34 U.S.C. § 11296 — Oversight and accountability

All grants awarded by the Department of Justice that are authorized under this subchapter must meet the following requirements: (1) Audit requirement For 2 fiscal years during the period from fiscal year 2014 through fiscal year 2023, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice must audit grant recipients under this subchapter to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse by the grantee. (2) Mandatory exclusion If a recipient of grant funds under this subchapter is found to have an unresolved audit finding, that entity is not eligible to receive grant funds under this subchapter during the 2 fiscal years beginning after the 12-month period described in paragraph (4). (3) Repayment of grant funds If an entity receives grant funds under this subchapter during the 2-fiscal-year period when the entity is barred from receiving grants under paragraph (2), the Attorney General must— (A) deposit an amount equal to the improperly awarded grant funds into the General Fund of the Treasury; and (B) seek to recover the repayment costs from the grant recipient that was erroneously awarded the grant funds. (4) Defined term In this section, “unresolved audit finding” means a finding in an audit report in the final report of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice that the grantee used grant funds for an unauthorized expenditure or another unallowable cost and that finding is not closed or resolved within the 12-month period beginning on the date the final audit report is issued. (5) Nonprofit organization^* requirements (A) Definition For this section and the grant programs described in this subchapter, “nonprofit,” when referring to an entity, means that the entity is described in section 501(c)(3) of title 26 and is exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of that title. (B) Prohibition The Attorney General may not award a grant under a grant program described in this subchapter to a nonprofit organization that holds money in offshore accounts to avoid paying the tax described in section 511(a) of title 26. (C) Disclosure Each nonprofit organization that receives a grant under this subchapter and uses the procedures prescribed in regulations under section 53.4958–6 of title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations to create a rebuttable presumption that compensation for its officers, directors, trustees, and key employees is reasonable must disclose to the Attorney General the process for determining that compensation. This disclosure must include the independent persons involved in reviewing and approving the compensation, the comparability data used, and contemporaneous substantiation of the deliberation and decision. Upon request, the Attorney General must make the information available for public inspection. (6) Conference expenditures (A) Limitation No amounts authorized to be appropriated under this subchapter may be used to host or support a conference expenditure that uses more than $20,000 unless the Deputy Attorney General, or the appropriate Assistant Attorney General, Director, or principal deputy director designated by the Deputy Attorney General, gives prior written authorization for the funds to be used to host the conference. (B) Written approval The written approval under subparagraph (A) must include a written estimate of all conference costs, including food and beverages, audio/visual equipment, speakers’ honoraria, and entertainment. (C) Report The Deputy Attorney General must submit an annual report to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on the Judiciary, and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about all conference expenditures approved under this paragraph. (7) Prohibition on lobbying activity (A) In general Amounts authorized to be appropriated under this subchapter may not be used by a grant recipient to— (i) lobby a Department of Justice representative about the award of grant funding; or (ii) lobby a representative of a Federal, State^*, local, or tribal government^* about the award of grant funding. (B) Penalty If the Attorney General determines that a recipient of a grant under this subchapter violated subparagraph (A), the Attorney General must— (i) require the grant recipient to repay the grant in full; and (ii) prohibit the grant recipient from receiving another grant under this subchapter for at least 5 years. (C) Clarification For this paragraph, submitting an application for a grant under this subchapter is not lobbying activity that violates subparagraph (A).