Congressman Farenthold’s Statement on the Passage of the OPEN Government Data Act

The OPEN Government Data Act passed the House yesterday. It was included as part of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act.

The Open, Electronic, and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act will ensure that federal data can be used by individuals, organizations, and other government organizations by establishing an open-by-default standard. This will require the data be available in a machine-readable format to make it easily searchable and accessible.

Taxpayers are already paying for this data, so they should be able to use it. This legislation allows for people to use public data in new innovative ways. I look forward to seeing new inventions that will come from this important data being public.

H.R. 4174 passed the House by voice vote