On Jan. 23, the House of Representatives sidestepped a battle over the debt ceiling and prepared itself instead for a coming fight over sequestration and a possible government shutdown. The No Budget, No Pay Act (H.R. 325), passed by the House, suspends the debt ceiling until May 18 and ties congressional pay to passage of budget resolutions in the House and Senate by April 15.

Four years ago, when Barack Obama assumed the office of the President of the United States, he signaled his commitment to open and accountable government with a set of directives and executive orders designed to make his administration “the most transparent in history.” Significant progress was made in his first term, but the president's vision has not yet been translated into across-all-agencies improvements in openness, and in the area of national security, most civil liberties advocates are disappointed.

Resolution of last year's "fiscal cliff" fight was achieved in the first few hours of the new year with a tax package that made permanent 82 percent of the Bush-era’s tax cuts. This may have made a "grand bargain" on the deficit that balances tax and spending provisions much more difficult to achieve and heightened the likelihood of more spending cuts.

Last year saw clear and important accomplishments in government transparency in several areas, such as improved whistleblower protections and progress on the numerous open government commitments made under the Open Government Partnership. There was, however, a missed opportunity for U.S. leadership at the Rio+20 environmental summit. We are also concerned that undue industry influence in certain regulatory arenas may be reducing public access to information. And state laws on fracking chemical disclosure often allow exemptions that are so broad as to undermine the laws. Nonetheless, at the federal level, 2012 was a year of continuing progress for open government.