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Monday, June 27, 2011

Pierluisi Introduces Legislation to Make Federal Grant Information More Accessible to Public

Washington, DC-Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi has introduced bipartisan legislation to require the federal government to publish grant opportunities in an electronic format that is more user-friendly and better organized.

The legislation will require that, at the beginning of every fiscal year, each federal grant-making agency submit to the Office of Management and Budget a forecast of the federal grant solicitations it expects to issue during the year. The bill will also require the federal government to organize those grant opportunities by detailed subject area. Currently, grant opportunities are listed only by very broad subject area, which can be extremely time-consuming to search.

“Many agencies do not make available any type of ‘forecast’ of what grant solicitations they intend to issue for the coming year, leaving potential applicants with little advance notice of available grant funding. Other agencies—as well as the federally-run website Grants.gov—provide a long laundry list of grant opportunities by broad topics, but do not organize these opportunities more thematically to allow for easy searching,” said Pierluisi

Information about grants is currently available online at the Grants.gov website. The Resident Commissioner’s bill—the Federal Grant Solicitations Improvement Act—would make this website more accessible to grantees, like state government agencies, muncipalities and non-profit organizations.

“Congress recently banned congressionally-directed spending, known as earmarks, so now competitive grants have become even more important. Many organizations, local governments and other constituents of mine have expressed their frustration with the way the federal government publishes funding opportunities. This bill aims to correct certain deficiencies that my office has identified,” said Pierluisi.

The Resident Commissioner’s bill is cosponsored by Reps. Michael Grimm (R-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU).