OMB Watch strongly endorses the government information principles and initiatives of S. 803, The E-Government Act of 2001. The bill is especially strong in issues of management of government information, the need to bring information policy and the coordination of information practices to the fore, and equity issues as we move to transformative e-government. We are particularly enthusiastic about its information policy and information access components.

Managing Government Information

In terms of information policy, the bill would give a federal CIO responsibility for implementing existing information provisions found in the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Clinger-Cohen Act, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and other laws, reviewing the agencies' information technology budget requests, and leading the efforts to address issues of concern such as online privacy and computer security. We consider it essential that there be a central focus in the executive branch for ensuring the implementation of and compliance with statutory information provisions. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has never evinced much interest in the "information" component of its responsibilities—other than limiting information collections undertaken by the agencies—and we do not anticipate that the situation will improve with the nominee for Administrator.

In terms of the information access responsibilities that would be addressed by the federal CIO and the advisory boards, we are most interested in those related to Standards and Protocols and the Integrated Reporting Program. In order for government and its information to become more accessible and useful, IT interoperability standards and open, non-proprietary standards for categorizing and electronically labeling information are essential.

Providing real, meaningful, useful, ongoing access to the vast array of information created or collected or maintained by or for the federal government is complex. The E-Government Act of 2001 is a key step in acknowledging and addressing the need and the difficulties. Recently, the report, "Transforming Access to Government through Information Technology" from the Panel on Transforming Government of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), noted notes that finding the important information stored in the government's many databases is—in and of itself—difficult.They urged effort focused on "government-specific capabilities" such as "metadata creation, and comprehensive searchable catalogs of information and services."

This is precisely the effort for which the E-Government Act of 2001 lays the framework. Both the section (209) on "common protocols for geospatial information systems" and the section (215) on "accessibility, usability, and preservation of government information" create a process for moving the federal to common and open protocols and standards. The latter section also moves the government to establish basic knowledge and management of its own information—for both its own uses and for the public. This management is critical for access—the public cannot ask for and the government cannot disseminate what neither knows exists, or cannot find.

The process established in this bill is as fundamental as the end result. At every stage in the process of identifying standards, identifying information to be inventoried (listed), to be cataloged, and to be disseminated, public participation is required and the results of the decisions are to be posted online. This process is key because moving from the "silos of rotting information" that exist now (with some notable exceptions) to real management of government information across its life-cycle (from creation/collection through its retirement from current agency use to archiving/disposition or permanent public accessibility through a repository) is not going to happen in a year or even two. So, an open process and public accountability are essential.

We think that the ability of the public to hold government accountable for its responsibilities will be enormously assisted by the Integrated Reporting Program. In a recent Hart-Teeter poll, respondents said greater "government accountability" was the most significant benefit that e-government could confer. This was chosen by a considerable margin, almost three times as often as was "convenient services." The second top priority according to the poll is "greater public access to information" (which is, of course, essential for greater government accountability).

We hope that the Administration and the CIO will take the opportunity to experiment with newly-developing technologies to benefit public health, safeguard the environment, improve government efficiency and help the public understand and participate in policy decisions, as well as reducing the burden of duplicate collection.

Bringing Information and Coordination to the Fore

The E-Government Act of 2001 also lays important groundwork in the area of coordination of activities and of funding for interagency/cross-agency initiatives. Currently, there is no coherent coordination of funding for governmental information management initiatives, which must be both government-wide and agency-by-agency. And currently, the coordination and oversight responsibilities for the management of government information fall within the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at OMB. For all of OIRA's existence, the "I" has generally been subsumed and overwhelmed by the "R." This situation is likely to continue, if not worsen. As noted earlier, we consider it essential that there be a central focus in the executive branch for ensuring the implementation of and compliance with statutory information provisions.

The (currently-structured) federal CIO Council is no answer to this problem because their mandates require them to focus primarily on near-term operational issues and acquisitions. While the CIO Council has established mechanisms for sharing results and lessons, the process of creating standardized processes and information representations, eventually leading to cross-agency transactions and information federation and integration, is much harder and requires cross-agency budget planning and execution.

While the E-Government Act does not solve all these problems, it takes some key steps. The primary of these are to raise the importance and visibility of information policy and information management within the executive branch. When these have not been subsumed to regulatory concerns, as in OIRA, they have been inundated by concerns with procurement and security. But information is central to government in all of its interactions with contemporary society, and the government needs to provide a central focus on it.

Equity

The bill is also strongly attentive to concerns that the transformation to e-government not leave any members of the public behind. This is a critical focus and the Senators and their staffs are to be commended for the concern and the initiatives embodied in this legislation.