The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee favorably reported a number of transparency related bills at a markup earlier today. The bills, including several that Sunlight has strongly supported in the past, were all approved with overwhelming bipartisan support.

In addition to FOIA reform legislation recently introduced by Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the committee moved bills that would bolster the Government Accountability office, improve access to information, and shed light on a unique type of political influence.

We are particularly happy to see that the Federal Advisory Committee Reform Act, which tackles reforms that Sunlight has advocated for, is moving forward. Additionally, Sunlight recently sent a letter in support of the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act, calling it a "measured response to a discrete problem."

We hope that the broad bipartisan support these bills received in committee will translate to swift passage by the full House.

You can follow their progress, along with that of a number of other transparency bills, through Scout, our legislative tracking tool.

Photo Credit: RepublicanConference on Flickr.

Tomorrow the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act will get its turn in the spotlight. The legislation, which would require reports from agencies to Congress be available online on a single website, is set for a mark-up before the Committee on House Administration. The bipartisan bill was already favorably reported by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in June 2011, but must pass another hurdle before going to the House floor. It enjoys widespread support from members of the transparency community.

The bill fixes a problem that has bedeviled Congress and watchdogs for years. Federal agencies are required to submit reports to Congress, but they often fail to do so, and even reports that have been submitted often cannot be found on agency websites or congressional webpages. This makes oversight incredibly difficult.

ACMRA solves these problems by requiring that all congressionally mandated reports be sent to GPO, which would then publish them online on a single website. (The House Clerk already compiles a master list of the reports that must be filed.) Centralization publication will make the reports easy to find -- and it would become a trivial task to identify when agencies have failed to file on time. The reports must be submitted in open formats and can be downloaded in bulk, so they are easy to open and analyze. In limited circumstances, some of the contents of the reports can be redacted for national security or other reasons, but only if the redaction is permissible under FOIA. It's also worth noting that GPO says that the costs of implementing the legislation are not significant and would be borne by the agency.

Rep. Mike Quigley introduced the legislation and spearheaded efforts to get it enacted in the House. He is now joined by 17 co-sponsors. Senator Lieberman introduced a companion measure in the Senate, which is cosponsored by Senators Collins and Coburn.

A favorable report by the Committee on House Administration could set the stage for quick passage in the House and a hearing in the Senate. CHA has supported a number of other open government measures, so it is hoped that the legislation will meet quick approval.

In anticipation of a House vote, today a major transparency bill was posted online for public comment by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (i.e. the DATA Act) is landmark legislation that would transform how taxpayers and watchdogs monitor how public money is spent. The Committee published a draft manager's amendment, which is the text of the bill likely to be considered on the floor.

The DATA Act creates an independent board responsible for publishing and monitoring federal spending, and establishes consistent government-wide financial data reporting standards. As we've noted in our Clearspending reports, the federal government currently does a poor job of tracking and releasing spending data, and the DATA Act would make a major difference.

Ten organizations (including Sunlight) wrote in support of the DATA Act last June, but at the time we had a few concerns. At first glance, they have all been addressed.

We commend Chairman Issa for publishing the draft legislation on the committee's website for public comment. Using its Madison platform, everyone can see each others comments. This is a smart move towards a fascinating model of collaborative legislating.

We will have more to say in the upcoming days regarding the DATA Act. For now, we commend the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for undertaking such a sustained effort to create this landmark transparency legislation and we hope it will be speedily considered by the House of Representatives. Having already garnered bipartisan support, and with companion legislation in the Senate introduced by Senator Warner, we hope it is on its way to becoming law.

Legislation that would require copies of congressionally mandated reports to be published online by GPO cleared a major hurdle when it unanimously passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at a business meeting on Wednesday. The "Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act," introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley and joined by 12 co-sponsors, will now advance to the floor of the House of Representatives.

The ACRMA will, for the first time ever, gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place online. It requires that the reports be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. It also makes it possible to determine when agencies have failed to submit reports to congress in a timely fashion as required by law.

Rep. Quigley has championed the transparency measure since he introduced it in May. Chairman Issa praised the legislation during the hearing, saying that "this is the kind of legislation we should work on." Ranking member Cummings agreed that this bill is a commonsense measure that everyone should support. Hopefully, this bipartisan support will lead to quick action by the House of Representatives.