Transparency for the
Ordinary Citizen
Transparency in federal procurement is most often discussed as beneficial to those in the
procurement arena—the U.S. government and contractors. However, less attention has been
given to the benefits of a transparent federal procurement system from the public’s perspective.
BY greg harding
One of the least talked about trends sweeping the United
States is the creation of state spending transparency websites.1
As of 2010, there were already 35 states with publicly available
websites for ordinary citizens to see where their state tax
dollars are going.2 The commonality among these sites is that
they all try to emulate the federal transparency website,
USASpending.gov.
USASpending is a byproduct of the Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The Transparency Act was introduced by then-Senator Barack Obama and
Senator Tom Coburn and signed into law by President
George W. Bush on September 26, 2006.3 In its short
existence, USASpending has been subject to justifiably harsh
criticism largely due to the site’s inaccuracies and delays in
meeting proscribed milestones.
To the contracting community and the acquisition workforce,
USASpending is a great benefit, but much of the impetus for
the act was to provide greater transparency and accountability
for the American public.4 The following is a brief review of
USASpending’s functionality from the ordinary citizen’s
point of view, its compliance with its enabling act, and the
website’s historical significance.
The Justification for Transparency
Greater transparency in the federal procurement system can
be justified for economic and competitive reasons. It benefits
both the government and its business partners (government
contractors) to have a transparent course of dealings.5
Without transparency in the rules for submitting proposals
and bids, there cannot be just competition. Without true
competition, the integrity of the award process is then
questioned. Quality contractors are less likely to compete for
government contracts unless they are afforded a fair opportunity. If faith in the selection process is in doubt, fewer
contractors will compete, resulting in the government being
denied the ability to obtain the best value for its money.6 Not
mentioned in this analysis is the benefit taxpayers receive
from having greater transparency.7
Without transparency, the taxpayers are otherwise sequestered
from the procurement system. For example, citizens generally
lack standing to litigate issues relating to government contracts.
Citizens cannot file bid protests to government awards because
they are not considered “interested parties” to government
About the Author
GREG HARDING is a government contract attorney in Washington,
DC, and is currently pursuing an LL.M. at The George Washington
University Law School in the Government Procurement Program.
Journal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
103
transparency for the ordinary citizen
contracts.8 Notwithstanding, it is the ordinary citizens’ tax
revenue that finances government contracts; therefore, the
citizens are entitled to see how their money is spent.
The U.S. Constitution does not require public transparency
per se, but it is an unwritten obligation that is deeply rooted in
the foundation of the country’s laws. In 1802, while serving
as the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson
wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin of the
importance of making the government’s finances clear and accessible to every citizen.9 Jefferson also remarked that opening
the government’s finances to the public would “help connect
taxpayers with the spending decisions being made on their
behalf.”10 Over 200 years ago, Jefferson recognized the
public’s right to have access to the “federal checkbook.”
This mantra from one of our country’s most celebrated
founding fathers resonates today with the Barack Obama
administration, which has made the “Open Government
Initiative” a key part of its domestic policy.11 In fact, in his
first full day of office, President Obama issued a Memorandum recognizing, inter alia, that “[t]ransparency promotes
accountability and provides information for citizens about
what their government is doing.”12
It is not just the president or the Democrats who support
government transparency for the public benefit; this issue has
bipartisan support. Republican Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK),
when speaking before a Senate subcommittee in 2006,
referred to the aforementioned quote from Thomas Jefferson.13 Sen. Coburn then stated that making government
finances accessible to the public is important because “with
transparency comes accountability.”14
The connection between transparency and accountability is
undeniable. The public cannot exercise its fundamental right
to hold the government accountable without transparency.
“Accountability is, in fact, a core value in democracy.”15
Likewise, “transparency in government practice is fundamental to successful democratic progress.”16 Therefore, as a
democratic nation, it behooves our country to have a
transparent procurement system, but to what extent remains
to be determined.
The Passage of the Transparency Act
With the passage of the Transparency Act, the federal
checkbook was finally posted online for all to see.17 At the
bill-signing ceremony, President Bush remarked how his
administration believed that the more informed American
104 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
citizens are, “the better our government will be.”18 The
president went on to say that “[b]y allowing Americans to
google their tax dollars, this new law will help taxpayers
demand greater fiscal discipline.”19
The idea that the Transparency Act would create a Googlelike search portal for government spending might sound
overly simplistic, but that is exactly what the Transparency
Act was promised to be. In fact, Sen. Coburn, who introduced the bill along with Senators Barack Obama (D-OH),
Thomas Carper (D-DE), John McCain (R-AZ), John Sununu
(R-NH), and Jim DeMint (R-SC), testified to the Senate
Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and
asked the Committee “to think of this bill [the Transparency
Act] as ‘Google for government spending.’”20
In Sen. Coburn’s opinion, the level of transparency afforded
in the act is needed to minimize the potential for waste and
abuse.21 To illustrate his point, Sen. Coburn testified to a few
examples of government expenditures he considered as wasteful
and had the public known how Congress was spending their
money, they would have protested:
• $500,000 for a Teapot Museum in Sparta,
North Carolina;
• $500,000 in defense money for the Arctic
Winter Games;
• $500,000 for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma,
Washington;
• $500,000 for the Fort Dupont Ice Arena in
Washington, DC;
• More than $2 million for the Appalachian Fruit
Laboratory in West Virginia; and
• $5 million for the St. Louis Zoo.22
Sen. McCain, a co-sponsor of the Transparency Act, was
similarly outraged by the amount of waste and abuse
occurring in government spending. In particular, his support
for a searchable website rested in empowering the public to
monitor the growth of earmarks in the annual appropriations
bill.23 “The American people have the right to know how and
where their tax dollars are being spent.”24
In addition to the waste and abuse already mentioned, Sen.
Coburn also envisioned the Transparency Act to help
eradicate the “misallocation of federal funds by requiring
greater accounting of federal expenditures.”25 Sen. Coburn
was particularly concerned by the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) report for fiscal year 2005, which found that
$37.3 billion in improper payments were made by the federal
transparency for the ordinary citizen
government.26 “Better tracking of federal funds would ensure
that agencies and taxpayers know where resources are being
spent and likely reduce the number of improper payments by
federal agencies.”27
Additionally, Sen. Coburn argued for the Transparency Act
and USASpending because the country lacked a centralized
resource for identifying where government funds are spent.28
“The bottom line is that there is no single source of information explaining where federal money is spent, and there
should be.”29
Then-Sen. Obama echoed similar sentiments: “it’s often not
possible to get good information about federal grants and
contracts, even when you’re a U.S. Senator.”30 In commenting
about the many different (and incomplete) federal procurement
databases, he stated that “[t]he lack of transparency over the use
of federal resources is simply appalling.”31 He went on to state:
“Transparency is essential if we are to do something about the
billions of taxpayer dollars being spent with no assurances
that the funds are going where they are needed.”32 Therefore,
according to then-Sen. Obama, the Transparency Act will
finally “shine some light” on government spending by allowing
any “ordinary citizen” with Internet access to “join members of
Congress as watchdogs of how their money is being spent.”33
The Transparency Act and Amendments
The Transparency Act required OMB to create a free, publicly
accessible, “searchable website” by January 1, 2008, for
retrieving federal award information. A federal award is
defined as any financial assistance or expenditure which
includes grants, awards contracts, task orders, and delivery
orders above $25,000.34 For each federal award, the website
must identify:
• The recipient’s name and location (including city, state,
congressional district, and country);
• The amount;
• The funding agency;
• The North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS) code for the award type and any unique
identifier for the recipient or, if applicable, its parent
company;
• The location of where the work is to be performed; and
• The nature of the award and other pertinent information
including further requirements specified by OMB.35
The Transparency Act further requires that all federal awards
be online within 30 days of posting.36 The act does not
require the publication of classified information.37 For data
sources, the act prohibits hyperlinking, but permitted
drawing data from three previously existing databases:
• Grants.gov,
• The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), and
• The Federal Assistance Award Data System (FAADS).38
Lastly, the Transparency Act requires the publication of
awards distributed to subcontractors. The act required OMB
to initiate a pilot program to test the agencies’ ability to
collect data on sub-awards no later than July 1, 2007, with
all sub-awards reported online by January 1, 2009.39 OMB
is also required to submit annual reports to Congress
regarding the status of the implementation of the Transparency Act. Each report should include information regarding
usage and public feedback on the utility of the site, an
assessment of the reporting burden placed on recipients,
and an explanation of any sub-award reporting deadline
(if needed).40
In June 2008, the Transparency Act was amended by the
Government Funding Transparency Act of 2008 to require
further disclosure from certain recipients of federal awards.41
Specifically, the amendment required USASpending to
provide the total compensation of the five highest compensated officers of any entity receiving 80 percent or more of its
annual gross revenues from federal awards, and having
annual gross revenue of $25 million, provided that the same
information could not be found through Securities and
Exchange Commission filings.42 Thereby, this new amendment is targeted to disclosing data regarding large, privatelyheld prime or sub government contractors.
In June 2008, weeks prior to the enactment of the Government Funding Transparency Act, then-Sen. Obama and Sen.
Coburn introduced to the Senate the “Strengthening
Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of
2008.”43 The co-sponsors for the bill were Senators Carper
and McCain.44 The bill, which never became law, would have
amended the Transparency Act and thereby upgraded
USASpending significantly.45
In support of the bill, then-Sen. Obama stated: “We should
do everything we can to ensure that the American public can
easily access and track how the federal government does its
business.”46 Then-Sen. Obama said that USASpending was an
excellent tool for citizens to “hold Washington accountable,”
but that this bill was needed to expand the amount of
information available to the public.47
Journal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
105
transparency for the ordinary citizen
The proposed bill had three key sections: “technical corrections to the first bill (the Transparency Act), provisions to
improve the quality of data in USASpending.gov, and
requirements to make information on contractor and grantee
performance easily accessible.”48 Of the three sections, the
bill’s requirements to improve the data quality and the
content on USASpending have remained mostly unresolved.49
The bill had the admirable goal of putting online copies of
each federal contract (in PDF and searchable text forms) and
details about competitive bidding, including the range of
responsive bids and the profit incentives offered for each
contract.50 The extent of transparency proffered by this bill is
exactly what many longtime advocates had been seeking and
contended were lacking in the other legislation, like the
original Transparency Act.51
Then-Sen. Obama claimed that the bill would empower
citizens to track government earmarks better on USASpending.52 Thereby, this bill would have fulfilled Thomas Jefferson’s 200-year-old dream of full and complete transparency.
Implementation Guidance Provided by OMB
OMB has been very instrumental in implementing the Transparency Act, in particular with regards to sub-recipient data. Among
the many guidance and bulletins issued on transparency by OMB
was a memorandum from Deputy Director for Management
Jeffrey Zient in April 2010.53 The memorandum established
October 1, 2010, as the deadline for federal agencies to
initiate sub-award reporting.54 The memorandum also established new metrics for each agency to employ to ensure the data
quality and completeness of federal spending data.55 It also
clarified that federal agencies are only responsible for primary
recipient data being correctly entered into USASpending and
that the recipients will be responsible for the first-tier sub-award
data.56 Specifically, the memorandum requires each federal agency
to establish a “data quality framework” for federal expenditures,
“including a governance structure, risk assessments, control
activities, communication strategy, and monitoring program.”57
OMB’s stated goal “is to move toward 100 percent of awards
data being reported on time, complete, and accurate (free of
error) by the end of fourth quarter FY 2011, with interim
milestones.”58 In order to accomplish this goal, agencies must
obtain a 10-percent improvement in data quality for each
quarter commencing in fiscal year 2011.59
In August 2010, OMB issued an over 50-page guidance
memorandum regarding executive compensation require106 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
ments which was incorporated into the Transparency Act in
2008 through an amendment.60 This memorandum reminds
agencies to require prime awardees to report executive
compensation for new federal contracts and grants as of October 1, 2010.61 Further, all prime recipients need to register
with and enter sub-award information into the new Federal
Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Sub-award
Reporting System (FSRS), including their Dun & Bradstreet
numbers (DUNS).62 The prime recipients only need to enter
the sub-recipient data into FSRS if it is not already prepopulated from the Central Contractor Registry (CCR).63
Lastly, OMB promulgated an interim final guidance for
agencies in the Federal Register on September 14, 2010.64 As a
compliment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)
Subpart 4.14, the contract clause at FAR 52.204-10, and the
Transparency Act, OMB sought (and succeeded) to codify
that after October 1, 2010, all prime recipients should report
at www.fsrs.gov the first-tier sub-recipient information,
including the requisite executive compensation information.65
In addition, it requires all prime recipients to be registered
with the CCR at www.ccr.gov and with the FSRS.66
The Construction of USASpending.gov
The Transparency Act offers only minimal guidance on how
the website is to look, operate, or be created. There is nothing
in the act to indicate the name of the searchable site that is
supposed to be spawned by the enactment.
The fact that the Transparency Act is short and offers
minimal guidance is typical. For example, the entire Family
and Medical Leave Act of 1993, including its three amendments, is about 18 pages long when printed directly from the
Department of Labor website.67 Meanwhile, the revised
regulations in response to the three amendments are 200
pages in the Federal Register, which exemplifies that the size of
a congressionally authorized “project” bears no comparison to
the length of the enabling statute.68
The estimated cost for developing USASpending was steep. The
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the initial
development would cost $4 million in 2007 and over $15
million would be needed to maintain the site through 2011.69
The CBO finding was based on the fact that the FAADS, the
FPDS, and Grants.gov—the three federal databases selected to
feed into USASpending—“do not comprise a comprehensive
information source of all federal spending and reportedly are
not timely or easily queried for information.”70
transparency for the ordinary citizen
At the time of the Transparency Act’s enactment, the FAADS
and the FPDS had substantial integrity issues, which explains
CBO’s high estimate for developing USASpending. The information in the FAADS was routinely reported late and filled
with inaccuracies and incompleteness.71 The FAADS is also
not a database that could be queried, thereby making it more
difficult to export data from.72 The FAADS only provided
information on initial recipients and had no information
regarding sub-awards.73
The FPDS, on the other hand, is more user-friendly, but in 2005,
the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that
FPDS users “lacked confidence” in its data due to the absence of
a verification system.74 There have been many instances where
the FPDS listed large businesses as small and therefore eligible
for small business set-asides.75 Moreover, the FPDS did not store
data on subcontractors; instead, that data was reported in an
entirely separate database called the “Electronic Subcontracting
Reporting System” (eSRS), which is maintained by the Small
Business Administration.76 More problematic is the fact that
eSRS does not capture all of the information regarding
sub-recipients, as required by the Transparency Act.77
The actual cost for launching USASpending was under
$700,000; much less than the millions that the CBO
projected it would cost.78 According to the federal IT
Dashboard (which monitors the cost and progress of all
federal IT projects), since May 2008 there has been over $11
million spent on developing USASpending.79 This figure is
more in line with the CBO estimate of $15 million for
maintenance. However, this figure still does not reflect the
initial launch cost for USASpending, which is surprising
since the Transparency Act required expenditures from fiscal
year 2007 to be accessible online, and also for the fact that
the federal IT Dashboard is part of USASpending.80
The discrepancies between the CBO estimate and the actual
costs were a result of OMB opting not to build USASpending
from scratch, but instead “clone” a preexisting website,
Fedspending.org, which performed similar features.81
Fedspending.org is operated by the independent watchdog
organization “OMB Watch” and provides free online
searchable access to federal financial assistance awards and
federal contracts (but not federal grants).82 Fedspending.org
purchased its data from a government contractor, Eagle Eye
Publishing, who merged records from the Department of
Defense database to the FPDS.83
Since its launch in December 2007, USASpending has had
several minor improvements. The most significant upgrade
occurred in May 2010 when USASpending.gov 2.0 was
released. Using cloud computing from NASA in a joint
venture with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
and OMB, the “look and feel” of the website was changed,
but the content remained the same. Sean Moutlon from
OMB Watch commented that the revamped website was “less
user-friendly,” but that he appreciated the new “tools to do
research that weren’t available prior to the relaunch.”84 As a
result, the current version of USASpending is flashier than
the original, but it is still limited by the same data quality
issues that the CBO addressed in its initial estimate.
Does USASpending.gov Satisfy the
Transparency Act’s Requirements?
In March 2010, GAO submitted a report that reviewed the
implementation of the Transparency Act to date.85 After
evaluating the implementation, the report offers suggestions
for bringing USASpending into compliance with the
Transparency Act.86
The GAO report dissected the Transparency Act into nine
parts and found that only two of the requirements were not
met.87 The report found that OMB had failed to submit the
requisite annual reports to Congress.88 On July 9, 2010, the
first Transparency Act Annual Report was submitted to
Congress; therefore, this is now a non-issue.89
The more significant shortcoming noted in the GAO report
was OMB’s failure to include sub-award data by January 1,
2009.90 GAO stated that OMB failed to apply for the
18-month extension for sub-award data provided for in the
Transparency Act.91
The lack of sub-award information online has been a source of
contention by users and by policymakers. Sen. Coburn in fact
wrote President Obama inquiring on when the subcontracts
would be available.92 In response, OMB Director Peter Orzag
stated that the stimulus tracking website, Recovery.gov, will
serve as a model for how to meet the subcontracting reporting
requirements.93 “Once sub-award reporting capabilities are in
place for Recovery Act funds and these data are displayed on
Recovery.gov, the administration intends to begin broadening
sub-award reporting requirements to all federal funding, to
comply with the Transparency Act.”94
The Obama administration’s favoritism toward developing
Recovery.gov in lieu of USASpending.gov has further
frustrated Sen. Coburn. First, he suggested that the
stimulus did not need its own website and that USASpendJournal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
107
transparency for the ordinary citizen
ing could handle the data.95 In addition, in 2010 he testified
at a congressional hearing that had the Obama administration “put the same effort into USASpending.gov as you’ve
put into everything else, we’d be a lot further down the road
right now, wouldn’t we.”96 Sen. Coburn went on to state
that he applauds the president’s Open Government Initiative, but points out: “There is only one of these [transparency agendas] that’s a law, and in fact we’re out of compliance on the law.”97
These statements are true, but they do not touch upon the
largest problem with USASpending—the accuracy of the
information. USASpending has been criticized due to the
inconsistent or inaccurate data it contains. There is no
requirement in the Transparency Act for the data on USASpending to be accurate, but accuracy is clearly intended as
indicated by the number of guidance memorandums OMB
has promulgated to assist the federal agencies with prime and
sub-award accuracies.105
In spite of being out of compliance for failing to meet the
2009 deadline, by the end of 2010 over 930 sub-grant awards
amounting to $750 million were available online.98 The
remaining subrecipient data for awards and grants was
eventually posted online in March 2011.99 OMB Director
Jake Lew contends that the subcontract data would have been
online sooner but, in part, for the Bush administration
making “little headway” on collecting information.100
In July 2010, Bulletin News Network, Inc., a news clipping
service from Virginia, was reported on USASpending as
receiving a contract worth $216 million from the FBI, when
the actual contract was around $200,000.106 The error has
since been removed, but users are still unable to pinpoint
with certainty the correct award amount the company had
with the FBI.
The Federal Chief Information Officer of the United States
Vivek Kundra says that the difficulty in collecting the
subcontract information was logistics-related.101 According to
Kundra, it is like a pyramid; going down one level, you may
deal with 100,000 recipients, but when you go down “the
second or third level, you may start dealing with a million.”102
The subcontract data available online only goes down to the
first level, so to the extent there are additional recipients, like
when a city receives funds from a state and then gives money
to a contractor, that information is not yet available through
USASpending. So by no means is the federal procurement
system fully transparent, but the requirements of the original
Transparency Act are on their way to being fulfilled.
Analysis of USASpending from a User and
Functionality Perspective
According to Adam Hughes from OMB Watch, USASpending is an “intuitive and simple to use [website] with many of
the most popular searches and views pre-loaded into the
navigation of the site.”103 Indeed, the site is simple and
popular searches like the Gulf Oil contractors make the site
less intimidating and easy to use by laymen researchers.
According to a GSA representative, the website successfully
“promotes the administration goals of open transparency and
accountability. It is a single federal government website
allowing access to considerable amounts of data which was
not available previously.”104
108 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
That isolated mistake is de minimis compared to what the
Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit watchdog organization,
discovered.107 According to their research, the federal
government spending data for 2009 was off by $1.3 trillion.108
A spokeswoman for the organization remarked that “[t]he
government keeps building new sites on top of this site
[USASpending], even though they know the data is inaccurate.”109 For example, the Sunlight Foundation found that
USASpending reported the Federal Direct Student Loan
Program had claimed more than $5 trillion in loans, which
exceeds the entire federal budget.110
The GAO report from March 2010 also noted significant
discrepancies between the data submitted into the feeder
databases for USASpending.111 GAO, like the Sunlight
Foundation, used the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
as its base to compare to USASpending. During its sampling,
GAO found, for example, that “in 73 of the awards, more
than 5 of 17 data fields we reviewed had inconsistencies,
omissions, or insufficient documentation provided by the
awarding agency to evaluate data consistency.”112 GAO did
not release a dollar amount to quantify the discrepancies;
instead, the report focused more on data inconsistencies,
which it found to be extensive.
It remains to be seen whether the guidance and metrics
established in the OMB memorandums discussed above
will rectify the shortcomings in data accuracies and
inconsistencies flushed out in the studies conducted by the
Sunlight Foundation and GAO. In deference to OMB’s goal
of being 100-percent error-free by the end of fiscal year 2011,
we will need to wait to reevaluate its success. Currently,
transparency for the ordinary citizen
however, we can analyze how well USASpending lives up
to the political promises made prior to the Transparency
Act’s enactment.
Does USASpending Allow the Public to Hold the
Government More Accountable?
Once its data accuracy issues are fully addressed, USASpending has the potential to be a tremendous mechanism for the
public to hold the government accountable. The lack of
“perfect” federal spending information available on USASpending does not deter from the fact that the site also provides vast
amounts of information beyond just dollar figures.
For example, a 2010 magazine article discussed a government
contractor named SRA (based in Virginia), who developed
software for the Army Criminal Investigation Command,
which detects procurement fraud by scanning the text of
e-mails.113 “If a person discusses a particular Department of
Defense payment with an individual not officially linked to
the deal, SRA’s software may notice it.”114
Due to USASpending, users can find out more information about
SRA’s federal contracting business quicker than through any other
resource. Disregarding the federal dollar information (which may
or may not be inaccurate), USASpending states that SRA has had
24,097 contracts with the federal government dating back to
fiscal year 2000.115
In addition, the site shows a vast amount of information
regarding SRA’s contract work with the federal government
with the option to download the information directly to a
user’s computer. USASpending shows which agencies SRA
has worked with through the years (i.e., 143 contracts with
the Department of Labor and 17 contracts with the
Department of Education). Of those contracts, users can see
how many were characterized under a specific product/
service code and how many fell within any number of
NAICS descriptions.116 Users are also able to see how many
of the contracts were awarded through “full and open
competition,” contracts “not competed,” to many numbers
of other award methods.117
For each individual contract SRA received, USASpending
displays a great deal of data, but most of it regarding the
contractor itself. For example, for transaction ID #42939409,
the Patent and Trademark Office obligated almost
$29,982,600 for a contract with SRA with the ultimate
contract value amounting to only $299,826 in 2004. The site
shows that the type of pricing employed in this contract was
“cost-plus-fixed-fee.” Further, the site shows that the contract
was actually awarded to a subsidiary of SRA called “Galaxy
Scientific Corp,” which is based in New Jersey. Lastly, by
clicking on the transaction ID number, users can see pie and
bar charts regarding the contract and to what extent other
vendors were involved (in this matter there were no other
companies working on the contract).118
Is USASpending Really Google for Government?
USASpending is a tremendous tool and it is user-friendly, but
it is a stretch to equate it with Google’s search capabilities.
The site requires users to have some prior knowledge of what
they are seeking in order to maximize the benefits.
Continuing with government contractor SRA, it is impossible to
identify how much they received or for what contract they
developed e-mail scanning software for the Army Criminal
Investigation Command, as discussed above. By narrowing the
search and only focusing on the 6,447 contracts (out of the total
24,097 federal government contracts) that SRA had just with
the Department of Defense, a user would still need to spend a
significant amount of time data-mining to identify contracts
that might be related to developing e-mail scanning software.
Further, if the project was considered “classified,” it will not even
be listed in USASpending.119 In short, more background
information is needed regarding the SRA contract (such as the
year it was signed) and a better mastery of the NAICS system to
be able to find the contract on USASpending.120
The oddest shortcoming of USASpending, which also
differentiates it from Google, is the query feature. In order to
research the Bulletin News Network contract with the FBI,
users cannot just enter “Bulletin News Network” into the
query field or they will retrieve over 275,000 contracts. Only
after selecting the pre-populated name “Bulletin News
Network, Inc.,” will the correct vendor (which had only 172
contracts) appear.121 There are no directions on the site on
how to use the query feature, and it seems strange that such
an important step is not clarified in some manner; without
knowing how to properly query on USASpending, the site
loses much of its utility. At the very least, USASpending
would benefit from having an online tutorial or possibly a
series of them catered to each user’s goals.122
Does USASpending Minimize the Potential for
Waste and Abuse?
Trying to determine whether an expenditure is an example
of waste, abuse, or even an earmark is as difficult as creating
Journal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
109
transparency for the ordinary citizen
a legal standard for whether something is obscene or not.
These are largely subjective interpretations and the website is
designed to be objective.
To its credit, USASpending allows users to see how much of
a contractor’s work is in a specific state and which congressional district the contractor is headquartered. For example,
SRA is headquartered in the 10th Congressional District in
Virginia and was involved with nine transactions in the state
of Texas in 2009.
For governmentwide spending on a per state basis, USASpending’s homepage features an excellent chart that displays federal
spending trends across all of the states over the past few years.
This data can be viewed either in a bubble, bar, or graph chart.
For more specific information, users can select from one of the
popular searches like “construction contracts” and see that
New York vendors received $419 million in 2010 while
vendors in Oregon received $405 million in the same year.
More informative is the “federals spending trend” tab,
which allows users to see which agencies are spending funds
on contractors in each state or each congressional district.
For example, according to the trend for federal dollars for
all agencies spent in all congressional districts, the largest
number of federal contractors to receive federal awards was
composed of contractors headquartered in Virginia’s 8th
District. This feature clearly allows taxpayers to see exactly
where their money is going; which is exactly what Sen.
McCain promised would happen if the Transparency Act
was passed.123
Is USASpending a Centralized Source?
Both Sen. Coburn and then-Sen. Obama argued in 2006 for
the need for a centralized source for all to see where government funds are spent. In spite of the inaccuracies in federal
spending data, there is no other website available that tracks
the volume of federal expenditure and contracts as USASpending does.
The website is not, however, a fully transparent portal for the
entire federal procurement system. The end results of negotiating and bidding is apparent through the federal awards posted
on USASpending, but the actual selection process remains
opaque. If the president or Sen. Coburn ever seeks to amend
the Transparency Act to provide the public at-large with the
ability to see how and why the recipients of federal awards are
selected, USASpending could serve that purpose.
110 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
Sen. Coburn also looked to USASpending as a tool to help
stop the country’s improper payment problems. To that end,
USASpending is only marginally helpful. With the publication of each federal award, the public-at-large will be able to
verify that no awards are going to suspended or debarred
contractors. The new Federal Awardee Performance and
Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) should already
preempt federal contracts from being awarded to suspended
or debarred vendors.124 Therefore, USASpending might be
helpful as a place of last resort to confirm that the federal
government is not doing business with contractors that the
government is prohibited from working with, but that is not
the site’s best use.
Conclusion
In spite of being behind schedule, USASpending is on its way
to fulfilling the requirements of the Transparency Act and the
political promises made before its enactment. The data
inaccuracies are significant, but it appears that OMB has the
guidelines in place to remedy the data problems. As the site
evolves and the agencies collect sub-recipient information, the
next obvious step is to publicize second-level-tier information
of sub-recipients.
The success of the site depends not on OMB or the administration, but the cooperation received from the federal agencies
and the government recipients. If the stakeholders do not
share the administration’s vision for greater transparency, the
quality of the data available will continually be questionable.
The need for cooperation is more imperative considering that
funding for improving USASpending will be hindered in
2012 due to federal budget constraints.125
Finally, if the general public is not informed about USASpending’s existence, is it really fulfilling President Jefferson’s
or even President Obama’s vision of a transparent and
open government?126 There is no doubt that stakeholders,
are aware or USASpending, but what about the ordinary
citizen? The administration intended to promote the site to
the general public in 2011 through a number of sources,
including social media and government news websites.127
With shrinking budgets, the results thus far have been
modest at best.128 Hopefully, as more news agencies,
reporters, and savvy bloggers cite to data from USASpending, more people will learn about the site and be able to see
our more open government at work. JCM
transparency for the ordinary citizen
Endnotes
15.A.C.L. Davies, Accountability; A Public Law Analysis of
Government by Contract (Oxford University Press, 2001): 76.
1.
16.
Ibid., at 9.
17.
USASpending is touted as the online window to the federal
checkbook, but it is actually just the federal obligations
and the data is not cross-referenced with the actual
expenditures distributed from the Department of the
Treasury. See statement of Craig Jennings, “Achieving
Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending:
Hearing Before the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee,” 112th Congress (July 14, 2011).
18.
Press Release, “President Bush Signs Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act” (September 26, 2006),
available at www.fas.org/sgpnews/2006/09/
wh092606.html.
19.
Ibid.
2.
Center for Fiscal Responsibility, “State Spending
Transparency Update” (November 2010), available
at www.fiscalaccountability.org/userfiles/2010_
Memo_Transparency%20Websites(1).pdf.
Ibid.
3.Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act of 2006, 31 U.S.C. §6101 (2006).
4.
“Fact Sheet: Achieving Greater Transparency and
Accountability in Government” (2006), available at www.
fas.org/sgp/news/2006/09/wh092606-fs.html.
5.A.C.L. Davies, The Public Law of Government Contracts
(Oxford University Press, 2008): 125 (citing Steven
L. Schooner, “Desiderata: Objectives for a System of
Government Contract Law,” Public Policy Law Review
(2002): 107–110). See also Rick Grimm, “NIGP Clarifies
Contractor Program,” Government Procurement
(December 1, 2004) (“We strongly believe that
transparency is the basis for planning, soliciting,
evaluating, and awarding public contracts.”).
6.Schooner, ibid.
7.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid.
23.
Statement of Sen. John McCain, “The Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006: Hearing
Before the S. Subcomm. on Fed. Fin. Gov. Info. Fed.
Serv. and Int’l Security,” 109th Congress (July 18,
2006), available at http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/
index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_
ID=61c520b5-16b3-450b-94a8-a5d0adaf1473.
24.
Ibid. (Watchdog groups like the Citizens Against
Government Waste (CAGW) already track the most
egregious earmark spending—also known as “pork”
spending—authorized by Congress. Though informative,
the CAGW’s reports are limited in scope and not widely
known about outside of Washington, DC. The CAGW’s
2010 Congressional Book identified 9,129 “pork”
projects at a cost of $16.5 billion in fiscal year 2010. See
www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2010/#Requested_
by_only_one_chamber_of_Congress.
25.
152 Cong. Rec. S3213-01, S3239 (2006) (statement of
Sen. Tom Coburn).
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid.
“Transparency in Government” (August 1, 2010), available at
http://govpro.com/resource_center/procurement_reform/
government-transparency-201008-09/index.html (arguing
that procurement supports internal customers first and
acts secondly as stewards of the public’s tax dollars).
8.
See 31 U.S.C. §3553(a); 28 U.S.C. §1491(b). (In Federal
District Court, people within the “zone of interest” may bring
suit regarding the federal government, but it is doubtful that
a citizen not affiliated with a vendor who submitted a bid on
a government contract would meet the standing obligations.)
9.
The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (John Foley, Funk & Wagnalls,
1900): 5.
10.
Ibid.
11.
See, generally, www.whitehouse.gov/open/about/
policy; see also www.whitehouse.gov/omb/open
(the Office of Management and Budget’s “online
headquarters” for actions it has taken to help
facilitate President Obama’s Open Government
Directive throughout the federal government).
12.
20.Coburn, see note 14.
“Memorandum on Finding and Recapturing Improper
Payments,” 74 Federal Register 4685 (January 21, 2009),
available at www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/
transparencyandopengovernment.
13.
Sen. Coburn testified before the Senate Subcommittee
on Federal Financial Management, Government
Information, Federal Services, and International Security.
14.
Statements of Sen. Tom Coburn before the Senate
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, Federal Services, and
International Security, “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You:
S. 2590, ‘Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act of 2006’” (July 18, 2006).
28.Coburn, see note 14.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Statement of Sen. Barack Obama, “The Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006: Hearing
Before the S. Subcomm. on Fed. Fin. Gov. Info. Fed.
Serv. and Int’l Security,” 109th Congress (July 18,
2006), available at http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/
index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_
ID=61c520b5-16b3-450b-94a8-a5d0adaf1473.
31.
Ibid.
32.
Ibid.
Journal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
111
transparency for the ordinary citizen
33.
Ibid. Although not corroborated in personal interviews by
the author with General Services Administration officials,
the Transparency Act was allegedly also drafted, in part, in
response to Hurricane Katrina and the lack of transparency
for government contractors in providing responsive disaster
relief. (BNA’s Federal Contracting Report, “Government
Operations: Rebuilt Federal Data Site Designed to Enhance
Transparency, Promote Feedback” (July 7, 2009).
34.
Pub. L. 109-282, §2(a)(2).
35.
Ibid., at §2(a)(2)(A–F).
36.
Ibid., at §2(c)(4).
37.
Ibid., at §3.
38.
Ibid., at §2(c)(1).
39.
required. In addition, the newly launched FAPIIS serves as
the government’s central system for contracting officers
to review government contractors’ past performance.
50.
“Presidential Contenders Co-Sponsor Federal Spending Bill,”
Government Contractor (2008): 50.
51.
See Christopher R. Yukins, “The Gathering Winds Of Reform—
Congress Mandates Sweeping Transparency For Federal
Grants and Contracts,” Government Contractor
(2006): 48 (arguing that policymakers fail to address
the larger problem of how contracts are awarded).
52.
154 Cong. Rec. S4971 (2006). (Neither the bill nor the
original Transparency Act mentions the word “earmark” by
name, nor do they specify how USASpending.gov would
signify which federal awards were earmarks. The rhetoric
on eliminating earmarks in U.S. politics is extensive and
to an extent misleading. The argument presumes that
all earmarks are wasteful and that wasteful spending
must be the result of an earmark. Notwithstanding, the
bill enables citizens to objectively determine which
expenditures are a proper use of taxpayer dollars.)
53.
OMB, “Open Government Directive—Federal Spending
Transparency” (April 6, 2010) available at www.
whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/
open_gov/OpenGovernmentDirective_04062010.pdf.
Ibid., at §2(d)(1)–(2). (The sub-award data for the firsttier subcontractors deadline was amended and the data
was partially posted in late 2010. See below discussion
“Implementation Guidance Provided by OMB.”)
40.
Ibid., at §2(g).
41.
Military Construction, Veterans’ Affairs, and Related
Agencies Appropriations Bill of 2008 §6202(a), Pub. L.
110-252 (codified as amended 31 U.S.C. §6101 (2008)).
42.
Ibid.
54.
Ibid.
43.
S.3077, 110th Congress (2008).
55.
Ibid.
44.
Ibid.
56.
Ibid. (Currently, there are no requirements to
proffer more than first-tier sub-awards).
57.
Ibid., at 8.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Ibid., at 9.
60.
OMB, “Open Government Directive—Federal Spending
Transparency and Sub-award and Compensation
Data Reporting” (August 27, 2010), available at
www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/open/
Executive_Compensation_Reporting_08272010.pdf.
61.
Ibid.
62.
Ibid., at 8. (With the Recovery Act, all prime recipients are
already required to register and enter the sub-recipient
information into a separate website, FederalReporting.gov).
63.
Ibid., at 9.
45.It is noteworthy that the bill never moved beyond committee,
especially considering that after its announcement, the
lead sponsor, then-Sen. Obama, became the Democratic
nominee and eventual president. Furthermore, since
the Open Government Initiative is such a cornerstone
of the Obama administration’s domestic policy, some
version of the entire bill should have either become law
or have been included in an executive mandate. See
note 11. Theoretically, this bill should have become law
before Obama was even elected president because
one of the co-sponsors was Sen. McCain, who went
on to run as the Republican nominee for president
in 2008. Even with the support of prominent leaders
in both political parties, the bill never became law, in
spite of being referred to the Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs twice. See www.
govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-3077.
46.
47.
48.
“Sens. Obama, Coburn Introduce Strengthening Transparency,
Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008,” US Federal
News (June 4, 2008).
64.
Ibid.
“Obama and Coburn Shine Brighter Light on Government
Spending,” OMB Watch (June 10, 2008), available at
www.ombwatch.org/node/3716.
49.Requirements made in the other sections of the bill have
been addressed through other rules and modifications.
For example, the bill required in §2(a)(1)(E) that data on
USASpending should be made available for download
in a machine-readable format (such as XML), which
already existed on the site, but would now be codified as
112 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
“Requirements for Federal Funding Accountability and
Transparency Act Implementation,” 75 Fed. Reg. 5566301 (September 14, 2010) (to be codified at 2 C.F.R. 170).
65.
Ibid.
66.
Ibid.
67.
www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/fmlaAmended.htm.
68.60 Fed. Reg. 67933–68133 (November 17, 2008).
69.
CBO, “S. 2590: The Federal Funding Accountability and
Transparency Act of 2006” (August 9, 2006), available at
www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=7483&sequence=0.
transparency for the ordinary citizen
70.
Ibid.
71.Clearspending.org, http://sunlightfoundation.com/
clearspending/background.
72.
Ibid.
73.
Ibid.
74.
GAO, “Improvements Needed to the Federal Procurement
Data System-Next Generation” (GAO-05-960R)
(September 27, 2005): 1–2.
75.
“Upgrade of Procurement Data Systems Is Set to Begin,”
Set-Aside Alert (October 9, 2009).
75.
Ibid.
76.
Garrett Leigh Hatch, “The Federal Funding Accountability
and Transparency Act: Background, Overview, and
Implementation Issues”; Congressional Research
Service (RL 33680) (October 6, 2006): 9.
77.
78.
79.
Ibid. (This article is forced to omit discussing the third
database mentioned in the Transparency Act, Grants.
gov, since it is not a public database and thereby barred
from any sort of evaluation by secondary sources.)
“Web Site Lets Taxpayers Track How Their Money Is Spent,”
Federal Times (December 17, 2007): 5. (Unfortunately,
there is no easily accessible federal source—even online—
that cites the actual cost for launching USASpending, so
the figures cited are based on secondary sources.)
http://it.usaspending.gov/?q=content/
cost-summary&buscid=622.
80.For a critique of the integrity of data provided on the
IT Dashboard, see GAO, “Information Technology:
OMB’s Dashboard has Increased Transparency and
Oversight, Improvements Needed” (GAO-10-701) (2006),
available at www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-701.
81.
See http://sunlightfoundation.com/clearspending/
background/.
82.
See testimony of Adam Hughes, director of Federal
Fiscal Policy for OMB Watch; “Problems with Federal
Contracting Databases: Hearing Before S. Homeland
Security and Gov’t Affairs. Subcomm. on Contracting
Oversight on Problems” (September 29, 2009).
83.
were conducted, but they commenced after the
proscribed date in the Transparency Act.)
88.
Ibid.
89.
See http://usaspending.gov/sites/all/themes/
usaspendingv2/FFATA_Act_FY_2010_Annual_Report.
pdf. (It is interesting to note that the annual report
lists more data sources than the Transparency Act
provided, but omits Grants.gov as a data source.)
90.
Ibid.
91.
Ibid.
92.
Gautham Nagesh, “Addressing USASpending Problems”
(May 5, 2009), available at http://next.gov.com.
93.
Ibid.
94.
Ibid.
95.
Gautham Nagesh, “GSA Issues Presolicitation to Overhaul
Recovery.gov” (June 12, 2009), available
at http://next.gov.com.
96.Aliya Sternstein, “Senator Chides White House for Ignoring
Existing Transparency Laws” (March 24, 2010), available at
http://next.gov.com. (Arguably, the impetus for the Obama
administration to create a new website for the stimulus
rather than building on top of USASpending is that they
needed a fresh platform to work from to justify the out of
the ordinary spending that the stimulus required. Further,
after working with USASpending and seeing the difficulties
it had in aggregating data from all the different federal
agencies, it behooved the administration to create its
own flagship website and processes for tracking funds.)
97.
Ibid. (Sen. Coburn is not singling out the Obama
administration exclusively with these comments. He also
places a large amount of blame on the federal agencies
that are disregarding the law by failing to post information
on each grant and contract awarded. See Gautham Nagesh,
“Senator Questions Progress on Federal Spending Web Site”
(September 11, 2008), available at http://next.gov.com.)
98.
Robert Brodsky; “Subcontractor, Subgrantee Data Now
Available to the Public”; Government Executive (December 7,
2010); available at www.govexec.com.
99.
Ibid. (According to USASpending, all contracts with a
prime contract greater than $20 million should already be
reporting sub-recipient information, including executive
compensation. From October 1, 2010–March 1, 2011, if
the prime contract value is greater than $550,000, the
prime must report sub data and after March 1, 2011,
all awards exceeding $25,000 must report accordingly.
See www.usaspending.gov/sub-award-documents.)
100.
Ibid. (Lew is not the first person from the current
administration to blame the prior administration for the
tardiness of publicizing sub-award and sub-grant data.
Without more facts as to why that claim is continually made,
it is hard to evaluate its veracity. Sen. Coburn has made the
point that had more attention been paid to USASpending
and less on Recovery.gov, the subcontracting data might
have been available sooner to the public. Coupled with
the fact that the source databases were universally
considered non-credible and incomplete when the act was
Ibid. (It is surprising to learn that OMB Watch was
able to obtain a “more complete and accurate dataset
from Eagle Eye for a fee” then it was to get from the
government agency in charge of maintaining the data.)
84.Emily Long, “USAspending.gov Makeover Leaves Room for
Improvement” (May 24, 2010), available
at http://next.gov.com.
85.
GAO; “Electronic Government, Implementation of the Federal
Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006”
(GAO-10-751) (2006); available at www.gao.gov/new.items/
d10365.pdf.
86.
Ibid.
87.
Ibid., at 33. (The report said that OMB only partially
met the sub-award pilot program. Two pilot programs
Journal of Contract Management / Summer 2011
113
transparency for the ordinary citizen
enacted, it is hard to evaluate Lew’s contention beyond just
political posturing, but it is noteworthy to recognize it.)
101.
Brodsky, see note 98.
102.
Ibid.
103.Hughes, see note 82. (Hughes is an expert on federal
procurement websites, but his organization built the
prototype for USASpending, so his answer may be biased.)
104.
E-mail from Lalit Bajaj, GSA, to author (October 14, 2010)
(on file with author).
105.
See OMB, “Guidance on Data Submission under the
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act,”
(M-09-19) (June 1, 2009). (Arguably, the drafters of the
Transparency Act did not have the expertise to know how to
ensure that the data was accurate due to the questionable
data sources that feed into USASpending, which is why
it was left up to OMB to draft guidance memos.)
106.
Tom Shoop, “When $200,000 Becomes $200 Million:
The Limits of Federal Spending,” Government Executive
(July 27, 2010), available at www.govexec.com.
107.According to its website, the Sunlight Foundation provided
over $300,000 in grant money to OMB Watch to develop
Fedspending.org; the precursor to USASpending (http://
sunlightfoundation.com/clearspending/background).
108.
David Perera, “Sunlight Foundation Finds $1.3 Trillion Worth
of Inaccuracies in USASpending.gov,” Fierce Government IT
(September 9, 2010), available at www.fiercegovernmentit.com.
109.
Sean Reilly, “Study: Two-Thirds of USASpending.gov
Data Is Flawed,” Federal Times (September 8, 2010).
110.
Ibid.
empowers taxpayers, businesses, and other stakeholders
to question the federal government why so much money
was awarded to SRA without full and open competition.
118.
Ibid.
119.
Since the project was discussed in The Economist, it
is unlikely that it was part of a classified contract.
120.
The site is allegedly geared toward ordinary citizens.
Granted, the more any users know about the federal
procurement system, the better they will be able to utilize
the site, but to the extent that it is a requisite makes it
quite dissimilar from the ease of use of a site like Google.
121.
Similarly, when entering “SRA” into the query field,
users are forced to select SRA International, Inc.,
in order to retrieve the correct responses.
122.FedSpending.org has an online tutorial that makes
it much more user-friendly. USASpending has links
to webinars about sub-recipient data collection, but
those are geared more toward government employees
and contractors and less to the general public.
123.It has not been mentioned explicitly as an impetus
for the Transparency Act, but it is feasible that
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests will
decrease as a result of the increased transparency.
124.Hughes, see note 82.
125.
Press Release, “Sen. Carper Releases Administration
Response Regarding Cuts to Fund Promoting
Transparency and Accountability for Federal
Government” (May 24, 2011), available at www.carper.
senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases.
126.
According to Alexa.com, which provides unofficial
website traffic figures for popular websites, on
August 3, 2011, in the United States, USASpending
was ranked 121,704, www.gwu.edu was ranked
7,610, and whitehouse.gov was ranked 1,303).
127.
Ibid. at 104.
111.GAO-05-960R, see note 74, at 40.
112.
113.
Ibid.
“Mining Social Networks: Untangling the Social Web,”
Economist (September 14, 2010): at 75.
114.
Ibid.
115.
The Transparency Act only requires USASpending to publicize
data from fiscal year 2007 forward. SRA is a frequent
government contractor, as illustrated by the thousands
of contracts they have been awarded. With regards to
the federal dollar figures for SRA, it might be actually
accurate on USASpending. FederalSpending.org reports
SRA receiving almost $6 billion in federal awards and only
14,580 contracts, while on USASpending.gov—which should
have access to more data than a non-profit-run site—SRA is
listed as receiving over 24,097 contracts and $9.2 billion.
116.
With the push by OMB to include DUNS numbers (especially
for sub-recipients), USASpending might also need an option
to sort by DUNS numbers in addition to the NAICS codes or
find some other way to incorporate the DUNS info beyond
merely itemizing them with other pertinent information.
117.According to USASpending, SRA received almost 1,500
contracts, amounting to allegedly $400 million in federal
expenditures, which were characterized as “not competed”
or “non-competitive delivery order.” This sort of data
114 Summer 2011 / Journal of Contract Management
128.According to Alexa.com, USASpending’s website
traffic rank improved less than 20 percent
from December 2010 to August 2011.