It may feel like an ordinary Wednesday, but today is a milestone for legislative transparency. The House's leadership has issued a statement adopting the goal of "provid[ing] bulk access to legislative information to the American people without further delay." They have stated that bulk access "ranks among our top priorities in the 112th Congress" and directed a task force "to begin its important work immediately."

The statement was made by many of the key players on this issue in the House: Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor, Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Crenshaw, and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Issa. It was prompted in part by a measure in the legislative branch appropriations report that, as initially formulated, may have frozen efforts to move in this direction, followed by a partial fix to the report and ultimately a proposed amendment to the bill. (The amendment was apparently rejected by the House Rules Committee.) Of course, all of the letters to Congress and news coverage helped reinforce this as a higher priority.

The debate over whether there should be bulk access to legislative data is over. Because bulk access is a top priority of the 112th Congress, we expect to see tangible progress in the upcoming months. The remaining questions largely concern how bulk access should be implemented to meet the needs of the public while respecting the legitimate concerns of Congress and its support agencies.

While we are disappointed that the task force will not include members of the public, we hope that the public will be consulted. After all, the American people are the intended end-users. Sunlight and our friends in the transparency community stand ready to be of assistance as the technical, policy, and scope issues are addressed.

We have reached this turning point for a number of reasons. Rep. Honda has pushed to make bulk access happen over the last half-decade. Rep. Boehner made legislative transparency a priority when he was elected speaker. Reps. Cantor and Hoyer co-hosted the Congressional Facebook Hackathon, which declared bulk access to be an important goal. Rep. Lungren and the Committee on House Administration held hearings and issued directives establishing the important transparency portal docs.house.gov as well as hosted the Legislative Data and Transparency Conference. And there's many staff and members of Congress who have labored for years to bring this to fruition.

While this is clearly progress, there's still much more to do. We will be monitoring this issue closely.

This afternoon, the House Rules Committee rejected an amendment to H.R. 5882, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 2013, that would have required bulk access to legislative data. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, is not included in the final rule. Daniel Schuman examined the amendment yesterday.

As the Rules Committee was meeting, Rep. Issa released a joint statement with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor(R-VA), and Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) supporting bulk data as a "very important step" towards transparency. The Legislative Branch Appropriations bill includes language directing a "task force to expedite the process of making public information available to the public." According to the statement, Boehner, Cantor, Issa, and Crenshaw will "direct the task force to begin its important work immediately," without waiting for the bill to pass.

UPDATE: More to come soon.

Rep. Darrell Issa has offered an amendment that would require bulk access to legislative data as part of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill. This is what we and many others have been hoping for. Here's the key language:

As soon as practicable, and no later than 120 days after the enactment of this Act, the Librarian of Congress, in consultation with the Director of the Congressional Research Service, the Public Printer, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and the Secretary of the Senate, shall make available to the public through the Internet the bulk legislative summary and status data used by the Librarian to provide the information the Librarian posts on the THOMAS Web site.

Were this language adopted by the House, it would be a tremendous win for transparency. Before it can be considered on the floor, the amendment needs to make it through the Rules Committee, which will be meeting tomorrow at 3pm to consider which of these 14 proposed amendments comply with House rules.

This effort represents another aspect of Chairman Issa's interest in how the public engages with legislative information. That interest came into focus when he launching an innovative bill-commenting tool to solicit public feedback on several high profile bills. He is also the author of the DATA Act, which would give the public the ability to analyze spending information, and co-chairs the Congressional Transparency Caucus with Rep. Mike Quigley.

Open government may have won a round, with some of the money that was cut in the previous Congress year's budget*  for the Electronic Government Fund being restored by the 2012 Appropriations Bill (PDF) released this morning. The E-Gov Fund supports programs like Data.Gov, USASpending.gov, the IT Spending Dashboard, mobile apps, and much more. At first glance, the bill does three things:

First, it sets E-Gov funding at $12.4 million. While in FY 2009 and FY 2010 Congress provided $34 million each year to support government transparency programs, in 2011 the amount was cut to $8 million. For FY 2012, the House had proposed a partial-funding restoration to around $16 million, but the Senate had proposed further cuts, reducing the appropriation to somewhere between $5-7 million. It appears that the two chambers have split the difference, arriving at $12.4 million.

Second, it preserves the E-Gov Fund as an independent funding source. The E-Gov Fund has always existed as a stand-alone entity, but this year, the Senate (and later the House) proposed combining it with the Federal Citizen Services Fund. Doing so would raise important legal questions, but also increase the likelihood that one program would leach funds out of the other. By keeping the funds separate, the bill would help ensure that E-Gov funds are used for their statutory purposes outlined in the Electronic Government Act of 2002: " to improve the methods by which Government information, including information on the Internet, is organized, preserved, and made accessible to the public."

Third, it provides for an important measure of transparency. Because some funds spent by GSA are not controlled by statute or the GSA Administrator -- a concern sometimes raised that E-Gov Fund spending is left to the administration's discretion -- a broad provision in the bill may have been inserted to address that issue. Sec. 528 imposes a reporting requirement on GSA to "describe each program, project, or activity that is funded by appropriations to GSA but is not under the control or direction, in statute or in practice, of the Administrator of General Services." (It is unclear whether this requirement has existed in appropriations from previous years.)

Of course, this is not a done deal. The bill we're looking at appears to be the negotiated agreement between the House and the Senate, although I've seen a report indicating that negotiations may still be ongoing. Even if it is not finalized, Senator Carper and Representative Issa deserve a lot of credit for fighting for these important transparency programs, as do our coalition partners (like OMB Watch) and thousands of people around the U.S. who have called on congress to #savethedata. While $12.4 million is far less than was available just a few years ago, it should be enough to keep these key programs alive and allow for a slow but steady rate of innovation.

• Updated to reflect that the money was cut by the current Congress, but for the previous fiscal year.

A bill to make federal agency reports to Congress available to the public online has garnered bipartisan support in the House, a companion bill in the Senate, and the thumbs-up from the Government Printing Office and transparency advocates. The Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act would gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place. It requires that they be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. As things currently stand, the reports are scattered about online, in the infrequent circumstance when they can be found at all.

Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced the legislation in the House in May (HR 1974), after which it was promptly considered by the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, endorsed by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), and unanimously reported out of committee. The bill currently has 17 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, including senior Republican leader Greg Walden (R-OR).

Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) introduced companion legislation in the Senate in July (S. 1411) along with Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Co-sponsorship by the co-chairs of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee bodes well for its future consideration by that committee.

The Government Printing Office, which would be responsible for implementing the legislation, wrote a letter in May indicating its ability and willingness to put the law into effect. Additionally, a coalition of organizations (including Sunlight) wrote to Congress in support of the legislation.

To become law, some hurdles remain. The Committee on House Administration, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee would all have to indicate their assent, setting the stage for consideration on the floor by the House and Senate. It's time to enact this bill into law.

An open discussion of past, present and future transparency initiatives

Please join the Congressional Transparency Caucus for a roundtable event to discuss recent achievements in the field of transparency and future plans for both caucus events and legislative proposals.

The event will begin with opening comments from Caucus Co-Chairs, Representative Quigley (IL-05) and Chairman Issa (CA-49). Following opening statements, Caucus Members will engage in an open discussion regarding transparency initiatives and objectives for the caucus. Finally, the floor will open for questions from the audience.

With questions, or to RSVP, please contact Hudson Hollister with Rep. Issa (Hudson.Hollister@mail.house.gov) or Robyn Russell with Rep. Quigley (Robyn.Russell@mail.house.gov).

Thursday, October 6 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Rayburn 2237

Update: We will be live-tweeting the event. We'll also post a video on the transparencycaucus.org website.

Update #2: The Congressional Transparency Caucus will livestream the event at this link.

Today Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, spoke about his vision for improving open government and federal spending transparency at the O'Reilly Media 2011 Strata Summit. The Chairman focused his remarks on the DATA Act, the bipartisan legislation he introduced that would transform how government tracks federal spending and identifies waste, fraud, and abuse.

He emphasized the importance of making government data available online in real time so that innovative minds can immediately make use the information to build their own businesses. Business, in turn, would help the government identify program mismanagement and data quality problems. The Chairman specifically singled out Vice President Biden as a supporter of efforts to find a common solution to make data available in a systematic way.

In an ensuring Q&A with O'Reily Media's Alex Howard, Chairman Issa explained that the private sector must step up as advocates for greater openness because they will benefit from building and using the tools made possible by greater transparency. He added when government drives down the cost of obtaining information, private individuals will derive value from the analysis of data, not its ownership.

The Chairman also addressed proposed cuts to the Electronic Government Fund, which supports many government transparency programs, saying that he doesn't always agree with funding cuts. He added that he has an assurance from appropriators that they're willing to listen when he makes that case that increased spending on transparency programs in the short term may save more money later. Accurate data will help drive down the inefficiencies of government.

Is the federal government getting biased advice from its advisory committees? Concerns about skewed advice and conflicts-of-interest prompted President Obama's September 2009 order banning lobbyists from executive-branch federal advisory committees and remedial legislation last Congress. No legislation was ultimately enacted, and the president's order barely scratched the surface of the issue.

A recent CRS report explains how advisory committees give advice to the government on a wide variety of issues and often help the government manage and solve complex or divisive issues. During FY 2010 there were 1,004 active committees with a total of 74,336 members, with total operating costs of around $400m. The committees are intended to gather and explore viewpoints from business, academic, governmental, and other interests.

Concerns about skewed advice led to the introduction of the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 2010, which passed the House unanimously but was not considered by the Senate. That bill was reintroduced this Congress by Rep. Cummings as part of the Transparency and Openness in Government Act, and appears to be co-sponsored by all the democratic members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Committee Chairman Issa has already publicly stated his willingness to hold a hearing on that bill -- the part of it that concern Federal Advisory Committees -- although a date has not yet been announced.

The proposed legislation has a number of good ideas.

• It significantly increases transparency about committee activities. As a general, 15 days prior to each meeting -- but no later than 48 hours in advance -- information about committee activities must be posted online, including how members are chosen, a list of current members, any member recusal agreements, a summary of how the committee makes decisions, notices of upcoming meetings, and a statement indicating when a meeting is closed to the public and the reason why. Transcripts or recordings of committee proceedings must be published online within 30 days of the meeting.
• It extends all advisory committee disclosure rules to subcommittees (and privately contracted committees) with the same force that they apply to the full committee. This way, committee work won't be shunted to subcommittees in an effort to avoid disclosure requirements.
• It allows the public to suggest who should serve as a committee member, so that the usual suspects aren't named to the board again and again.
• It closes a loophole that allowed government officials serving on the board to avoid making ethics disclosures.
• It requires people who regularly attend, participate, and otherwise act like committee members (except that they do not vote) be considered as committee members, and thus subject to committee disclosure rules.
• It provides for oversight of the committees by the Comptroller General, who must publish annual reports on the committees.
• It requires committee members to be selected without regard to partisan affiliation

These improvements go a long way towards making the advisory committee more open. We have additional suggestions.

• All information made available on the Internet shall be done so by state-of-the-art methods and in open formats. Information published online should be in user-friendly formats that machines can automatically gather for analysis.
• There should be a publicly-available online calendar that identifies all upcoming advisory committee meetings, and contains basic information about those meetings. The calendar should link to each committee's agenda.
• All information made available to the public (whether on the internet or otherwise) should be at no cost. Committees should not be able to charge for transcripts or other documents.
• Documents submitted to the Advisory Committee shall be made publicly available unless the Advisory Committee determines that those materials would disclose matters described in the FOIA exemptions listed in section 552(b) of title 5, United States Code. That determination should be appealable, and there should be a publicly-available summary of the contents at the time the materials are submitted.
• In addition to listing the names of its committee members, each committee should also make available brief biographies of its members.
• All members of each advisory committee shall file financial disclosure forms, which shall be made available on the committee website after redactions to remove personally identifiable information, such as social security numbers. This will help determine if there is a conflict of (financial) interest.
• All members of the Advisory Committee should declare and publicly disclose conflicts of interest. These statements must be updated whenever new conflicts arise or on an annual basis, whichever is more frequent. These disclosures shall be placed on the Internet. There should be random reviews to ensure that all proper disclosures are filed.
• The FACA main website should be updated and reworked. It's design is pretty bad.
• The underlying data behind the FACA database should continue to be made publicly available in a bulk format. For example, here's the raw file of members through 2008.

Federal advisory committees are a major way that the government gets advice from members of the public, especially expert advice. We need to make sure that the advice is not tainted by hidden agendas and reflects the best analysis available.