1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Fair and Clear Campaign Transparency Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) On May 9, 2013, President Barack Obama issued an Executive order that made open and machine-readable data the new default for Government information. (2) Open data principles are essential for transparency and efficiency in government. (3) In 2012, the Federal Communications Commission required television broadcast stations to place on the Internet website of the Commission certain materials in the files such stations are required to maintain and make available for public inspection, including important information about the purchasing of political advertisements. In 2016, the Commission extended the online public inspection file requirement to providers of cable and satellite television service, radio broadcast stations, and providers of satellite radio service. (4) The Commission declined to require such materials to be machine-readable, deciding at the time that it was more important to get the information online faster. (5) Machine readability is a critical component of open government and provides interested parties with the necessary access to evaluate data in a more comprehensive way. 3. Material in online public inspection file required to be in machine-readable format (a) Regulations Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall promulgate regulations that require a covered entity, to the extent such entity is required to make material in the public inspection file of such entity available on, or upload such material to, an Internet website, to make such material available or upload such material in a format that is machine-readable. (b) Applicability The regulations promulgated under subsection (a) shall apply— (1) to a covered entity for which an online public inspection file requirement is in effect on the date of the promulgation of such regulations— (A) with respect to the political file portion of the public inspection