Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, in testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee last week, cited recent Open Government initiatives to make the Department of Labor’s information “more transparent to the public.”
Secretary Solis cited three specific efforts:
- “…our FY 2010 proposed budget was made public using innovative web media tools, which allowed for live “web chats” and a question and answer session with me.”
- “We released the Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda using a similar format. My Assistant Secretaries and I were able to engage in live “web chats” with the public regarding DOL’s planned regulatory agenda. Approximately 6,000 members of the public participated in or watched the web chats.”
- “In addition, [Labor] agencies are making their work and the data we collect more transparent. For the first time ever, OSHA is systematically publishing employer-specific information about occupational fatalities on its Web site and making these data available for easy download.”
Though she didn’t mention it in her testimony, it should be noted that the Department of Labor has posted one of the best “Open Government” pages I’ve seen yet.
DOL Open Government Page
The DOL Open Government page provides access to the Department’s annual FOIA report, welcomes public comment through a dedicated “open government”" email address, publishes multiple feeds and social media links, links to multiple high-value data sets, and explains what the Open Government Initiative is and how the Department plans to abide by the mandates of it.