President Obama signed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) into law on Monday, which will standardize requirements for making government spending information available to the public to promote transparency.
The DATA Act was co-sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in the House of Representatives and by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) in the Senate.
“The enactment of the DATA Act marks a transformation in government transparency by shedding light on runaway federal spending,” Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said. “The reforms of this bipartisan legislation not only move the federal bureaucracy into the digital era, but they improve accountability to taxpayers and provide tools to allow lawmakers and citizen watchdogs to root out waste and abuse. Government-wide structured data requirements may sound like technical jargon, but the real impact of this legislation on our lives will be more open, more effective government.”
The authors of the DATA Act used the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board as a model for the legislation. The board was established under the stimulus spending bill to standardize requirements for reporting and publishing spending information.
“During a time of record $17 trillion debt, our bipartisan bill will help identify and eliminate waste by better tracking federal spending,” Portman, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said.
The new law authorizes the Treasury Department to establish a data analytics center to enable law enforcement and federal inspectors general to help prevent improper payments. It also establishes a two-year pilot for consolidated reporting by entities that receive federal taxpayer dollars, including states, local governments and universities.