sasse (R-NE) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Representatives Blake Farenthold (R-TX) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA) led the reintroduction.

Congressman David Brat (R-VA) and Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA) have reintroduced the Statutes at Large Modernizations Act (SALMA), H.R. 1729. If enacted, SALMA would put all historical federal laws online in a machine-readable, open data format.

Twenty-eight Members of the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), have reintroduced the Financial Transparency Act (H.R. 1530). If enacted, the Financial Transparency Act would be the nation’s first RegTech law. The bill would modernize the U.S. financial regulatory reporting process from unstructured documents into fully searchable, standardized, and machine-readable data.

Today the Securities and Exchange Commission’s two sitting commissioners, Michael Piwowar and Kara Stein, unanimously voted to propose rule changes to require public companies to file their financial statements using the Inline XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) open data format.

Early this morning the Senate approved by unanimous consent the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act (S.2852), sending a strong signal to the incoming 115th Congress that the bill can quickly be passed by both chambers upon re-introduction in January.

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 Coalition and seven other financial and technology organizations today sent a letter to the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives requesting that the committee convene a hearing on the need for regulatory agencies to modernize the way they collect information from public companies, banks, markets, and financial firms.

Today the Data Coalition announced its 2017 Policy Agenda, which summarizes advocacy priorities for the start of the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. The Coalition, which represents 36 leading technology and consulting firms, is the nation’s only open data trade association.

Fleming outlined how the SEC’s outdated “disclosure delivery methods have not kept pace with changes in technology.” Fleming said his agency should replace document-based corporate disclosures with standardized, open data, as the Data Coalition has long advocated.

On June 28, 216 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton unveiled her campaign’s Technology and Innovation Agenda. The Agenda includes a commitment to open up more government data for public uses. The Data Coalition welcomed Secretary Clinton’s strong support for fully implementing the DATA Act of 2014 and replacing document-based regulatory reporting with structured data.