Washington, DC - Yesterday, Congressman John F. Tierney (D-MA) sent the following letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag requesting that the Director exercise the OMB's authority to require agencies to collect information from all federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding recipients on all tiers of sub-awards. Currently, guidance does not require the disclosure of contractor and subcontractor data when stimulus money is funneled through states and localities.

After sending the letter, Tierney made the following statement, "The American people deserve to know how every penny funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is spent, regardless of whether it was handled by a local organization, contractor or sub-contractor. Additionally, states deserve clear and advance notification on these disclosure requirements so they can make necessary preparations. By issuing the guidance requested in this letter, the Office of Management and Budget would be accomplishing both these goals."

A copy of the letter which is supported by The Project on Government Oversight, U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG), OMB Watch, The A. Philip Randolph Institute, Common Cause, OPenTheGOvernment.org, Good Jobs First, Education Law Center, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and Mass PIRG, is below:

The Honorable Peter Orszag

Director

Office of Management and Budget

725 17th Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20503

Dear Director Orszag:

As further guidance is issued for federal agencies regarding the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (Public Law 111-5) the undersigned respectfully request that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) exercise the authority provided under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 to require federal agencies to collect information from all Federal ARRA funding recipients on all tiers of sub-awards.

As you know, on April 3, 2009, OMB issued the most recent in a series of guidance for implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Section 2.1 of the guidance states that "in limited circumstances, recovery funds will go from a federal agency to a State, and then to a local government or other local organization. In this case, the current reporting model will not track funds to subsequent recipients beyond these local governments or other organizations."

While it is positive that OMB goes on to reserve the right in the guidance to expand this reporting model in the future, it would seem exercising this right and requiring this level of reporting as early as possible would help entities prepare for the disclosures before projects begin and provide clarification for states as they begin investing in new infrastructure to track ARRA funds.

Further, such guidance would likely resolve any existing confusion over the current disclosure requirements for recovery funds which are transferred from a federal agency to a state and then local government or organization. It would also seem to support President Obama's commitment that use of recovery funds be transparent to the public.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to working with you to ensure all federal dollars spent on economic recovery continue to be subject to unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability.

                                                                   Sincerely,

Congressman John F. Tierney (D-MA) and  Reps. Jason Altmire (PA-04), Dan Burton (IN-05), Elijah Cummings (MD-07), Darrell E. Issa (CA-49) , Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10), David Loebsack (IA-02), James P. McGovern (MA-03), Joe Sestak (PA-07), Peter Welch (VT- at large)

CC: The Honorable Earl. E DeVaney,

       Chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Act Board

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