Methodology

The data covers nearly 90 programs. These programs were matched with the programs covered in scope on the Climate Program Portal, though do not represent all of the programs tracked in Climate Program Portal given challenges in matching programs across the two datasets. The data here covers awards starting from the federal government fiscal year 2022 through the present. This data only covers prime awards and so does not include subaward data, i.e. where a recipient subcontracts with a party to deliver part of an award.

For most programs, the program listed refers to the program Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) designation from USASpending, however, in two instances (the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure program and the Carbon Reduction Program), it refers to Program Activities within a larger CFDA. The programs here are a selection of those tracked on the Climate Program Portal and have important climate impacts. Some programs may be listed with other programs for an award by USASpending, if that is the case it will be marked in the Summary Table, but the first award listed will be the one to show in the program summary table.

Some awards in the USA Spending data are associated with multiple CFDA program titles but have only one Obligated and Outlayed amount. In the Funding by Program chart, that full amount is displayed under each associated program, which can result in double counting in data exports; to avoid confusion, data export has been disabled for this visual.

Place of performance refers to “the principal place of business, where the majority of the work of an award is performed. For example, in a manufacturing contract, this would be the main plant where items are produced.” Note: the primary place of performance may not capture the extent of the impact of that funding. Where the place of performance is across multiple congressional districts, that is represented in this data as state-wide investment. Where there are multiple states, that is represented as multi-state. Place of performance is distinct from the recipient location.

The Funding by City and County visual includes only projects that are scoped at the city‑wide or county‑wide level. Projects that are scoped at a national, multi‑state, or state‑wide level and cannot be attributed to a single city or county are excluded (e.g., the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund).

There are three statuses for funding:

  • Obligated refers to a legal commitment from the federal government to spend money.
  • Outlayed refers to actual disbursement of funds—money that has been paid out by the federal government.
  • Loan face value refers to the loan value and not the cost of the loan to the federal government. The cost of the loan also appears in the summary table however.

The funding outlayed KPI refers to the total outlayed over the total obligated.

Per USASpending, a negative obligation in the data refers to instances “when agencies decrease previous obligations to correct errors or to reflect new information. A de-obligation may beissued when the price of a project was lower than expected.” Where an outlay total is greater than the obligated total, it likely refers to funding obligated in prior fiscal years.

The data is sourced from USASpending. “USAspending is the official open data source of federal spending information, including information about federal awards such as contracts, grants, and loans.” Source.

The dashboard data is refreshed on a weekly basis and relies on USASpending. Per USASpending, “[t]he data on USAspending.gov are updated every day after the nightly data pipeline runs. However, USAspending source systems have different requirements for the frequency of their data updates.”

USASpending notes the rapid turnaround from when a contract is signed, “[f]ederal agencies must submit contract data … within three days of the award transaction. The day after submission, these data are made available to USAspending.gov. On the following day, these data are automatically published on USAspending.gov.”

For award transactions, “Federal agencies are required to submit reports on awards transactions within 30 days after transactions are implemented.”

In the case that the award is canceled by the funding agency or the recipient otherwise does not receive the award, the funding will no longer be outlayed. In some instances, the obligation will be zeroed out but this is not always clearly or immediately marked in USASpending.

Project status is determined using the start date and end date of a project’s period of performance. Per USASpending, “the start date marks when the awarded recipient’s work begins or when the award is otherwise effective” and “the end date marks the end of the award’s period of performance, when the recipient will finish its work or the award will otherwise end.”

There are three statuses for projects:

In Progress: The current date is prior to the reported period of performance end date.

Complete: The reported period of performance end date has passed, indicating the authorized work period has concluded.

Since the cancellations of obligated grants, we have been tracking changes to the period of performance end dates that trigger a status change from “In Progress” to “Complete.” In most cases, a project is complete when the original project end date has passed and all the money has been spent. In other cases, projects may be marked as complete if their end dates were moved up and the project was prematurely canceled.

No End Date: The project has a start date but no reported end date for the period of performance.

Thanks to the team at the National Policy Consensus Center at Portland State University for their input and their CFDA data sharing.