This Tuesday, there will be hearing on budgets for the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office. It's too bad that the public won't have a real opportunity to learn about these important agencies, as the meeting is not expected to be webcast by the committee, and (if I remember correctly) the hearing room is so tiny that few if any members of the public will be able to attend.

That's too bad, especially because this is the first opportunity to hear firsthand how last year's budget cuts have affected agencies' abilities to do their jobs, and learn about agency and congressional priorities for the upcoming year. It's also the first time we'll hear from the new acting Public Printer  (the head of GPO); and perhaps the newly appointed head of the Congressional Research Service will be presented and introduced by the Librarian of Congress.

Only the House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Committees regularly hold annual public hearings on the workings of these agencies; the oversight committees (Committee on House Administration and Senate Rules) generally do not, and the Joint Committee on the Library and Joint Committee on Printing no longer holds substantive meetings in public.

The new House rules require that all committees provide "audio and video coverage of each hearing or meeting" that "allows the public to easily listen ... and view the proceedings" "to the maximum extent practicable." All of the House committees have at least one hearing room that is equipped with a camera, and the House Recording Studio will provide a camera upon a committee's request. Unfortunately, this hearing is being held in a room without a camera, and I've been informed that the Committee has not requested one. The Appropriations Committee has not scheduled any other hearings for Tuesday, so the room with the pre-positioned camera should be available.

We ran into this problem last year, when the Committee's justification for holding the meeting in the same  tiny, camera-less room (HT-2) was that it was more convenient to hold the hearing in the Capitol than in one of the legislative buildings. Even if convenience were more important than  the public access rule, the House Recording Studio could still provide a camera, and there are rooms in the newly constructed $600+ million Capitol Visitor Center (i.e. in the Capitol) that already have cameras installed. We would send a video crew ourselves, but only organizations accredited by the House Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery can ask permission from the Committee to record the event, and the Sunlight Foundation doesn't qualify for membership.

Another change from last year is that members of the public are not invited to speak at the hearing, although they may submit written comments. Along with several others, I took the opportunity to speak last year, where I called for bulk access to THOMAS data and public access to CRS reports. I will submit comments for the record, but written comments are much less effective than speaking directly to the Members of Congress. It's too bad, especially because one of the major lessons of last Thursday's House Legislative Data and Transparency Conference  is that the Library of Congress and GPO have apparently been ignoring their legal obligation to make progress on public access to bulk data. Ironically, it was this very Committee that imposed the obligation upon them in the first place, 3 years ago.

As with everything in Congress, things could still change for Tuesday's hearing -- its time, date, location, and whether it will webcast or covered by the media. I plan on attending, and if I can make it into the room, I'll post an update.

by policy intern Eric Dunn

Budget transparency for the state of California is the subject of California Common Sense, a new website launched by Stanford University students and alumni. It includes reports and transparency tools that dig into the California budget and open data up to the public. Sunlight recently highlighted similar efforts in Minnesota and Oregon.

One of the tools available through CACS explores budget expenditures. This feature lets voters click on an issue area (like K-12 education) to see which agencies are spending money on that issue broken down by expenditure type.

Tools developed by third-party entities, like CACS, can help make the budget process at the state level more transparent. CACS is also circulating an online petition to Governor Jerry Brown that requests that more information about the budget be made available to the public.

Congress will shed significant legislative capacity if the budget bill approved earlier today by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch becomes law. The legislative branch faces a $227 million (or 6.39%) cut from FY 2011, with the brunt borne by GPO (16% cut) and the Library of Congress (8% cut). These two entities have significant responsibilities for making government information available to the public.

It's likely that there will be fewer congressional staff (or they will earn less money) if the $84 million (or 6.46%) cut to the House of Representatives goes through. Added to the FY 2010 budget, money for the House of Representatives has decreased by 10.4% in two years, making it more likely that competent staff will leave Congress for greener pastures with lobbying firms and think tanks.

The bill also includes an unfortunate provision that prevents the Library of Congress from publishing (or preparing for publication) any publication without prior approval. As I testified previously, this provision has been twisted by CRS into a justification for not releasing its reports to the public. A coalition of organizations wrote a letter to appropriators in April that asked them to refrain from including that provision in this year's bill. (More on CRS's future here).

The legislation still need to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee, the Senate, and signed by the president.

In a fiscal climate where every penny counts, the rough equivalent of one-quarter of this year's federal budget went to tax breaks known as “tax expenditures,” amounting to around 1 trillion dollars. Compared to traditional government spending through contracts and grants, tax expenditures are harder to track, subject to less congressional oversight, and caught up in ideological debates over definitions.

The Advisory Committee on Transparency's panel of experts will explore the trillion dollar question of how tax expenditures fit into the overall budget process. Confirmed panelists include:

• William Beach, Director, Center for Data Analysis, the Heritage Foundation
• Robert Carroll, Principal, Ernst & Young's Quantitative Economics and Statistics Group; former Vice President for Economic Policy at the Tax Foundation; former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Office of Tax Policy, Treasury Department
• Thomas Hungerford, Specialist in Public Finance, Congressional Research Service*
• Lori Metcalf, Project Manager, SubsidyScope, The Pew Charitable Trusts
• The Honorable Mike Quigley, Fifth District of Illinois
• Daniel Schuman, Moderator, Policy Counsel, The Sunlight Foundation
• Eric Toder, Institute Fellow, the Urban Institute; Director, Office of Research, IRS (2001-04); Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Treasury Department (93-96); Deputy Assistant Director for Tax Analysis, CBO (84-91); Financial economist and deputy director, Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury Department (76-84)

The discussion will take place on Monday, June 13th, at 2pm, in Rayburn 2203.

All are welcome. RSVP here.

(cross-posted at the Advisory Committee on Transparency's website.)

*for identification purposes only

Well, here we are.

Details of the budget deal negotiated last week have finally been posted online, and e-government programs are likely to be deeply cut. The bill will come to a vote in the next few days, and will likely become law, since it represents an agreement reached by congressional negotiators and the White House.

What the agreement is, however, we don't actually know.

Only this morning, three days after the deal was reached, are we seeing the full legislation that Congressional leaders and the White House have already agreed to. And we still don't know what else was agreed to -- hearings, scheduling Senate or House votes, etc. Reid, Boehner, and Obama should all be asked what terms of their agreement are that are outside this new bill.

The urgent need to fund the government (funding expires again this Friday at midnight) will again force Congress's hand, and the bill is unlikely to get a full 72 hours online as Speaker Boehner repeatedly pledged throughout last summer. Though no one, at this point, would advocate shutting down the government in order to give a bill three days online. Especially when an agreement has already been reached, the details have been locked in, and the emergency of a shutdown is looming.

This week's rushed and hollow congressional proceedings, as disappointing as they are, are really a natural extension of the budget negotiations train wreck we've been watching for years. The rank and file members of both the House and Senate have handed power to the Speaker and Majority Leader, a situation only made worse by last year's lack of a budget, and the ideologically charged brinksmanship that is characteristic of a budget fight played out during a divided government.

A very small number of political leaders have ended up with startling control over the country's priorities, and the public has been left piecing together what is happening well after it's been decided. The proverbial "table" of viable options ("on the table," "off the table") has somehow ended up in the back room.

Glimpses of the budget negotiations have been visible in the press, but those details tend to be the obvious theater of base appeasement. Boehner denies there's a deal; anonymous Obama staffers paint the President as both tough-as-nails and as a great convener; and Reid accuses Boehner of reneging. In other words, we get whatever they want us to hear.

If we continue to accept this manner of negotiations as standard operating procedure, this is what we're going to get, for the 2012 budget, the debt ceiling, and probably everything else. While it's difficult to force all of any negotiation to be public, we've got to be able to do better than this. Is it really the same President who once promised healthcare negotiations would be on C-SPAN that is now enforcing gag orders and non-disclosure agreements on the most far-reaching of public policies?

The same politicians that decried last year's legislative initiatives as too sweeping, too secretive, or "rammed through" have negotiated a package that amends all of those initiatives, in private. Congress is left as an antiquated afterthought, a bygone conclusion, a formality.

The White House has been just as bad. The Federal Employees' union had to use FOIA and then sue to try to get access to OMB's contingency plans for a shutdown, which were treated as political documents, rather than management documents vital to the operations of a vast bureaucracy. And OMB guidance advised senior staff to repeat that this was all part of "winning the future," -- the most base example of vapid ideology winning out over merit and substance.

And now we're left with the electronic government fund, once at $34 million, now reduced to $8 million. Is that sufficient? Will USASpending, the ITDashboard, or Data.gov continue to function? The real shame here is that we don't even know. Nobody does.

Vivek Kundra, speaking just now in a Senate hearing, said (paraphrased) that they're in the process of reassessing priorities, and it's unclear what will change.

So the signature sites of the Obama transparency initiative have been cut by a deal that the Obama administration agreed to, and they don't even know how those sites will be affected. If Vivek Kundra doesn't know, you can be sure that appropriators don't, and that the "negotiators" striking this deal were utterly unaware of the consequences of their "agreement."

The electronic government fund deserves a public hearing of its merits, as do all public policies.

If nobody demands better from our leaders, this will be the best we're going to get.

Divided government should mean that we get to see the strengths of each branch played off each other, creating accountability. If a few party leaders are allowed to play Congress and make their own decisions, public accountability gets manipulated, and collaboration gets replaced by collusion.

As Americans watch their lawmakers bicker and pontificate on how to fix the budget, we thought it would be helpful to gather some of the possible services that would slow or stall if the government shuts down. Of course, 'shutdown' isn't a wholly accurate term, as many vital government services will continue to function and the United States will not become an anarchy overnight. As the final and frantic negotiations take place on the Hill, government offices are quietly prepping for the shutdown that would start after midnight this Friday. We will not know the specifics for this shutdown until each agency releases their individual updated plans, which the American Federation of Government Employees union is currently suing OMB to obtain.

The following examples are based on previous shutdowns and many services are up in the air, as many services can be labeled essential. Note these are examples are for federal services, not local or state government operations - though everyone will be hurting during a shutdown. Essentially, the determination still needs to be made over excepted activities and personnel. It looks like most congressional staff will report for work. Paychecks for salaried government employees will likely be delayed, even for those considered essential, and while the pay is not guaranteed, budgets passed following a shutdown traditionally provided backpay, though questions remain if that will happen now.

Members of the military and senior government officials like the President, members of Congress and presidential appointees will continue to be paid. Essential employees who are asked to 'volunteer' their services must fall under three categories (via OPM Furlough 2011 and Committee on House Administration):

• Activities that entail or directly support Members’ performance of their constitutional responsibility
• Activities that entail the safe-guarding of human life
• Activities that entail the protection of property

Here's a rundown of government services that could remain open or be crippled by congressional inaction. The main sources, if not linked, are the OMB Furlough Memos, which update the OMB Memo on November 17, 1981.

Likely to Remain Open:

• President, members of Congress and senior government officials - with most of their staff
• The military - regardless of stationing location
• Justice system including federal courts (at least for 10 days) and correctional facilities
• Firefighters, police and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Border, coastal protection and surveillance
• Medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care
• Medicare and Medicaid - delayed checks possible
• Air traffic control and Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
• Public utilities
• Emergency and disaster assistance
• Personnel involved in the 'essential elements of the money and banking system' - (so, still pay your taxes, but the refunds will likely be delayed)
• Personnel involved in the 'orderly suspension of agency operations'
• Food inspections and pollution monitoring
• Congressional Research Service
• Federal Reserve (does not rely on appropriations)
• US Postal Service (self-funded)
• Government websites (will remain online but non-essential sites will not updated)

Likely to be Slowed or Closed (CRS Report - 2/8/11):

• Processing of benefits for Veterans and Social Security
• New applications for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or Veterans benefits
• Closure of national museums and parks (estimated loss of 9 million visitors during the last shutdown)
• Smithsonian Institution and National Zoo (thankfully animal manure management has improved)
• White House will be 'significantly lower staffing levels'
• Patent and Visa processing (Last time 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners per day and 200,000 U.S. applications for passports were not processed)
• Two-thirds of the State department would be furloughed and diplomatic travel restricted
• New permit applications through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
• Bureau of Indian Affairs completely closed last shutdown (assistance payments and oil royalties delayed)
• National Archives and the Library of Congress (during the last shutdown they even took down the website)
• New federal home loan guarantees or loans/loan guarantees from the Small Business Association
• New energy leases
• Cleanup at Superfund/toxic waste sites (609 sites stopped in the 95-96 shutdown)
• New clinical research and disease hotlines at National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Unknown amount of government contractors (would unlikely get retroactive pay)
• Food and Drug Administration's new device and drug approvals
• Department of Homeland Security's e-Verify
• As DC is a federal territory, the city will suffer greatly without federal funds, including no libraries, trash pickup, parking enforcement, DMV, non-emergency transportation projects or new permits (full DC shutdown plan)

Experts estimate the looming shutdown could furlough around 800,000 federal employees. The Smithsonian says around 500,000 visitors will be turned away just over the weekend and who knows what will happen to the 23,000 people who already bought IMAX tickets. Like many political beings around the world, we are watching this situation very closely.

Image via flickr user Pak Gwei.

Two weeks ago the House of Representatives violated a pledge made by Speaker John Boehner to provide a 72 hour window for all legislation to be viewed by the public before it is brought to the floor for debate by voting on a bill to defund National Public Radio. Today, the House majority is again violating that pledge by voting on the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.

The Government Shutdown Prevention Act, a bill that deems the budget cutting bill passed by the House earlier this year to have passed Congress without the Senate's assent, was introduced on March 30 at 1:13 pm. At the present moment, this bill has not been available for even 48 hours.

The House majority sent the bill to be approved for floor debate by the House Rules Committee under emergency rules. The NPR defunding bill was also considered by the House Rules Committee in an emergency session.

In a post detailing the 72 hour pledge breaking promise on the NPR vote I noted how the Republican majority circumvented their pledge by following a "Read the Bill" rule that they instituted at the opening of this Congress:

Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.

...

This "calendar day" issue was previously pointed out by Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg, "the “third calendar day” yardstick for determining whether a bill is ripe for consideration could result in a bill being available for less than 72 hours. Sunlight has advocated using a “72 hour” time frame instead of three calendar days to prevent possible gamesmanship."

There still remain many other potential ways in which the current Rule and previous pledges could be subverted. Sunlight Policy Director John Wonderlich pointed these out in a post earlier this year.

This rule is clearly meant to fudge the previous promise by Speaker Boehner to provide 72 hours of public, online exposure for each bill before it is debated. In case you are wondering if Boehner made a 3 day, as opposed to a 72 hours, pledge, please watch below: There's more video here.

It's worrying that the majority would repeatedly evade a pledge that they made to the American people to make the House a more transparent body. It is especially worrying that the majority would do this on two votes that are clearly not emergencies.

How was the defunding of National Public Radio an emergency requiring the circumvention of normal Rules Committee procedures and the 72 hour pledge? The current Continuing Resolution to fund the government expires on April 8. Why can't the majority wait until Monday to vote on this bill?

The 72 hour rule is needed to give the public not only a chance to read the bills, but a chance to voice their opinion. This is especially important when bills are crafted and pushed forwards for political purposes. The public needs to be involved, but the majority is blocking that involvement for nothing other than the pursuit of quick political wins and message control. This is very disturbing.

Here is the original bill copy with time stamp in the lower left hand corner: XML_362-POST_xml

While members of Congress and the White House debate whether $33 billion is the right amount by which to cut the federal budget, the rest of us are focused on where these cuts will fall. For our part, we’re trying to save the $34 million that funds Obama-era tech innovations -- like Data.gov, USASpending.gov, and the IT Dashboard -- from the budget ax. And we’re not alone.

For example:

• The creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is encouraging everyone to sign our open letter to Congress
• A bevy of editorials and news reports -- from the Washington Examiner to the Dallas Morning News to Federal News Radio to Read Write Web -- are drawing increasing attention to the cuts

• And we’re giving Charlie Sheen a run for his money with hundreds if not thousands of tweets at #savethedata (& we’re #winning!)

So how can you help? Go to our website to sign our letter to Congress, write a letter to the editor, and spread the word via Facebook or Twitter. For more information, read my original report, our open letter, and this update from yesterday.

Federal News Radio has an interesting follow-up to my interview with them yesterday on the budget technopocalypse. I wrote last week that Data.gov, USASpending.gov, and other Obama tech innovations face virtual extinction because it appears that Congress will cut their collective budgets from $34m to $2m. We and many others are sending an open letter to congress in an effort to save these vital transparency programs.

Federal News Radio executive editor Jason Miller reports on the stakes:

One government official, who requested anonymity because they didn't get permission to discuss the topic, said funding will begin to run out on April 20 for public sites IT Dashboard, Data.gov and paymentaccuracy.gov. The source said OMB also is planning on shutting down internal government sites, including Performance.gov, FedSpace and many of the efforts related the FEDRamp cloud computing cybersecurity effort.

The official said two other sites, USASpending.gov and Apps.gov/now, will run through July 30 but go dark soon after. "We need at least another $4 million just to keep USASpending.gov operating this year," the official said. "We are looking at a pass-the-hat approach, but it could be challenging to get that done in time."

Rep. Serrano weighed in:

"The detrimental effect of HR 1 on so many areas of government is clear—and perhaps no more so than on the efforts to ensure the government's IT infrastructure upgrades are proceeding on schedule and on budget," said Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. "We cannot have a more streamlined, efficient and open government without using the best technology available. Unfortunately the cuts in H.R. 1 to e-government fund will have the unintended consequence of making government less accountable and transparent."

As did Senator Lieberman:

"Economic conditions demand wise budget decisions, but cutting money from multiple federal IT programs is penny-wise and pound foolish," said Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman is the chairman of. "Programs that modernize technology ultimately improve management and save taxpayers billions of dollars. Transparency and e-government programs encourage public participation in government. Small investments in IT modernization can reap enormous rewards, which is why Senator Lieberman opposes the proposed cuts to the e-gov fund and the administration's IT reform efforts."

I’ll keep you updated as developments happen.