Lafayette Reporter

The Senate has passed the Grant Transparency Act, which now awaits consideration by the president. The bill, cosponsored by Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, aims to provide more transparency in the selection process for competitive government grants.

According to Kennedy, "Louisianians deserve to know how the government chooses competitive grant recipients." He urged the president to sign the act into law quickly so applicants can better understand how organizations access funding.

Senator Cornyn, who introduced the bill, emphasized that "Grant applicants often don’t have enough information to know why they are not awarded a competitive grant despite meeting all of the criteria." He added that the act would require agencies to disclose how they make decisions between applicants and called for swift presidential approval.

The proposed legislation mandates that Notices of Funding Opportunities for competitive grants include details about selection criteria and whether a weighted scoring method was used, among other evaluation approaches.

Other cosponsors of the bill include Senators John Thune, Gary Peters, Raphael Warnock, Maggie Hassan, and Kyrsten Sinema.

The full text of the bill is available online.