Expert says data on federal transparency site is wrong

Sunlight Foundation Executive Director Ellen miller will testify before the House Oversight Committee March 11. She plans to say that the majority of the data on a federal website intended to give the public transparency into the government's spending is wrong.

"Merely acknowledging the importance of transparency is no longer sufficient; transparency initiatives must now yield information that is accurate, complete and useful," Miller says in her prepared remarks . The hearing will examine success of the administration's open government and transparency initiatives. Sunlight issued a report last year that found 65 percent of the grant information on USASpending.gov, which provides data on federal grants and contracts, was incorrect. Sunlight Labs director Tom Lee said the group found more than $1.2 trillion in erroneous spending information for fiscal 2009 despite being "extremely generous" in terms of forgiving errors. He said early analysis of fiscal 2010 shows little has improved.