Today, the Obama administration cleared a major hurdle for agencies seeking to solicit public input into policymaking and implementing the reforms called for in the Open Government Directive (OGD) issued on December 8, 2009.  The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo that exempts web-based interactive technologies from the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).  Now, agencies are freer than before to communicate with the public in an unstructured way but there are still some restrictions on the solicitation of structured feedback.

In an effort to increase transparency and expand public participation in the rulemaking process, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator Cass Sunstein issued a memo today encouraging agencies to consistently use Regulation Identifier Numbers, or RINs, to tag documents.

On Dec. 22, 2008, an earthen dam holding back a pond of coal ash in Kingston, Tenn., broke, sending 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic goo cascading across the landscape. That's enough to fill the White House from top to bottom 200 times over.

The Obama administration’s dance with mountaintop mining continued this week, as the administration pledged to revise the Bush administration’s policy on protections, or lack thereof, for rivers and streams. Environmentalists are hopeful that the Department of the Interior will set standards that prevent mountaintop mining from destroying waterways.