This year's historic presidential campaign introduced the country to a plethora of vocational symbols. It not only featured Joe the Plumber, but also Tito the Bricklayer, Rose the Teacher, and more. There were also a few Joes and Janes who had prominent roles in the restriction — and in a few cases, the expansion — of public information that may have gone unnoticed during the year. Hopefully for the last time in the life of our Republic, the government transparency events of 2008 are presented below according to vocational nomenclature. George the Shuffler — George W. Bush, President of the United States

The Bush administration began 2008 by quickly trying to rewrite the OPEN Government Act passed in December 2007. The act created an office at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to monitor implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and oversee disputes before litigation became necessary. However, the administration slipped a provision into the Department of Commerce section of its FY 2008 budget proposal that would have reshuffled the office from NARA to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Thankfully, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), an original sponsor of the OPEN Government Act, discovered the location shift and successfully fought to keep the office at NARA.

Nancy the Immunizer — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House

Another issue that carried over from 2007 into early 2008 was the congressional stalemate between the Senate and the House on immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The Senate passed legislation (S. 2248) that contained retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies, while the House left immunity out of its bill (H.R. 3773). Initially, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, led Democrats in refusing to consider immunity, even to the point that several wiretapping authorities expired. However, after months of negotiations, Pelosi and House Democrats acquiesced and approved a bill (H.R. 6304) that essentially granted retroactive immunity by requiring courts to throw out lawsuits against any company that showed that its activities were authorized by the president. Pelosi had initially opposed modifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in this manner, but when she changed her position, the new bill quickly passed the House and the Senate in July. President Bush immediately signed the bill into law.

Steve the Factory Farmer — Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Stephen Johnson, Administrator of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), made many decisions in 2008 deemed questionable by critics, including several rules relating to farms and pesticides. For instance, EPA's late 2007 proposed rule exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution from animal waste was the subject of 2008 congressional hearings that discussed how large chicken farms and other concentrated animal feeding operations are major sources of pollution.

On another front, the conservation group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the agency for failing to provide the organization with an industry analysis of the dangers of a particular pesticide that was likely killing bees by the thousands. Following in Johnson's footsteps, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) also reduced the amount of pesticide information being collected and canceled the Agricultural Chemical Usage Reports, the only publicly available data on pesticide use in the country.

Andrew the Litigator — Andrew M. Cuomo, New York State Attorney General

There were some public officials who pushed for greater transparency and greater accountability to the public in 2008, and Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general for the State of New York, was one of them. Cuomo pressured the Securities and Exchange Commission to require businesses to report to investors their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks that climate change poses to their operations. Cuomo's investor right-to-know measure was paired with recent agreements his office negotiated with two major energy producers to disclose publicly their yearly greenhouse gas emissions and their plans to handle climate change risks. Cuomo's office also kept up its drive to expand reporting of toxic releases, persevering with a multi-state lawsuit against a 2006 EPA rule that relaxed reporting requirements under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

Edward the Watchdog — Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

Another strong advocate for increased accountability on how government uses scientific data was Rep. Edward J. Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Markey questioned members of the Bush administration regarding the delay of a decision to list polar bears under the Endangered Species Act until a controversial lease sale for oil drilling off of Alaska was completed.

Karl the Deleter — Karl Rove, Former Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush

Unfortunately, despite the ease with which e-mails and electronic information can be saved, this was not area in which that the government fared well in 2008. Back in 2007, investigations into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and the firing of a group of U.S. Attorneys uncovered serious problems with e-mail record keeping practices at the White House. Karl Rove, Senior Advisor, and other White House staff members were reportedly using Republican National Committee e-mail addresses to avoid requirements to archive official White House e-mail. Thousands of e-mails related to vital political issues of the time were lost. In response, the House passed a bill (H.R. 5811) to ensure oversight of e-mail preservation. However, the bill did not move in the Senate, and the lack of oversight and standards for preserving e-mails remains a problem.

States suffered from problems with e-mail, as well. Supervisors in Loudoun County, VA, were ordered to hand over e-mails from their personal accounts that may have contained official business. However, antiquated state laws in Virginia fail to define procedural guidelines on reviewing such material. The e-mail question also arose during the recent election season, when Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, was asked to release over 1,000 e-mails in a state FOIA request. According to press accounts, Palin used a Yahoo! account to conduct official business.

Steve the Loyal Soldier — Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Johnson returns to our line-up because he wore several hats related to transparency during the year. In 2008, a congressional investigation sought clarification on the administrator's decision to not label carbon dioxide a risk to public health and welfare. The investigation revealed that Johnson initially advised the White House that climate change was a threat to public health and merited regulation. Without reviewing the EPA's initial findings, the White House pressured the agency to change the findings. Johnson eventually revised the findings of the agency and downplayed the scientific evidence. The decision meant the administration could avoid regulating carbon dioxide under the authority of the federal Clean Air Act. The EPA's original findings are still unavailable to the public, and the agency has allowed only four senators to read it.

Tom the Information Screener — Ambassador Thomas McNamara, Information Sharing Environment (ISE) Program Manager

Despite moving forward with a new policy on controlled unclassified information (CUI) in 2008, the Bush administration and Congress have not made significant progress in addressing the full scope of the problem. In 2007, Ambassador Thomas McNamara had testified that over 100 CUI labels were being used, and many were redundant. In December 2007, McNamara offered recommendations for policy changes to improve information sharing. The administration responded in May with a memorandum establishing only three possible CUI labels for use by agencies, but it limited the framework solely to "terrorism related information" and made no attempt to limit the amount of information stamped with the new labels.

Congress, not fully satisfied with the administration's new policy, considered a June CUI bill (H.R. 6193) that would have established regular auditing and reporting to Congress on CUI but only for the Department of Homeland Security. Another bill (H.R. 6576) that addressed the issue government-wide was also introduced, but both only passed the House; they did not advance in the Senate.

John the Roadblock — Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), outgoing chairman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce

On many issues, Congress seemed to have difficulty passing legislation in 2008, and Rep. John Dingell's House Committee on Energy and Commerce seemed to be where more than a few legislative efforts to expand the public's right to know ran into insurmountable roadblocks. Dingell's committee failed to move on a measure to require natural gas companies to disclose the chemicals used in drilling operations, which were shown in a recent investigation to have polluted drinking water in several states. Chemical security bills also made little progress in Dingell's committee. A bill that would have fully replaced a temporary 2006 chemical security law with a more comprehensive program never got past a June 12 hearing in the House Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials. Perhaps in 2009, with Henry Waxman (D-CA) in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, greater progress on these and other transparency issues will be achieved.

Molly the Librarian — Molly A. O'Neill, Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA's Chief Information Officer, Molly O'Neill, played a significant role in environmental right to know issues in 2008. Her office, a political appointment, was given complete control over the agency's library network. Several of the EPA libraries began the year shuttered, with their contents scattered and unaccounted for. Congressional action late in 2007 forced EPA to schedule the reopening of three regional libraries and the Headquarters and Chemical libraries in Washington, DC. A subsequent agreement with one of EPA's employee unions produced a plan for more accountability and better conditions for the libraries and their users. Finally, after two years, the libraries were reopened at the beginning of October.

John the Secret Law Giver — John Elwood, Deputy Assistant Attorney General

In May, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on the role of decision making by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which interprets laws passed by Congress. These interpretations have great influence on executive branch action and are critical to deciding how laws are implemented. The OLC is infamous for John Yoo's secret 2002 torture memorandum, which limited the definition of torture to interrogation that results in "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of significant bodily function." Despite the importance of these opinions, John Elwood, current head of the OLC, argues that the office's decisions should receive attorney-client protection from disclosure so the president can receive confidential advice. In a similar development, the DOJ developed in secret a policy for broader investigative powers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). DOJ refused to share copies of the rule with legislators or the public until it was finalized.

George the Budget Butcher — George W. Bush, President of the United States

During 2008, as well as other years of the Bush administration, budget cuts meant the public would receive less information on health and environmental issues. A recent retrospective report produced by NRDC catalogues numerous instances where Bush administration budget cuts affected monitoring programs related to environmental and public health. The report, Deepest Cuts: Repairing Health Monitoring Programs Slashed under the Bush Administration, cites 22 health monitoring programs whose activities were reduced or whose budgets were either cut or eliminated, are inadequate, or were restored only after court intervention. Examples include budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) biomonitoring program, reduced EPA monitoring of lead levels in the air, and the reduced reporting requirements of the TRI program. Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, environmental health scientist at NRDC in San Francisco and an author of the report, said, "Not testing or tracking pollution doesn't make it go away. It just keeps us in the dark about real health threats."

Barack the Wealth Information Spreader — Barack Obama, President-elect of the United States

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama (D) made strong commitments to new ethical standards, with improved government transparency and accountability prominently featured. As the president-elect's transition team busily prepares for the upcoming transfer of executive power, its use of interactive online tools has established high expectations for the next administration. The transition website, change.gov, features videos, interactive discussions, and questions, as well as a library of all materials the transition team is receiving, with an online discussion available for each document. The whole site is also being managed under a creative commons license that allows others to reuse the materials without infringing on copyright. Tune in at the end of 2009 to see how well Obama did in transferring these policies to the federal government.