Congress demands the Fed show its spending—and research priorities.

What it does

This bill requires the Federal Reserve to publish detailed breakdowns in its annual report showing how much money and staff it spends on specific functions—supervision, legal work, payments processing, research, and international coordination—for each of its 12 regional banks. It also requires disclosure of the Fed's top three research priorities and spending on each rule or policy the Fed proposed or finalized. The requirement takes effect two years after enactment.

Why we flagged it

The bill's sole operative mechanism is to expand mandatory disclosure requirements for a federal agency's annual report. It does not change the Fed's powers, structure, or policy—only what it must publicly report about its spending and priorities.

What the text implies

• Disclosure of research priorities and spending per rule/policy may expose internal Fed disagreements or reveal which regulatory initiatives consume the most resources, potentially inviting political pressure on specific programs.
• Itemization by regional bank may highlight disparities in spending and staffing across the 12 Federal Reserve districts, raising questions about resource allocation and regional economic priorities.

The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.

Who it affects

Citizens and their elected representatives gain concrete visibility into how the Federal Reserve—a powerful, semi-independent agency that sets monetary policy and regulates banks—allocates its $8+ billion annual budget and staff. Transparency over government spending and priorities is a foundational democratic good, and the Fed's operations have historically been opaque to public scrutiny.