HR5536-118

Passed House

To require transparency in notices of funding opportunity, and for other purposes.

118th Congress Introduced Sep 18, 2023

Legislative Progress

Passed House
Introduced Committee Passed
Nov 19, 2024

Received; read twice and placed on the calendar

Nov 19, 2024 (inferred)

Passed House (inferred from eh version)

Sep 18, 2023

Mr. Fry (for himself, Ms. Crockett, Mr. Norman, Mr. Finstad, …

Summary

What This Bill Does

Requires all federal agency notices of funding opportunity for competitive grants to include detailed descriptions of evaluation criteria, rating systems, weighted scoring methods, and any other qualitative factors used in selection decisions.

Who Benefits and How

Grant applicants gain transparency into how applications are evaluated. Nonprofits, researchers, and state/local governments can better tailor applications. Competition becomes more fair and predictable.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Federal agencies must document and publish their evaluation processes. Administrative burden of standardizing and disclosing rating systems.

Key Provisions

  • Must disclose rating system and evaluation criteria
  • Must disclose whether weighted scoring is used and weights for each criterion
  • Must disclose any other qualitative factors affecting selection
  • Applies to all competitive grants across all agencies (except GAO)
Model: claude-opus-4
Generated: Jan 9, 2026 15:09

Evidence Chain:

This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.

Primary Purpose

Requires federal agencies to disclose grant evaluation criteria and rating systems in funding opportunity notices

Policy Domains

Government Transparency Grant Programs Administrative Policy

Legislative Strategy

"Level playing field for grant applicants through transparency"

Bill Structure & Actor Mappings

Who is "The Secretary" in each section?

Domains
Government Transparency Grant Programs

Key Definitions

Terms defined in this bill

1 term
"rating system" §2(a)

System of evaluation including merit criteria rubric, point scale methodology, and selection criteria evaluation

We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.

Learn more about our methodology