Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., has reintroduced legislation that that would create and impose data standards for information that recipients of Federal grants and cooperative agreements must report to the Federal government.
The bill–H.R. 150, the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act–would implement a previous recommendation from the Office of Management and Budget that includes development of a “comprehensive taxonomy of standard definitions for core data elements required for managing Federal financial assistance awards,” according to text of the legislation.
The measure would “reduce burden and compliance costs of recipients of Federal grants and cooperative agreements by enabling technology solutions, existing or yet to be developed, by both the public and private sectors, to better manage data recipients already provide to the Federal Government.” It would also strengthen Federal agency oversight of grants and agreements “through consolidated collection and display of and access to open data that has been standardized, and where appropriate, transparency to the public,” the bill says.
The legislation has been referred to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. A version of the bill introduced in the previous session of Congress was approved by the House but stalled in the Senate.
