21st Century Government
Campaign
to Cut Waste

President Obama and Vice President Biden launch the Campaign to Cut Waste, which will hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the Federal Government.

Read the executive order

21st Century Government Latest News

  • A Limited Waiver for Bob Bauer

    Posted by Norm Eisen on May 7, 2010 at 4:50 PM EDT

    In the interest of transparency, we are posting a limited waiver of the Ethics Pledge that was granted today to Robert Bauer, Counsel to the President. Counsels to the President of the United States ordinarily are in contact with the personal lawyers to the President on a range of matters, including, for example, preparation of the President’s financial disclosure forms.   Counsels to the President also ordinarily work on issues, such as evaluating campaign finance litigation, that are also of interest to the national committee of their political party, and have to work on issues that require contact with the national party or its lawyers. Mr. Bauer, the Counsel to President Obama, is in the unusual situation of having been, before he joined the Administration, both the personal lawyer to the President and counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and his former firm continues in those roles.  Literal application of Paragraph 2 of the Ethics Pledge would prevent Mr. Bauer from performing roles that someone in the Counsel’s position ordinarily performs.  The Executive Order allows for a waiver when the literal application of the Pledge does not make sense or is not in the public interest, and so we are granting the waiver on that basis.   As always, we are posting the waiver. 

    Norm Eisen is Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

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  • Weekly Address: Giving Government Back to the American People

    Posted by Jesse Lee on May 1, 2010 at 6:00 AM EDT

    As the President beats back lobbyists seeking to weaken Wall Street Reform, he talks about an even broader threat that would vastly expand the influence of massive industries and their lobbyists in Washington. A recent Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for corporations, including foreign corporations, to spend endless money on political ads that would give them even more power at the expense of American families – the President pledges to fight for reforms to stem that influence.

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  • Waiver for General James Jones

    Posted by Norm Eisen on April 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM EDT

    Because our rules are so tough, they occasionally yield unintended consequences.  We attempt to take a common-sense approach to those situations, as we did this week in authorizing the National Security Advisor, General James Jones, to give very brief remarks introducing President Clinton at an Atlantic Council event.  The Atlantic Council is a non-profit 501(c)(3) entity that promotes American leadership and engagement in international affairs.  General Jones had served as the uncompensated, volunteer Board Chair of the group over a year ago.  Because the remarks were public, and because General Jones had long ago resigned, we concluded that the Ethics Pledge was not intended to prevent the short speech and we allowed it.  As always, we are posting the waiver here in the interests of transparency.

    Norm Eisen is Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

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  • An Initial Assessment of Open Government Plans

    Posted by Vivek Kundra and Aneesh Chopra on April 27, 2010 at 12:05 PM EDT

    As part of the ongoing implementation of the Open Government Plans, we have asked the Cabinet departments and other major agencies to work with us to evaluate version 1.0 of their Plans (or recent revisions) against the requirements of the Open Government Directive. The assessments show that we are off to a good start--but have much more work to do as we transition our overall efforts towards effective agency implementation. 

    There are important lessons to be learned not only from the government’s self-evaluation efforts, but also from the reviews and recommendations that we’re receiving from outside groups and individuals.  Some of the constructive criticisms are already being incorporated, while others are sparking new thoughts and approaches to how agencies are pressing forward with their initiatives.  We want that feedback and look forward to much more of it.  This is a work in progress – there are ways every plan can be strengthened – and all of us in the Administration are committed to a process of implementation, assessment, and improvement.  

    Earlier this month, we described a process for evaluating each agency’s plan to make operations and data more transparent, and expand opportunities for citizen participation, collaboration, and oversight. The review began with a checklist of 30 criteria drawn directly from the Directive. An agency that meets all of the criteria in full gets an overall green flag.  An agency that fails to fulfill even one criterion gets an overall yellow flag, to signify that more work remains to be done to improve the plan as part of the implementation process. In addition, we have included an evaluation of each of the four major components of the plan – Transparency, Participation, Collaboration, Flagship Initiative - as well as a process section.

    We have posted the results on our Open Government Dashboard. In addition, each agency has posted the specific results of its evaluation on their /open government page.

    Finding #1:  All on Board. All Cabinet departments and major agencies have submitted plans that make significant strides towards open government as called for in the Directive. Better still, many other agencies – not specifically bound by the Directive – have completed deliverables to demonstrate their commitment as well.  All agencies recognize the value of breaking down long-standing barriers between the American people and their government.

    Finding #2:  More Still to Do. Only three of the cabinet and other key agencies won a green flag for across-the-board excellence. All the others – including our own offices of OSTP and OMB – have more work to do before the Plan fully satisfies every requirement in the Directive. With your feedback, we are keen to improve upon these living documents to fulfill the letter and the spirit of the Directive.

    Finding #3:  Open Government Pracitices Worthy of Review. Three agencies both achieved the requirements and took ambitious steps that might serve as models for the rest of government – the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation, and NASA. HHS developed a concrete plan to which it can be held accountable for identifying and publishing high value data sets with an impressive roster of commitments this year; Transportation engaged over 200 staff members in crafting the plan from nearly every service area to instill an open government culture wide and deep within the agency;  and NASA is inviting volunteer software developers to collaborate in the development of NASA technologies, both to advance the agency’s mission and to spur commercialization leading to economic growth.

    We will highlight more noteworthy open government practices across the agencies as they push forward with their plans.  We’ll keep our “leading practices” page a place where you can learn more about the innovative steps underway across the government. 

    We wish to especially thank the 20,000+ members of the public contributing to each agency’s plans, posting comments and voting on specific ideas. Your input has been incredibly valuable thus far and we hope you will continue to participate as we turn our attention towards the more important task of implementing the milestones described in each plan. We will be reporting back frequently through this blog and other fora to highlight the latest efforts in open government but the bulk of the work will take place at the agency level. Each agency will update you on implementation and opportunities for collaboration through their /open pages.

    Vivek Kundra is U.S. Chief Information Officer.

    Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

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  • President Announces Choices for New Bioethics Commission

    Posted by Rick Weiss on April 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM EDT

    President Obama yesterday released the names of ten individuals whom he intends to appoint to the recently created Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The ten will join the previously named chair and vice chair—University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Emory University President James Wagner—in exploring bioethical issues anticipated to emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. In a statement released with the names of the new Commissioners, the President said; “I am grateful that these impressive individuals have decided to dedicate their talent and experience to this important Commission. I look forward to their recommendations in the coming months and years.”

    The new Commission differs in several ways from bioethics commissions created by previous Administrations. First, according to the terms of Executive Order (pdf) that created the new Commission, it is limited to a maximum of 13 people (with a total of 12 now named, President Obama has the option of appointing one more at a later date). That’s a smaller number than previous commissions, in part to keep the group nimble and facilitate discussion and consensus building.

    Second, the Commission is tasked specifically with the goal of making practical, policy-oriented, ethics-based recommendations to the President, rather than devoting much of its time engaged in arcane philosophical discussions. Related to that goal, the Commission includes three members with science and bioethics expertise who work for Federal agencies—a significant shift from usual practice and one that is expected to help the group as it strives to provide advice that can be implemented in practical ways within the complex framework of Federal policymaking processes and procedures.

    Third, the selected Commissioners are highly diverse in terms of professional backgrounds, geography, and experience. In a break from past practice, most are not professional bioethicists, but rather have worked and demonstrated extraordinary proficiency in an array of fields burdened with difficult challenges at the intersection of science, technology, and ethics. And although the Commission bears the word “bioethics” in its name, some members—including the vice chair—were selected in part because of their familiarity with ethics challenges raised technology as much as by biology. That reflects a growing society-wide recognition that many of today’s most difficult decisions at the boundaries of science and society are not just about biology and medicine but involve hardware, software and related technologies such as robotics.

    The newly named individuals are listed below, and short biographies can be found at: http://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts-4-7-10

    • Lonnie Ali, wife of Muhammad Ali and has been an outspoken advocate working to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease
    • Anita L. Allen, Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
    • Barbara Atkinson, Executive Vice Chancellor of the University of Kansas Medical Center and Executive Dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine
    • Nita A. Farahany, Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University
    • Alexander G. Garza, Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs and Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Homeland Security
    • Christine Grady, Acting Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center
    • Stephen L. Hauser, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of California – San Francisco
    • Raju Kucherlapati, Professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics and in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital
    • Nelson Michael, Director of the Division of Retrovirology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Director, U.S. Military HIV Research program
    • Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan Friar and associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago

     

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  • Open for Change

    Posted by Norm Eisen on April 7, 2010 at 1:00 PM EDT

    Today, U.S. departments and agencies are releasing their Open Government Plans -- another historic milestone in President Obama's campaign to change Washington.

    For too many years, Washington has resisted the oversight of the American public, resulting in difficulties in finding information, taxpayer dollars disappearing without a trace, and lobbyists wielding undue influence.  For Americans, business as usual in Washington has reinforced the belief that the government benefits the special interests and the well-connected at the expense of the American people.

    No more. Since coming to office, the President has launched a series of initiatives to let the sunshine in, including posting White House visitor records, disclosing lobbyist contacts regarding stimulus funds, and launching data.gov and recovery.gov. That's why independent groups recently gave the Administration an A grade for transparency.

    Today we add to that body of accomplishments as the departments and agencies issue Open Government Plans pursuant to the Open Government Directive. The Plans will make operations and data more transparent, and expand opportunities for citizen participation, collaboration, and oversight. These steps will strengthen our democracy and promote accountability, efficiency and effectiveness across the government. Here are a few highlights:

    • Department of Health and Human Services' Community Health Data Initiative: This initiative will provide to the public, free of charge and of any intellectual property constraint, a large-scale Community Health Data Set harvested from across HHS—this data set includes a wealth of easily accessible, downloadable data on community health care costs, quality, access, and public health, including a major contribution of Medicare-related data from CMS. The initiative is simultaneously working with a growing array of technology companies, researchers, public health advocates, consumer advocates, employers, media, providers, etc. to identify and deploy uses of the data that would be most effective at raising awareness of community health performance and helping to facilitate and inform improvement efforts. Such applications and programs could include interactive health maps, competitions, and social networking games that educate people about community health and enhanced web search results for health searches. By leveraging the power of transparency, participation, and collaboration, the Community Health Data Initiative seeks to help significantly improve the health of our communities. (Department of Health and Human Service's Open Government page)
    • Department of Energy's Open Energy Information Initiative: As part of its efforts to promote clean energy technologies, DOE has launched Open Energy Information, a new open-source web platform that will make DOE resources and open energy data widely available to the public. The data and tools housed on the free, editable and evolving wiki-platform will be used by government officials, the private sector, project developers, the international community, and others to help deploy clean energy technologies across the country and around the world. The site currently houses more than 60 clean energy resources and data sets, including maps of worldwide solar and wind potential, information on climate zones, and best practices. Members of the American public and the energy community globally will have the opportunity to upload additional data to the site and download the information in easy-to-use formats. OpenEI.org will also play an important role providing technical resources, including U.S. lab tools, which can be used by developing countries as they move toward clean energy deployment. Over time, the plan is to expand this portal to include on-line training and technical expert networks. (Department of Energy Open Government page)
    • Department of Veterans Affairs Innovation Initiative:  The VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) will invite VA employees, private sector entrepreneurs, and academic leaders to contribute the best ideas for innovations to increase Veteran access to VA services, reduce or control costs of delivering those services, enhance the performance of VA operations, and improve the quality of service Veterans and their families receive. The VA Innovation Initiative will identify, prioritize, fund, test, and deploy the most promising solutions to the VA's most important challenges. (Department of Veterans Affairs Open Government page)
    • Department of Housing and Urban Development's Homelessness Prevention Resources Initiative: Many agencies and organizations struggle with the task of capturing information about the homeless. Even more difficult is the task of predicting when and where homelessness will strike. HUD believes that much can be done to avert homelessness before it happens by actively combining information from multiple Agencies and using it to identify communities that may be at a tipping point towards increased levels of homelessness. Aligning with HUD's strategic initiatives, the Department will take a proactive leadership role in the Administration's efforts to end homelessness. HUD will develop a set of tools and processes that can help predict communities that are at risk so that resources can be allocated to help avoid homelessness from occurring. The Department's effort is unique because it will seek to predict the future course of homelessness in a community, and allow HUD to proactively allocate the resources necessary to combat it. (Department of Housing and Urban Development's Open Government page)

    These are just a few examples -- visit our Open Government Dashboard for links to others. Publishing these plans demonstrates once again this Administration's commitment to be the most open and transparent in history. Of course, much work remains to be done and we invite you to be a part of that by visiting the agency websites at name of agency/open and providing your comments on version 1.0 of the plans. That will help us and the agencies make the plans even better.

    Norm Eisen is Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

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