House Passes Bill to Improve Grants.gov

The House has passed its version of S. 303, the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2009. The bill requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to standardize the federal grant application process and reauthorizes Grants.gov, an online resource to apply for federal awards. The measure would increase federal grant transparency. These changes stem from a GAO report which found that OMB and Federal agencies have made only modest progress towards standardizing grant announcements and applications.

During markup, the legislation was amended by incorporating H.R. 2392, the Government Information Transparency Act, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Ed Towns (D-NY). It makes some technical changes to the bill, requiring OMB to "adopt a single data standard for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of business and financial information. The standard must be common across all Federal agencies and make the data widely available to the public. This standard will also be applied to the data on Federal grants, making it easier to evaluate the use of grant funds." The Issa-Towns amendment also requires Grants.gov to make everything public and searchable.

Nextgov blog Tech Insider reports that the legislation "would make it easier to scrutinize data on companies receiving federal funds."

The Senate passed S.303 in March, and now the differences between the House and Senate bills must be resolved before it can be sent to the president.

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