June 19, 2009 —
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) seeks to create a greater
level of transparency and accountability regarding federal spending than ever seen before.
Organizations with a stake in transparency and accountability are well aware that all
award recipients must report certain information on a regular basis; that all awardgranting
agencies need to file plans and ongoing reports; and that the Recovery
Accountability and Transparency Board (Board) must provide a series of reports and
provide public access to substantial amounts of information on all ARRA awards and
award-granting agencies.
Because of the complexities of ARRA, stakeholders find it far more difficult to fully
grasp the large number of additional report, plan, public access, and other requirements
specific to recipients of particular ARRA awards (e.g., from the Department of
Transportation), to particular agencies managing ARRA award programs (e.g.,
Department of Defense reports to Congress regarding civil investigations), and to a wide
array of federal agencies with policy and oversight responsibilities for ARRA (e.g., the
president, the Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, and the Council of
Economic Advisers).
Further, stakeholders may not be completely aware of ARRA report, public access, and
other requirements concerning individual agency activities outside of ARRA awards. So,
for instance, the Secretary of Commerce is directed to submit a report to Congress “on
ways to improve the timeliness and coverage of data on trade in services . . . .”
The purpose of this document is to catalog this wide array of requirements specified by
ARRA for the benefit of the community of stakeholders in transparency and
accountability. Requirements (in the form of excerpts from ARRA) are organized in three
chapters, covering all ARRA awards and programs, individual agency ARRA awards and
programs, and agency efforts other than ARRA awards and programs. Each chapter’s
requirements are categorized by type, e.g., recipient reporting to agency, agency report to
Congress, GAO to Congress. Requirements are bolded. The document also includes
report, plan, and access requirements indicated by ARRA implementation guidance to
federal agencies published by the Office of Management and Budget on April 3, 2009.