The US Office of Management and Budget restores public spending database after losing court cases
The US Office of Management and Budget restores public spending database after losing court cases

OMB restores public spending database after losing court cases

The Office of Management and Budget has restored a public website designed to track federal spending several months after it abruptly took the transparency database offline in what courts found was a violation of federal law.
OMB reenabled the government’s apportionments database and began adding new funding information to it last week after the Trump administration lost an appeal in a lawsuit filed by public transparency groups. The appellate judges agreed with a lower court ruling that found OMB was required to maintain the website under federal law, and that the March decision to disable it was illegal.
“There is no dispute that the government has a statutory duty to disclose apportionment data. That much is apparent from the face of the statutes,” D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Karen Henderson wrote in a statement accompanying the three-judge panel’s decision. Their ruling rejected the government’s argument that Congress cannot require OMB to disclose its apportionment decisions.