Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed S.994, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, also known as the DATA Act. Though the House passed its own version of the bill (H.R. 2061) in November 2013, the Senate didn’t vote on its own version until early this month — when it was passed by unanimous consent. The House wasted no time in taking up the Senate’s bill after returning from recess.

The DATA Act undertakes many important steps to increase the transparency and reliability of the data reported on USASpending.gov. The website’s usability will be greatly improved by the bill’s provisions, which require unique, government-wide identifiers of all federal awards and entities, consistent reporting requirements for all agencies, and a platform that provides the data in searchable and downloadable form.

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The Center for Responsive Politics has long encouraged both the House and the Senate to move on this bill, and we are delighted it will now be sent to President Obama for his signature.



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