U.S. Senators Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced the bipartisan Safeguarding the Transparency and Efficiency of Payments (STEP) Act, a bill that will continue to safeguard American tax dollars by building on the Senators’ Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019, which was signed into law in 2020.
Braun
This new bill would designate all new federal programs making more than $100 million in payments in any one fiscal year as “susceptible to significant improper payments” for their initial years of operation. It would also expand reporting requirements in an effort to combat and deter improper payments.
“For decades, Washington has wasted billions of dollars in payments that never should have been made,” Sen. Braun said. “More transparency and accountability should be required to prevent endless government waste that is bankrupting our country.”
This bipartisan legislation is based on recommendations from the Government Accountability Office. During an April 2023 hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro highlighted the importance of these changes to current law and the impact they would have on agencies’ ability to mitigate and recover improper payments more efficiently.
Click here to read the full text of the bill.