Legislation would put grant info on Web

Newly introduced legislation in the House would establish a public database on the Internet to track federal grants in an effort to curb questionable practices surrounding the grant process.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) on Thursday introduced H.R. 5060, a bill that would increase accountability and transparency in federal grant awards.

According to the General Services Administration, each year the federal government awards approximately $300 billion in grants to roughly 30,000 different organizations across the U.S., Blunt said.

H.R. 5060 would require the Office of Management and Budget's director to work with the GSA and other agencies to ensure that within 30 days of a grant being awarded the following information is available to the public via a single site on the Internet in an easily searchable form including:

“Transparency is a vital tool to ensure that Congress, the press, and the American public have the information they need to conduct oversight of the use of our tax dollars,” he said.

“This legislation will make it easier for all Americans to understand where their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent,” Davis said. “Information is power, and we should always be looking to harness technology to improve information sharing, both within government and among government and its citizens.”