Senator chides White House for ignoring existing transparency laws

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on Tuesday that the Obama administration's open government agenda is diverting its attention from existing transparency laws, including a spending accountability act that President Obama co-sponsored when he was in the Senate. At a March 23 hearing, Sen Coburn told White House officials that they are pursuing a transparency agenda that neglects other initiatives such as building out USAspending.gov, a searchable Web site containing all federal awards that Congress mandated the government to create in 2006. "Had you put the same effort into USAspending.gov as you've put into everything else, we'd be a lot further down the road right now, wouldn't we?" he said at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security. "There is only one of these [transparency agendas] that's a law, and in fact we're out of compliance on the law. . . . The others are mandates that the president has set, and I applaud them, but in fact [they've held us up from] achieving what we were trying to achieve."