Editor's Note: An EPA spokesperson later reached out to Federal Times to confirm that the agency had met its DATA Act reporting deadline.
As the first public agency spending reports begin under the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, House Oversight Committee members want the make sure the law's promise doesn't get stuck in neutral.
Committee chair Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and several subcommittee leaders penned a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking for him to address agency hurdles that could hamstring the law's intention right out of the gate.
"While there is strong reason to be optimistic that the DATA Act can and will achieve its goals, there are ongoing implementation challenges that threaten its success," the letter said.
At issue is an April 28 Government Accountability Office report that said longstanding problems with accounting practices, financial management and information technology systems could impact could negatively impact the data agencies submit as required by the DATA Act.
The report called on the Office of Management and Budget director to advise the newly minted Data Standards Committee, tasked with clarifying data element definitions, to make its findings open to the public.
DATA Act implementation has, at times, been a rocky process for agencies to embrace, as another recent GAO report detailedthat the Departments of Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency would likely miss the May 9 reporting deadline. Officials at the EPA have recently confirmed that the agency did meet the reporting deadline.
"For example, 11 of the 16 large agencies that conducted readiness reviews had technology issues, including challenges with developing and submitting required files, integrating multiple existing and disparate financial and management systems, or needing to install new systems or modify existing systems to implement the DATA Act," the Oversight letter said.
The Oversight Committee called on Mnuchin and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to implement five previously issued recommendations from the GAO to improve DATA Act adoption, including:
- dir="ltr">Establish a set of clear policies and processes for developing and maintaining data standards that are consistent with leading practices for data governance.
- dir="ltr">Accelerate efforts to determine how best to merge DATA Act purposes and requirements to produce a federal program inventory.
- dir="ltr">Provide agencies with additional guidance to address potential clarity, consistency or quality issues with the definitions for specific data elements including Award Description and Primary Place of Performance, and that they clearly document and communicate these actions to agencies providing this data as well as to end-users.
- dir="ltr">Establish or leverage processes to determine the complete population of agencies that are required to report spending data under the DATA Act.
- dir="ltr">Establish mechanisms to assess the results of independent audits and reviews of agencies' compliance with the DATA Act requirements, including those of agency inspectors general, to help inform full implementation of the act's requirements across government.
OMB generally concurred with the GAO recommendations laid out in the report, but the Oversight Committee’s letter now requires the agencies to provide their action on the recommendations to date and a timeline for when they will fully address the recommendations, which must be submitted by 5 p.m. on May 22.
The DATA Act requires federal agencies to begin reporting their spending data in a standardized format on May 9.
