<<<Back to News Center 2010

Saturday, November 19, 2011

House Takes Step that Would Improve Puerto Rico’s Access to Federal Grants

Washington DC – This week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform unanimously approved a bill that will improve the federal grant-making process and that incorporates the main components of legislation introduced earlier this year by Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi.

The bill passed by the Committee is H.R. 3433, the Grant Reform and New Transparency (GRANT) Act of 2011. Pierluisi’s bill, H.R. 2393, the Federal Grant Solicitations Improvement Act of 2011, was introduced in June and has bipartisan support. Incorporated within the GRANT Act are the central features of the Resident Commissioner’s legislation. Specifically, the GRANT Act would strengthen the Grants.gov website—an existing central database of all available federal grants—by expanding the ways in which grant seekers can search the website for grant opportunities.

“Since Congress prohibited congressionally-directed spending, known as earmarks, competitive grants have become even more important. I have urged my colleagues to reform the manner in which the federal government publishes grant opportunities, based on the frustration I have heard expressed by non-profit organizations, municipal government officials and other constituents. My bill aims to correct certain deficiencies and I am pleased that the Committee has incorporated my proposals into the GRANT Act,” said the Resident Commissioner.

The GRANT Act also includes a provision from Pierluisi’s legislation that would require, at the beginning of each fiscal year, each federal agency to post on the Internet a forecast of all grant solicitations that the agency expects to issue during the year. This posting would allow non-profit organizations, local governments, and other potential grant applicants to identify in advance which grant opportunities they wish to pursue and to allocate appropriate resources to prepare applications for those grants.

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.

“Information about competitive grant opportunities can be difficult to find and to understand because federal agencies publish information in different formats. Many times it is not clear what grants are available and when they are available,” said Pierluisi.

Approximately 1,000 federal grants currently exist.

Since the Resident Commissioner introduced his legislation, he has been working with Congressman James Lankford (R-OK), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform, to design comprehensive grants reform legislation. The GRANT Act is the product of that collaboration. Pierluisi is the lead Democratic sponsor of this bill, which is also cosponsored by Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Subcommittee Members Patrick Meehan (R-PA) and Mike Kelly (R-PA).

“I thank Chairman Issa and Subcommittee Chairman Lankford for working with me to craft this important legislation. Competitive grants represent golden opportunities for organizations and local governments in Puerto Rico to obtain federal funding to pursue projects that will improve our communities. However, non-profits and local government leaders have expressed to me how difficult it is to find federal grant opportunities that match their needs, and that federal agencies often provide too little advance notice of available grant funds. In fact, it is not uncommon for grant-seekers to learn of available grant funds when the application deadline is only days away or has already passed. The bill that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed today would make it significantly easier to learn about grant opportunities, giving organizations and governments in Puerto Rico a granter ability to compete for these funds,” said Pierluisi.