II.6 Definitions

Several key terms within section ___.36 of Circular A-110 require clarification. The FY 1999 Omnibus Appropriations Act requires OMB to amend the Circular "to require federal awarding agencies to ensure that all data produced under an award will be made available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act." P.L. 105-277. OMB's proposed revision of Circular A-110 states that federal awarding agencies shall obtain requested data "within a reasonable time" so that the data can be made available to the public, if the data relate to "published research findings produced under an award that were used by the Federal Government in developing policy or rules."

Accordingly, CRE recommends that OMB specifically define certain key terms in section ___.36. These terms could be viewed as a list of elements, each of which must be satisfied in order to trigger the public disclosure provisions of the new data access law. This definitions subsection should include, at a minimum, definitions and/or an illustrative discussion of the following terms and phrases, which are taken from OMB's proposed revision:

-- "data"
-- "published research findings"
-- "produced under an award"
-- "used"
-- "developing policy or rules"

In addition to the above definitional prerequisites to disclosure, the revisions to A-110 should clarify in the definitions subsection (or another section) the meaning of "within a reasonable time", the period within which an awarding agency must obtain the requested data so they can be made available to the public. We discuss each of these terms below.