Number:        118-16
Date:             January 17, 2025

The President Signs H.R. 5536,
the “Grant Transparency Act of 2023”

On December 11, 2024, the President signed H.R. 5536, the “Grant Transparency Act of 2023” (Public Law 118-140).  Introduced by Representative Russell Fry, the House suspended the rules and passed the bill by voice vote on November 18, 2024.  The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent on December 3, 2024. 

The law contains the following provisions of interest to the Social Security Administration:

  • Requires each notice of funding opportunity 1 an agency issues for a competitive grant to include:

 

  • a description of any rating system and evaluation and selection criteria the agency uses to assess competitive grant applications;
  • a statement of whether the agency uses a weighted scoring method and a description of any such method that it uses for the grant, including the amount by which the agency weighs each criterion; and
  • any other qualitative or quantitative merit-based approach the agency uses to evaluate an application for the grant.
  • Requires the Office of Management and Budget, in coordination with the Executive department designated under 31 U.S.C. §6402(a)(1) 2, to develop grant application data elements to ensure common reporting by each agency with respect to

applications received in response to each agency’s notice of funding opportunity.

The law is effective 120 days after enactment.


1 ‘Notice of funding opportunity’ and other key terms are defined in section 2(a) of this new law.

2 The Executive department that administers the greatest number of programs under which Federal awards are issued in a calendar year.