Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act of 2021

IIB 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 22 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JANUARY 6, 2021 Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs AN ACT To amend the Federal Funding Accountability and Trans- parency Act of 2006, to require the budget justifications and appropriation requests of agencies be made publicly available. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 HR 22 RFS SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 1 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Congressional Budget 2 Justification Transparency Act of 2021’’. 3 SEC. 2. PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF BUDGET JUSTIFICATIONS 4 AND APPROPRIATION REQUESTS. 5 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 3 of the Federal Funding 6 Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Public Law 7 109–282; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note) is amended to read as 8 follows: 9 ‘‘SEC. 3. FULL DISCLOSURE OF FEDERAL FUNDS. 10 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Not less frequently than monthly 11 when practicable, and in any event not less frequently than 12 quarterly, the Secretary (in consultation with the Director 13 and, with respect to information described in subsection 14 (b)(2), the head of the applicable agency) shall ensure that 15 updated information with respect to the information de- 16 scribed in subsection (b) is posted on the website estab- 17 lished under section 2. 18 ‘‘(b) INFORMATION TO BE POSTED.— 19 ‘‘(1) FUNDS.—For any funds made available to 20 or expended by a Federal agency or component of a 21 Federal agency, the information to be posted shall 22 include— 23 ‘‘(A) for each appropriations account, in- 24 cluding an expired or unexpired appropriations 25 account, the amount— 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 HR 22 RFS ‘‘(i) of budget authority appropriated; 1 ‘‘(ii) that is obligated; 2 ‘‘(iii) of unobligated balances; and 3 ‘‘(iv) of any other budgetary re- 4 sources; 5 ‘‘(B) from which accounts and in what 6 amount— 7 ‘‘(i) appropriations are obligated for 8 each program activity; and 9 ‘‘(ii) outlays are made for each pro- 10 gram activity; 11 ‘‘(C) from which accounts and in what 12 amount— 13 ‘‘(i) appropriations are obligated for 14 each object class; and 15 ‘‘(ii) outlays are made for each object 16 class; and 17 ‘‘(D) for each program activity, the 18 amount— 19 ‘‘(i) obligated for each object class; 20 and 21 ‘‘(ii) of outlays made for each object 22 class. 23 ‘‘(2) BUDGET JUSTIFICATIONS.— 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 HR 22 RFS ‘‘(A) DEFINITION.—In this paragraph, the 1 term ‘budget justification materials’ means the 2 annual budget justification materials of an 3 agency that are submitted, in conjunction with 4 the budget of the United States Government 5 submitted under section 1105(a) of title 31, 6 United States Code, but does not include budg- 7 et justification materials that are classified. 8 ‘‘(B) INFORMATION.—The information to 9 be posted shall include any budget justification 10 materials— 11 ‘‘(i) for the second fiscal year begin- 12 ning after the date of enactment of this 13 paragraph, and each fiscal year thereafter; 14 and 15 ‘‘(ii) to the extent practicable, that 16 were released for any fiscal year before the 17 date of enactment of this paragraph. 18 ‘‘(C) FORMAT.—Budget justification mate- 19 rials shall be posted under subparagraph (B)— 20 ‘‘(i) as an open Government data 21 asset (as defined under section 3502 of 22 title 44, United States Code); 23 ‘‘(ii) in a manner that enables users 24 to download individual reports, download 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 HR 22 RFS all reports in bulk, and download in bulk 1 the results of a search, to the extent prac- 2 ticable; and 3 ‘‘(iii) in a structured data format, to 4 the extent practicable. 5 ‘‘(D) DEADLINE.—The budget justification 6 materials required to be posted under subpara- 7 graph (B)(i) shall be posted not later than 2 8 weeks after the date on which the budget jus- 9 tification materials are first submitted to Con- 10 gress. 11 ‘‘(E) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing 12 in this paragraph shall be construed to author- 13 ize an agency to destroy any budget justifica- 14 tion materials relating to a fiscal year before 15 the fiscal year described in subparagraph 16 (B)(i).’’. 17 (b) INFORMATION REGARDING AGENCY BUDGET 18 JUSTIFICATIONS.—Section 1105 of title 31, United States 19 Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 20 ‘‘(i)(1) The Director of the Office of Management 21 and Budget shall make publicly available on a website, and 22 continuously update, a tabular list for each fiscal year of 23 each agency that submits budget justification materials, 24 which shall include— 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 HR 22 RFS ‘‘(A) the name of the agency; 1 ‘‘(B) a unique identifier that identifies the 2 agency; 3 ‘‘(C) to the extent practicable, the date on 4 which the budget justification materials of the agen- 5 cy are first submitted to Congress; 6 ‘‘(D) the date on which the budget justification 7 materials of the agency are posted online under sec- 8 tion 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and 9 Transparency Act of 2006; 10 ‘‘(E) the uniform resource locator where the 11 budget justification materials are published on the 12 website of the agency; and 13 ‘‘(F) a single data set that contains the infor- 14 mation described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) 15 with respect to the agency for all fiscal years for 16 which budget justifications of the agency are made 17 available under section 3 of the Federal Funding Ac- 18 countability and Transparency Act of 2006 in a 19 structured data format. 20 ‘‘(2)(A) Each agency that submits budget justifica- 21 tion materials shall make the materials available on the 22 website of the agency, in accordance with the policies es- 23 tablished by the Director of the Office of Management and 24 Budget under subparagraph (B). 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 7 HR 22 RFS ‘‘(B) The Director of the Office of Management and 1 Budget, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treas- 2 ury, shall establish policies for agencies relating to making 3 available materials under subparagraph (A), which shall 4 include guidelines for making budget justification mate- 5 rials available in a format aligned with the requirements 6 of section 3(b)(2)(C) of the Federal Funding Account- 7 ability and Transparency Act of 2006 and using a uniform 8 resource locator that is in a consistent format across agen- 9 cies and is descriptive, memorable, and pronounceable, 10 such as the format of ‘agencyname.gov/budget’. 11 ‘‘(C) If the Director of the Office of Management and 12 Budget maintains a public website that contains the budg- 13 et of the United States Government submitted under sub- 14 section (a) and any related materials, such website shall 15 also contain a link to the tabular list required under para- 16 graph (1). 17 ‘‘(3) In this subsection, the term ‘budget justification 18 materials’ has the meaning given that term in section 3 19 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency 20 Act of 2006.’’. 21 SEC. 3. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS. 22 The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 23 complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, 24 shall be determined by reference to the latest statement 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 8 HR 22 RFS titled ‘‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’’ for this 1 Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record 2 by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, pro- 3 vided that such statement has been submitted prior to the 4 vote on passage. 5 Passed the House of Representatives January 5, 2021. Attest: CHERYL L. JOHNSON, Clerk. VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:00 Jan 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H22.RFS H22 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS