Should Federal Agencies’ Legal Settlements be Posted Online? (H.R. 995)

What is H.R. 995?

(Updated September 2, 2019)

This bill would require the publication of settlement agreements that executive agencies enter into. The text of these agreements would be posted online, with a copy of the agreement, the names of the parties involved, a description of the claims settled, the amount to be paid and to whom it was paid, the length of the agreement, and how the agreement came about. Additionally, federal agencies would be required to report on any confidentiality agreements and the reasoning for that arrangement.

Argument in favor

As a matter of transparency, information about federal agencies’ settlements should be available online. This would bolster accountability, ensure that interested parties can find this information, and serve to organize this information in a central repository.

Argument opposed

The two sources of funds for paying federal agencies’ settlements — the Judgement Fund and agencies’ respective budgets — are publicly available, so interested parties can already find agency settlement information if they know where to look.

Impact

Settlements; federal agencies; and parties in settlement agreements.

Cost of H.R. 995

When this bill was introduced last Congress, the CBO estimated that enacting it wouldn’t have a significant effect on the federal budget because most of the required information is already collected during the settlement process, and the cost of making it available online wouldn’t be significant.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) introduced this bill to promote transparency about settlements paid out by the federal government.

A federal fund run out of the Treasury Dept., known as the Judgment Fund, distributes billions annually — including over $4.3 billion in FY 2016, the most recent year for which data is available — to pay financial judgments and awards against the U.S. government on a range of issues. However, while Treasury publishes a yearly report to Congress listing hundreds of payments made through the fund, the report doesn’t include detailed information about the precise reason for each payment.

Additionally, while the Judgment Fund’s payments are publicly searchable on the Treasury website, it isn’t the only source of funds to pay settlements, as agencies may only ask for payment from the Judgment Fund if funds aren’t available from their own appropriations. As a result, any judgments agencies pay for using their appropriations aren’t included in the Judgment Fund’s records.

Republicans have attacked the Judgment Fund as an “unchecked slush fund,” especially after the Obama administration suggested it could be used to make payments promised to insurers under Obamacare after Republicans moved to stop the money from coming out of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHS) budget.

This bill has no cosponsors in the current Congress. Last Congress, this bill passed the House by voice vote without any cosponsors.

Media:

• CBO Cost Estimate (115th Congress)

• Politico (Context)