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National Journal's Under the Influence

Friday, March 19, 2010 4:18 PM

All 17 government executive agencies have "made concrete changes" to their transparency standards since President Obama issued his Open Government Directive last December, according to Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform Norm Eisen, who spoke today in detail at the Building Transparency panel hosted by the Center for American Progress.

After Obama issued the directive along with others last year aimed at improving the Freedom of Information Act process, Eisen said agencies are beginning to create transparency plans in time for the April 7 deadline.

FOIA compliance, Eisen said, is where he has seen the most improvement. The Department of Agriculture put in tracking technologies for FOIA requests; the Department of Defense retrained over 500 persons involved in FOIA request processing; and the Federal bureau of Investigation has changed policy to comply with requests.

"And the list goes on, and on, and on," Eisen emphasized.

Objective data now released on government web sites show that 10,000 more FOIA requests were released in part or full over the last fiscal year and 10,000 more people had requests for information answered by the government.

"Requests from the public are down, so these numbers are even more remarkable," Eisen said, due to agencies "affirmatively releasing vast amounts of information" online.

Since Obama launched Data.gov, the site began in 2009 with 47 documents but currently catalogues 18,000.

"This reflects just six months or less of full implementation by president," Eisen said.

Obama is working to incorporate the chief financial agencies, expanding the primary 17 agencies to 25, an ambitious effort that panelist and Policy Director at the Sunlight Foundation John Wonderlich questioned.

"What I don't want to see happen to transparency is what happened to break dancing," Wonderlich said. "A brief commercial success that becomes not hip in 2012."

"I am confident that transparency won't be a passing fad," Eisen responded, citing that the agencies are in contract with themselves and have the authority to design a strategy that implements transparency, collaboration and participation with the administration.

"They will keep themselves honest," Eisen said. "If we have leadership guidance, adequate resources, oversight and measurable benchmarks, those are the ingredients of keeping us accountable."

Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Jim Harper, argued that while the administration is doing a good job creating a more open government, Obama has failed to follow through in his "sunlight before signing" promise, which stated that all bills would be posted online for five days before signed into law.

"I've been tracking it," said Harper, who found that Obama was 7 for 143 on the promise, or .049 in terms of batting averages. "Maybe it was a mistake to make a trackable promise," he added.

Eisen pointed to the realities of such a promise - that not all bills can wait five days and posting issues sometimes slow down a bill's publishing time. Yet, he contended, some bills are posted earlier than five days and the administration has made them easier to find on the site.

Both Harper and Wonderlich agreed that Obama has made "historic" steps to initiate more government transparency, referencing the now public White House visitor log, but Harper had another suggestion - disclosing of earmark data online - an idea mentioned in Obama State of the Union speech.

"It is still early to judge," Eisen said. "There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done."


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In an interview last week with The National Law Journal , when asked if he would stay through President Barack Obama's first term, Eisen would only say that "This is the most fascinating job I’ve ever had, this whole array of issues. Every day is an adventure. The portfolio of issues is extremely varied. So I’m having a great time. I love it every day." For more of that interview Solar Energy Training

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