Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: May 16, 2017 at 11:11:14 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined
> By Juliet Eilperin
> May 14 2017
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/under-trump-inconvenient-data-is-being-sidelined/2017/05/14/3ae22c28-3106-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html>
>
> The Trump administration has removed or tucked away a wide variety of information that until recently was provided to 
> the public, limiting access, for instance, to disclosures about workplace violations, energy efficiency, and animal 
> welfare abuses. 
>
> Some of the information relates to enforcement actions taken by federal agencies against companies and other 
> employers. By lessening access, the administration is sheltering them from the kind of “naming and shaming” that 
> federal officials previously used to influence company behavior, according to digital experts, activists and former 
> Obama administration officials.
>
> The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for instance, has dramatically scaled back on publicizing its 
> fines against firms. And the Agriculture Department has taken off-line animal welfare enforcement records, including 
> abuses in dog breeding operations and horse farms that alter the gait of racehorses through the controversial 
> practice of “soring” their legs.
>
> In other cases, the administration appears to be dimming the prior spotlight on the background and conduct of top 
> officials. The administration no longer publishes online the ethics waivers granted to appointees who would otherwise 
> be barred from joining the government because of recent lobbying activities. Nor is the White House releasing logs of 
> its visitors, making it difficult for the public to keep track of who is stopping by to see the president’s inner 
> circle.
>
> The administration has also removed websites and other material supporting Obama-era policies that the White House no 
> longer embraces. Gone, for instance, is a White House Web page that directed prospective donors to private groups 
> that aid refugees fleeing Syria and other embattled nations.
>
> Officials also removed websites run by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department that provided 
> scientific information about climate change, eliminating access. for instance, to documents evaluating the danger 
> that the desert ecology in the Southwest could face from future warming. (On Friday, protesting against the 
> disappearance of the EPA website, the city of Chicago posted the site online as it had existed under the Obama 
> administration.)
>
> And within a week of President Trump’s inauguration, the White House retired the two-year-old Federal Supplier 
> Greenhouse Gas Management Scorecard, which ranks firms with major federal contracts on their energy efficiency and 
> policies to curb carbon output.
>
> “The President has made a commitment that his Administration will absolutely follow the law and disclose any 
> information it is required to disclose,” said White House spokeswoman Kelly Love in an email Sunday. 
>
> The White House takes its ethics and conflict of interest rules seriously,” Love added, “and requires all employees 
> to work closely with ethics counsel to ensure compliance. Per the President’s Executive Order, violators will be held 
> accountable by the Department of Justice.”
>
> But Norman Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s special counsel for ethics and government reform, said the 
> changes have undermined the public’s ability to hold the federal government accountable.
>
> “The Trump administration seems determined to utilize a larger version of Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility to 
> cover the entire administration,” said Eisen, now a fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies 
> program. 
>
> Across the vast breadth of the government, agencies have traditionally provided the public with massive data sets, 
> which can be of great value to companies, researchers and advocacy groups, among others. Three months ago, there were 
> 195,245 public data sets available on www.data.gov, according to Nathan Cortez, the associate dean of research at 
> Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, who studies the handling of public data. This week it stood at 
> just under 156,000.
>
> Data experts say the decrease, at least in part, may reflect the consolidation of data sets or the culling of 
> outdated ones, rather than a strategic move to keep information from the public. But the reduction was clearly a 
> conscious decision.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>



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