Transparency Coalition Urges OMB To Develop Past-due Open Government Plan
Nearly two dozen privacy, civil liberties and transparency groups urged President Barack Obama to light a fire under the White House budget office to comply with the requirement to develop an open government plan. The coalition, which sent a letter…
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Monday, said the Office of Management and Budget failed to release a plan in 2012 and 2014, when every other agency did as mandated by the 2009 presidential memo. "Many of us have repeatedly expressed concern over the failure of OMB to meet this obligation in multiple forums," the coalition's letter said. "The failure is particularly troubling because OMB is an agency with a central oversight role on information policy, it has responsibility for implementation of this plan, and it often serves as the right hand of the President." The coalition said complying with the directive is important because the open government plans "encourage agencies to articulate how openness helps them fulfill their missions, address public concerns, and build openness into the way they operate." OMB, which developed a plan in 2010, hasn't updated it and declined to say when it might be published, said the letter signed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Project on Government Oversight, the Sunlight Foundation and others. "And we believe it is on course to fail again," it said.