1. Federal Funding Accountability
& Transparency Act (FFATA)
Alyssa Dillon
North Park University
SBNM 5730

2. History
• Introduced on April 6, 2006 as S. 2590 by Tom Coburn, Barack
Obama, Tom Carper and John McCain.
• 43 others co-sponsored this bill (S. 2590, 2006).
• A “secret hold” was placed on this bill, which would have
prevented it from reaching the Senate floor. The secret of who
placed this hold went viral in the blog world until Sen. Stevens
finally admitted it was his hold (Koppel et al., 2006).
•The bill was passed by Senate on September 7, 2006 (S. 2590,
2006).

3. History
• Sister bill, H.R. 5060 was passed by the House, but it was
weaker so the Senate did not pass this bill.
•The House‟s awareness of this similar bill helped to expedite the
passing of S. 2590 (H.R. 5060, 2005).
• S. 2590 was introduced to the House on September 8,
2006 and was passed five days later (S. 2590, 2006).

4. Becoming a Law
President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on
September 26, 2006 – as seen in the photo below (S.
2590, 2006).

5. About FFATA
• This bill was signed to empower every American with the
ability to hold the government accountable for each spending
decision.
•This bill will increase transparency for the over $1 trillion in federal
awards (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2010).
• The Office of Management and Budget established a
centralized and accessible database (www.USASpending.gov) in
2007 to access this information.

6. About FFATA
To achieve greater transparency, the act requires the database to provide the following information
about each federal award:
• Name of entity receiving award
• Amount of award
• Type of award (e.g., grant, loan, contract)
• Agency funding award
• A North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code of the recipient or a Catalog of
Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number (where applicable)
• Program source
• Award title that describes the purpose of the funding
• Location of recipient
• City, state, congressional district, and country in which award performance primarily takes place
• Unique identifier for entity receiving award and of the parent entity of recipient, if one exists
• Any other information specified by OMB (Hatch, 2006).

7. Database Listing Example

8. Database Listing Example

9. Impact on Non Profit
Organizations
• FFATA requires information on federal awards (federal
financial assistance and expenditures) be made available
to the public via a single, searchable website.
• Federal awards include grants, loans, awards,
cooperative agreements and other forms of financial
assistance as well as contracts, subcontracts, purchase
orders, task orders, and delivery orders.

10. Impact on Non Profit
Organizations
• The centralized website allows for citizens and
watchdog groups to easily access information on federal
funding to non-profit organizations.
• Many organizations claim they do not receive any city,
state or federal funding (such as PAWS Chicago) and this
is a way to check these claims.

11. Impact on Non Profit
Organizations
• From the start this bill was widely supported by groups
such as PETA, Gun Owners of America and the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force (Hatch, 2006).
• Organizations such as these listed above supported this
bill as they wanted to encourage this public database that
would encourage transparency of federal funding and
support for non-profit organizations.

12. References
Hatch, G. (2006). The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act:
Background, Overview, and Implementation Issues. Retrieved from
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL33680.pdf.
H.R. 5060 (2005). Retrieved from http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR05060:@@@L&summ2=m&
Koppel et al. (2006). Sen. Stevens is „the secret senator.‟ CNN. Retrieved from
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/30/secret.senators/
S. 2590 (2006). Retrieved from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-
109s2590is/pdf/BILLS-109s2590is.pdf.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2010). Implementation of the Federal Funding
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. Retrieved from
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-365