Maine delegation supports proposal for grant database
Bangor Daily News
July 8, 2006
AUGUSTA - It's not often that conservatives and liberals agree on a bill before Congress, but a measure creating a public database of federal grants and contracts has gay rights critic Phyllis Schlafly and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force endorsing the measure, as is Maine's entire congressional delegation.
"It also has interesting co-sponsors," 1st District Rep. Tom Allen said, "I think, for some very different reasons."
Allen said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., wants the database because he thinks it will build public opposition to what he believes is excessive federal spending, while Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., supports the database because he believes it would bolster public confidence in the way tax dollars are being spent on programs to help people.
"It probably will be a little of both," he said. "A lot depends on your view of government in the first place. In America, openness is a virtue, and I think the more the public knows, the better off we will all be."
Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Oversight, said her committee will consider the Coburn proposal as early as this month. She said it is important legislation and should be approved by both branches.
"I support full transparency for government grants and contracts and have been working with Senator Coburn to refine his bill," Collins said. "The American people have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent."
The House unanimously passed a version of the legislation last month, but it is considerably watered down from the Coburn bill. The House bill creates a database of the estimated $300 billion a year in federal grants, which typically go to universities and nonprofit groups, but does not cover contracts.
Rep. Michael Michaud of Maine's 2nd District said the legislation needs to be broadened in scope, not narrowed, and hopes the Senate will improve the legislation during its deliberations.
"I think transparency in government is essential," he said, "but you have to go further than not only the contractors - you need to get to the subcontractors."
Michaud, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said he and other members of the panel were shocked to learn earlier this year of the scope of subcontracting. He said the Department of Veterans Affairs had contracted for medical transcription services only to find out the contractor had subcontracted for the work with a company in India.
"We need to be able to track everything," he said. "We would not have known about the subcontracting if the company had not threatened to release the medical records of 30,000 veterans on the Internet because they hadn't been paid."
Sen. Olympia Snowe said she has not read the original Coburn bill, but agrees with the thrust of the legislation. She said the broader the disclosure, the better.
"It makes sense," she said. "It creates transparency and accountability that will move us in the right direction of making sure that all federal contracts are accountable in the way they are handled."
Snowe said all of the information is already public information; it is a matter of putting all of the information into a database that is readily accessible to the public. She said the legislation is "feasible" and would be good public policy.
There have been efforts by private groups to build such a database, but they have not been successful because of the wide variety of formats used by the federal government. One byproduct of the legislation would be the standardization of electronic versions of grants and contracts across the federal government. Some agencies post some contracts and grants on their Web sites, but there is no governmentwide standard, and few are truly searchable.
Coburn's goal is a database where a person at home could type in "University of Maine," for example, and get a list of all grants from all federal agencies, or type in "Halliburton" and get a list of all contracts that company has with any federal agency.
While the legislation appears to have little opposition among lawmakers, it already has encountered resistance. Coburn attempted to add the measure to a lobbying reform bill earlier this year, but Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., killed the measure on a procedural vote.
Collins said her goal is a measure from her committee this year that can be considered by the full Senate and, she hopes, a conference committee with the House and getting it signed into law.
"It is an important bill and would help control government spending," she said.
