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Bills
| 3.23.22

Should Federal Agencies’ Congressional Budget Justifications be Publicly Available in a Standard, Centralized Format? (S. 272)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is S. 272?

(Updated October 3, 2021)

This bill was enacted on September 24, 2021

This bill would require federal agencies to make their budget justification materials (formally known as congressional budget justifications, or CJs) — which they’re already required to produce for annual budget requests — available to the public via both a centralized, searchable website and on each agency’s own website. This requirement would begin to apply to CJs starting with the second fiscal year after this bill’s enactment and moving forward. To the maximum extent possible, it would also encourage the addition of CJs from prior years to the database.

This bill would also direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to make certain details regarding these materials available to the public. Those would include:

A list of the agencies that submit budget justification materials to Congress;

  • The dates of budget justification materials’ submission to Congress and the dates that they are posted online; and

  • Links to budget justification materials.

Classified materials would be exempt from this legislation.

Argument in favor

Taxpayers have a right to know how federal agencies are using their dollars. Requiring federal agencies to publish their budget justifications would empower the public to find this information. Although Congress and the Office of Management and Budget are urging agencies to publish budget justifications and a site contains some of them, these efforts haven’t been successful due to lacking the force of law; this legislation would rectify that problem.

Argument opposed

Congress and the Office of Management and Budget already encourage the publication of budget justifications, so this legislation isn’t needed to encourage the publication of congressional budget justifications on agency sites. Additionally, usaspending.gov already hosts slime agencies’ budget requests, so there’s no need for this legislation to establish a new central site.

Impact

Federal agencies; Office of Management and Budget (OMB); and congressional budget justifications (CJs).

Cost of S. 272

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not provided a cost estimate for this bill. However, the CBO cost estimate for its Senate companion prior to amendment—which then contained the same legislative text as this bill—was less than $500,000 over the 2020-2025 period.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) reintroduced this bill from the 116th Congress to ensure that the public has access to information on the federal government’s use of taxpayer dollars:

“Hardworking Americans have a right to know how their hard earned tax dollars are being spent, but it can be incredibly difficult to find this information. With the federal government spending more than $100 million in Michigan alone, it is important that we strengthen accountability for government agencies and reassure Michiganders that their tax dollars are being put to good use. That is why I am proud to reintroduce this bipartisan bill and will fight for its swift passage into law.” 

Original cosponsor Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) adds:

“Ohioans and all Americans should be able to easily evaluate how the federal government is spending their hard-earned tax dollars. This bipartisan legislation will improve federal government transparency by requiring federal agencies to publish their annual budget justifications on a centralized website. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation to ensure the transparency Americans deserve on government spending.” 

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) has introduced a House version of this bill in both the current and previous Congresses. When he sponsored this bill in the 116th Congress, Rep. Quigley argued that it would improve government transparency:

“Today, congressional budget justifications are incredibly hard to find. This information is in numerous and confusing places across the internet, making it challenging to identify which agencies are required to submit justifications, let alone know whether the materials for an agency exist. This bill would provide an opportunity to conduct better oversight of our government and allow the public to learn about what agencies are doing with their hard-earned tax dollars.”

In the previous congressional session, original House cosponsor Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) added:

“Each year, Georgians entrust the government with their hard-earned tax dollars, but they’re left in the dark on where that money actually goes. By requiring federal agencies to regularly publish budget justifications on one central website, the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act will ensure hardworking Americans have access to the information needed to evaluate how their tax dollars are being spent.”

Daniel Schuman, Policy Director at Demand Progress, has expressed support for this bill in both the 115th and 116th Congresses, noting Congressional budget justifications’ importance in helping understand federal agency budget requests:

"Spending is often how the federal government makes its priorities clear, and federal agency Congressional budget justifications are the plain-language requests of where and how the Executive branch would like Congress to spend the American people's money. Sens. Peters and Portman's legislation would make sure the federal government puts its money where its mouth is by requiring agency requests for funding to be publicly available on a central website so everyone can understand what funds federal agencies have requested and why." 

This legislation passed the Senate with an amendment by unanimous consent with the support of four bipartisan Senate cosponsors, including three Republicans and one Democrat. Its House companion, sponsored by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), has one cosponsor, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and has not yet received a committee vote. Demand Progress and the Project on Government Oversight have expressed support for this legislation in the current Congress.

In the previous Congress, this legislation (S.2560) was sponsored by Sen. Peters and passed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs by voice vote on March 2, 2020. Its House companion, sponsored by Rep. Quigley, passed the House by a 402-1 voice vote on September 14March 3, 2020 with the support of 10 bipartisan House cosponsors, including eight Democrats and two Republicans.

Nearly 30 government accountability and oversight advocacy organizations supporting this legislation wrote a joint letter to Congressional leaders in fall 2019. These included the R Street Institute, the Campaign for Accountability, the Center for Responsive Policies, Demand Progress, and the Government Accountability Project.


Of Note: Congressional budget justifications (CJs) are plain-language explanations of federal agencies’ spending plans for the money they request from Congress. In 2018 and 2019, Congress encouraged the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to publish all executive branch Congressional budget justification materials on a centralized web portal. Additionally, recent OMB guidance has also required executive branch agencies to post their budget justification materials online.

However, despite these Congressional and OMB directives, there is currently no legal requirement for Congressional budget justifications to be posted on a centralized web portal or on agency websites. Consequently, agencies are inconsistent in posting CJs online and no centralized website hosts all CJs across agencies. Due to this, it is currently difficult to access CJs.

There is also no public list documenting the agencies and sub-agencies that are required to submit CJs or confirming those agencies’ submissions of materials to Congress. Consequently, it is difficult to identify the executive branch agencies that are required to submit CJs or to confirm agencies’ creation and submission of these materials.

In fact, a March 2019 report by Demand Progress found that some agencies weren’t consistently following the OMB’s requirements to publish their CJs on their websites. In FY2018 and FY2019, Demand Progress found that 21% of 456 federal agencies and entities surveyed did not publish CJs and another 6.1% published CJs for only one of the two years. While acknowledging that it wasn’t possible to know whether the agencies surveyed were required to publish CJs, Demand Progress contended that this limitation to its research only further indicated the lack of publicly available comprehensive information on agencies’ CJ publication requirements.

In a March 2020 report, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs found that the lack of a designated and structured database to access CJs makes it difficult to find CJs for a particular year. The Senate report found that the current site housing some CJs, usaspending.gov, is not exhaustive.

Additionally, Rep. Quigley’s office observed that because usaspending.gov links to documents on agencies’ sites instead of publishing the documents itself, the links are subject to rot when agency websites are updated or redesigned.


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStock.com / Kativ)