Sponsors (36)
The bill makes CBO analyses more transparent and easier to scrutinize—improving accountability and public trust—but raises meaningful risks to proprietary inputs and individual privacy and will increase agency workload and costs.
Taxpayers, Members of Congress, state governments, federal employees, and nonprofits gain access to CBO models and underlying data, increasing transparency of cost estimates and enabling independent review of legislative scoring.
Researchers and independent analysts can replicate and validate CBO estimates, strengthening accountability and trust in fiscal analyses.
Members of the public, researchers, and watchdogs benefit from public availability of model updates, which promotes ongoing scrutiny and quicker identification of errors or biases in fiscal analyses.
Nonprofits, CBO partners, and federal employees risk disclosure of sensitive or proprietary information if detailed models and code are published, potentially jeopardizing partnerships and confidential inputs.
Taxpayers and federal employees may face higher costs because preparing, reviewing, and redacting materials for public release will increase CBO workload and could require additional funding or staff time.
Individuals' privacy could be endangered if publication of detailed models enables misuse of microdata or if redaction protections are insufficient, increasing the risk of privacy breaches.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires CBO to publish models, data routines, assumptions, and computational details used for legislative estimates, with protections for nondisclosable data.
Introduced January 24, 2025 by Warren Davidson · Last progress January 24, 2025
Requires the Congressional Budget Office to publish on its website the models, data-preparation routines, assumptions, programs, and other computational details used to produce cost, fiscal, social, or economic estimates of legislation, and to provide updates; sensitive or legally nondisclosable data are protected but CBO must publish variable lists, non-identifying descriptive statistics, the legal citation for nondisclosure, and contact information for entities with full access. The requirement takes effect six months after enactment.