Federal spending gets a sunlight requirement—finally.
H.R. 1387 — COST Act · Filed by Ralph Norman (R-SC) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires federal agencies and any organization receiving federal funds—including state and local governments, contractors, and research grant recipients—to clearly disclose in public statements, press releases, and bid documents what percentage and dollar amount of a program's cost comes from federal money versus other sources. The OMB must annually audit compliance and publish results; the public gets an anonymous reporting mechanism to flag violations.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a disclosure requirement—it mandates that federal agencies and federal-fund recipients publicly state the federal vs. non-federal cost split for programs they carry out. It is a transparency and accountability measure, not a spending authorization, tax provision, or regulatory carve-out.
What the text implies
- Disclosure requirement applies to state and local governments receiving federal funds, potentially creating compliance burden on municipal budgets and grant-funded projects at the local level.
- The 280-character exemption (e.g., social media posts) creates a loophole where brief announcements can omit federal-funding disclosure, potentially allowing selective transparency.
- OMB's annual random-sampling audit may not catch systematic non-compliance if the sample is small or if violations cluster in less-visible communications.
- Anonymous reporting mechanism could generate false or frivolous complaints, creating administrative burden on agencies to investigate and respond.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain transparency into how federal tax dollars are deployed across programs and projects. The disclosure requirement makes it harder for agencies and recipients to obscure federal funding or misrepresent the public's financial stake in a project, strengthening democratic accountability and informed public debate.
Named in the bill
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Executive agencies, Independent regulatory agencies, State and local governments, Federal research grant recipients
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 3 Republicans.
- Feb 14, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 14, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,903 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal spending gets a sunlight requirement—finally.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1387 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.