XBRL US sent a letter to key members of the 119th Congress to emphasize the importance of open data standards as a proven method to meet government efficiency goals. The letter, which was sent to Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Mike Crapo (R-ID), Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee French Hill (R-AK), and House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA), drew attention to several critical bills promulgated over the past several years.
The OPEN Government Data Act established agency roles and responsibilities to implement information transparency and availability, and defined terms like “machine-readable data” and “metadata”. The Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act of 2019 called for grant-related data to be submitted in machine-readable standardized data format. The Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA) calls for agency collaboration to establish common identifiers and open data standards for the collection of machine-readable, interoperable data.
The aim of these laws is to make data collected by regulatory bodies machine-understandable, more timely, easily accessible, and interoperable across datasets. And yet, these significant legislative efforts have not often been transformed into successful regulations.
Our letter urged Congress to encourage the regulatory agencies to meet the spirit of the laws set by Congress through the adoption of open, standardized data for regulatory collection. The payoff will be significant in terms of reducing the costs of IT support and software, collecting better quality, more timely data, and will provide regulators and the market better tools to take advantage of new technologies at lower cost.
Read the letter: XBRL US Letter - Open Data Standards for Government Efficiency
