Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act of 2020

II Calendar No. 533 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. R. 4894 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 Received; read twice and placed on the calendar 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 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Congressional Budget 4 Justification Transparency Act of 2020’’. 5 SEC. 2. PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF BUDGET JUSTIFICATIONS 6 AND APPROPRIATION REQUESTS. 7 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 3 of the Federal Funding 8 Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Public Law 9 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 HR 4894 PCS 109–282; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note) is amended to read as 1 follows: 2 ‘‘SEC. 3. FULL DISCLOSURE OF FEDERAL FUNDS. 3 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Not less frequently than monthly 4 when practicable, and in any event not less frequently than 5 quarterly, the Secretary (in consultation with the Director 6 and, with respect to information described in subsection 7 (b)(2), the head of the applicable agency) shall ensure that 8 updated information with respect to the information de- 9 scribed in subsection (b) is posted on the website estab- 10 lished under section 2. 11 ‘‘(b) INFORMATION TO BE POSTED.— 12 ‘‘(1) FUNDS.—For any funds made available to 13 or expended by a Federal agency or component of a 14 Federal agency, the information to be posted shall 15 include— 16 ‘‘(A) for each appropriations account, in- 17 cluding an expired or unexpired appropriations 18 account, the amount— 19 ‘‘(i) of budget authority appropriated; 20 ‘‘(ii) that is obligated; 21 ‘‘(iii) of unobligated balances; and 22 ‘‘(iv) of any other budgetary re- 23 sources; 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 HR 4894 PCS ‘‘(B) from which accounts and in what 1 amount— 2 ‘‘(i) appropriations are obligated for 3 each program activity; and 4 ‘‘(ii) outlays are made for each pro- 5 gram activity; 6 ‘‘(C) from which accounts and in what 7 amount— 8 ‘‘(i) appropriations are obligated for 9 each object class; and 10 ‘‘(ii) outlays are made for each object 11 class; and 12 ‘‘(D) for each program activity, the 13 amount— 14 ‘‘(i) obligated for each object class; 15 and 16 ‘‘(ii) of outlays made for each object 17 class. 18 ‘‘(2) BUDGET JUSTIFICATIONS.— 19 ‘‘(A) DEFINITION.—In this paragraph, the 20 term ‘budget justification materials’ means the 21 annual budget justification materials of an 22 agency that are submitted, in conjunction with 23 the budget of the United States Government 24 submitted under section 1105(a) of title 31, 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 HR 4894 PCS United States Code, but does not include budg- 1 et justification materials that are classified. 2 ‘‘(B) INFORMATION.—The information to 3 be posted shall include any budget justification 4 materials— 5 ‘‘(i) for the second fiscal year begin- 6 ning after the date of enactment of this 7 paragraph, and each fiscal year thereafter; 8 and 9 ‘‘(ii) to the extent practicable, that 10 were released for any fiscal year before the 11 date of enactment of this paragraph. 12 ‘‘(C) FORMAT.—Budget justification mate- 13 rials shall be posted under subparagraph (B)— 14 ‘‘(i) as an open Government data 15 asset (as defined under section 3502 of 16 title 44, United States Code); 17 ‘‘(ii) in a manner that enables users 18 to download individual reports, download 19 all reports in bulk, and download in bulk 20 the results of a search, to the extent prac- 21 ticable; and 22 ‘‘(iii) in a structured data format, to 23 the extent practicable. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 HR 4894 PCS ‘‘(D) DEADLINE.—The budget justification 1 materials required to be posted under subpara- 2 graph (B)(i) shall be posted not later than 2 3 weeks after the date on which the budget jus- 4 tification materials are first submitted to Con- 5 gress. 6 ‘‘(E) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing 7 in this paragraph shall be construed to author- 8 ize an agency to destroy any budget justifica- 9 tion materials relating to a fiscal year before 10 the fiscal year described in subparagraph 11 (B)(i).’’. 12 (b) INFORMATION REGARDING AGENCY BUDGET 13 JUSTIFICATIONS.—Section 1105 of title 31, United States 14 Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 15 ‘‘(i)(1) The Director of the Office of Management 16 and Budget shall make publicly available on a website, and 17 continuously update, a tabular list for each fiscal year of 18 each agency that submits budget justification materials, 19 which shall include— 20 ‘‘(A) the name of the agency; 21 ‘‘(B) a unique identifier that identifies the 22 agency; 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 HR 4894 PCS ‘‘(C) to the extent practicable, the date on 1 which the budget justification materials of the agen- 2 cy are first submitted to Congress; 3 ‘‘(D) the date on which the budget justification 4 materials of the agency are posted online under sec- 5 tion 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and 6 Transparency Act of 2006; 7 ‘‘(E) the uniform resource locator where the 8 budget justification materials are published on the 9 website of the agency; and 10 ‘‘(F) a single data set that contains the infor- 11 mation described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) 12 with respect to the agency for all fiscal years for 13 which budget justifications of the agency are made 14 available under section 3 of the Federal Funding Ac- 15 countability and Transparency Act of 2006 in a 16 structured data format. 17 ‘‘(2)(A) Each agency that submits budget justifica- 18 tion materials shall make the materials available on the 19 website of the agency, in accordance with the policies es- 20 tablished by the Director of the Office of Management and 21 Budget under subparagraph (B). 22 ‘‘(B) The Director of the Office of Management 23 and Budget, in consultation with the Secretary of 24 the Treasury, shall establish policies for agencies re- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 7 HR 4894 PCS lating to making available materials under subpara- 1 graph (A), which shall include guidelines for making 2 budget justification materials available in a format 3 aligned with the requirements of section 3(b)(2)(C) 4 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Trans- 5 parency Act of 2006 and using a uniform resource 6 locator that is in a consistent format across agencies 7 and is descriptive, memorable, and pronounceable, 8 such as the format of ‘agencyname.gov/budget’. 9 ‘‘(C) If the Director of the Office of Manage- 10 ment and Budget maintains a public website that 11 contains the budget of the United States Govern- 12 ment submitted under subsection (a) and any re- 13 lated materials, such website shall also contain a 14 link to the tabular list required under paragraph (1). 15 ‘‘(3) In this subsection, the term ‘budget justification 16 materials’ has the meaning given that term in section 3 17 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency 18 Act of 2006.’’. 19 SEC. 3. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS. 20 The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 21 complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, 22 shall be determined by reference to the latest statement 23 titled ‘‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’’ for this 24 Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 8 HR 4894 PCS by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, pro- 1 vided that such statement has been submitted prior to the 2 vote on passage. 3 Passed the House of Representatives September 14, 2020. Attest: CHERYL L. JOHNSON, Clerk. VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS Calendar No. 533 116TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. R. 4894 AN ACT To amend the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, to require the budget justifications and appropriation requests of agen- cies be made publicly available. SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 Received; read twice and placed on the calendar VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Sep 16, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6651 Sfmt 6651 E:\BILLS\H4894.PCS H4894 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS