Lafayette Reporter

The House of Representatives has approved the Grant Transparency Act, a bill cosponsored by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. The legislation will now proceed to the Senate for further consideration.

The Grant Transparency Act aims to provide more information to Americans applying for competitive grants about how selections are made. According to Kennedy, "The Grant Transparency Act would shed light on how the government chooses which Louisianians receive or don’t receive competitive grants. Now that the House has passed this critically important bill, I urge my Senate colleagues to do the same to bring clarity to the process."

Senator Cornyn, who introduced the bill, emphasized its importance: "Grant applicants often don’t have enough information to know why they are not awarded a competitive grant despite meeting all of the criteria. The Grant Transparency Act would require government agencies to shine a light on how they decide between applicants behind closed doors, and I urge my colleagues to support it."

The proposed legislation mandates that Notices of Funding Opportunities for competitive grants must include details about selection criteria, whether a weighted scoring method was used by the agency, and any other evaluation methods applied.

In addition to Kennedy and Cornyn, Senators John Thune from South Dakota, Gary Peters from Michigan, Raphael Warnock from Georgia, Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire, and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona have also cosponsored the bill.

Further details can be found in the full text of the bill.