It's been a busy day for transparency initiatives. This morning President Obama issued an executive order which will create an 11-member board led by Vice President Biden to oversee the reporting of all federal spending data. It is modeled on the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and similar in aims to a board proposed in the DATA Act of 2011, also introduced this morning.

We'll have more on this from our policy experts later, but for now you can read the executive order below.

Executive Order--Delivering an Efficient, Effective, And Accountable Government

This morning, Rep. Darrell Issa introduced a major transparency bill that would transform how we track federal spending and identify waste, fraud, and abuse. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011 would establish an independent body to track all federal spending on a single website and require the the use of consistent government-wide data standards.

The DATA Act would build upon the successes of USASpending.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board -- the independent body that reports upon recovery spending -- by creating a board responsible for publishing and monitoring all federal spending, to be known as the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board. The FAST Board would oversee a successor website to USASpending.gov, which currently tracks all federal spending, but contains nearly $1.3 trillion in spending discrepancies that we identified as part of our Clearspending project.

While the creation of the FAST Board will garner the lion’s share of attention, the effort to create government-wide financial data reporting standards should not be overlooked. It will have a tremendous effect on public participation and oversight by empowering the American people to look at the data themselves. Indeed, Sunlight supports legislation, the Public Online Information Act, that promotes the creation of government-wide data standards and sets up an entity with similar responsibilities.

The White House is at least partially in agreement with this new transparency effort. This morning’s Washington Post reported that President Obama will sign an executive order today that will put Vice President Biden in charge of an 11-member oversight board -- very similar to the RAT Board -- to address federal agency waste and fraud. We won’t know until the EO is released whether the president will seek to modernize agency reporting methods by improving data standards as well. UPDATE: here's the EO.

Our executive director Ellen Miller will be testifying tomorrow on federal financial transparency before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which Rep. Issa chairs. While we are still looking at the details of the DATA Act he introduced today, its broad outlines make a lot of sense. Agencies need to be motivated to fix their reporting systems and follow common reporting methods. And there's new funding to support this particular government transparency effort, an ongoing issue that I wrote about here as part of the #savethedata campaign. There’s a lot more to come.

Here’s the legislation.

The DATA Act

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.

Last week the U.S. Public Interest Research Group published a transparency scorecard for every state in the country that assessed their ability to publish their spending online. The scorecard map operates on the belief that there is a new standard for accountability and accessibility, one where spending records are searchable and detailed online.

The 'Following the Money 2011' study [pdf link] classified nine states as "leading states" that published detailed information on grants and economic activities of the government online, even publicizing tax expenditures. Most fell into the "emerging states" category where basic steps were taken to supply residents with less granular information or did not make the data searchable. Finally, the "lagging states" section highlighted the ten least transparent states who did not populate their websites with relevant spending information and Maine doesn't even allow public access to their data. The study notes that there is no partisan leaning between states that excel or fail to provide citizens with this data.

As the press clamors to champion or chide their governments, we hope the states continue to study up on this subject and improve their standings next year. It also couldn't hurt to move the goals posts a little farther too - putting your checkbooks online is a pretty obvious homework assignment for this year kids.

Be sure to look up how your state ranks on the Following the Money map and encourage them to continue the work.

We are proud to announce that the Sunlight Foundation is now part of the “Show Me the Spending Coalition."  The coalition is primarily sponsored by National Taxpayers Union and the Sam Adams Alliance but has a member roster of more than 30 other organizations. Ellen and I have written about their work in the past.

Since our support of OMB Watch’s Fedspending.org, Taxpayers for Common Sense's earmarks work and advocacy for USASpending.gov we have come to see that spending databases are one of the best transparency measures government can take. It is common sense to tell taxpayers where their money is going.

Show Me the Spending is asking all states to take transparency seriously and the first and easiest thing they can do is to tell people what they are spending money on.   Check out the coalitions work and also the Sunshine Review’s wiki and start exploring ways to bring transparency to your state and town.

Real transparency has to be achieved at every level of government so elected officials know that there is no where to hide from the Sunlight.  Let's get to work.

Thanks to faithful reader Ann Minks for bringing my attention to Seattle Times’ Favor Factory.  The Favor Factory offers a database of all Congressional earmarks for 2008.  You can search by lawmaker, state, or name and state of the recipient.  The site also has sections for multimedia, citizen responses, and news regarding earmarks and projects.  The Favor Factory has a great feature that links campaign donations and recipients of earmarks.  For example, this is Rep. Abercrombie's page you can see in the right hand corner how much those recipients have donated to Mr. Abercrombie in the last five years.

This is an excellent resource kudos Seattle Times for making this information public so citizens can research it and keep their own representatives accountable.

Government Technology reports that Kentucky just launched a draft of its E-Transparency Web site and is asking citizens to comment on it. The Web site will be fully operational by January 1, 2009 and will offer all kinds of information related to state spending, from a government spending database to a game that will allow citizens to see if they can balance the budget. So go check out the site and submit your feedback! They are collecting comments until October 17^th.

A government body giving an opportunity to citizens to have an influence over a government Web site is a rare occurrence. This will hopefully create a site that is not only informative but also user friendly.

So kudos Kentucky! I can't wait to see the final product.