On September 27, 2016, co-chairs of the Congressional Transparency Caucus Reps. Mike Quigley and Darrell Issa hosted a briefing to discuss the progress the 115th Congress has made to address transparency issues, and outline the challenges still faced.
Video of the briefing is available here:
Panelists included:
-Shanna Devine of the Government Accountability Project
-Patrice McDermott, Executive Director of Open the Government.org
-Christian Hoehner of the Data Foundation and Data Coalition
On March 22, 2016, the Transparency Caucus hosted a briefing on the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) and the broader challenge of bringing greater transparency to the federal budget process. The caucus has an in-depth recap here.
The bipartisan briefing was hosted by the caucus co-chairs, Reps. Mike Quigley and Darrell Issa. Panelists included:
-Daniel Schuman, Policy Director of Demand Progress
– Hudson Hollister, Founder and Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition
-Dave Williams, Former Inspector General for the Postal Service
-Sean Moulton, Open Government Program Manager for the Project on Government Oversight.
The 2014 DATA Act required Executive branch agencies to make their spending reports public (now on USAspending.gov). Several panelists noted that the law marked a huge win for executive branch transparency, but in 2016, the executive branch was already showing signs of obstructing the implementation process.
“The DATA Act promises to deliver a clearer, more comprehensive public view of how taxpayers’ money is being spent – but only if federal agencies follow the law. Our Coalition member companies are ready to use federal spending data to create new visualizations and power new analytics – but we can’t do it unless agencies adopt a consistent format across all spending, as the DATA Act requires. That’s why it’s so important for Congress to scrutinize what the agencies are doing, even after passing the law,” said Hudson Hollister, Founder and Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition.
Ed. note: as of March 2022, the White House still has yet to issue implementation guidance on the DATA Act. That should have been done back in the Obama administration.