The House Government Reform Committee just held a markup session for the Platts Program Assessment and Results Act. This bill would essentially codify the administration's current PART process, which supposedly rates government programs for their effectiveness. In actuality, there is a huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality of this "results" assessment. Waxman offered an amendment to harmonize the PAR Act with GPRA, the underlying statute that PARA will amend, by having agencies rather than OMB determine the measures to be used for assessing performance. The amendment failed, 15 to 16. Towns offered an amendment to have OMB put public notice in the Federal Register, rather than just a posting on the OMB website, soliciting comment on the programs to be measured and the criteria to be used. The Towns amendment would also have inserted a sunset clause, so that later there can be an assessment of the results from the results measurement initiative itself. The Towns amendment failed on a 15 to 17 vote, but Platts indicated his willingness to work with the Dems on a sunset clause, possibly for a manager's amendment when the bill goes to the House floor. As to be expected, unfortunately, the bill was reported out of committee with a recommendation to pass, on a 18 to 14 vote.