Friday, January 27, 2012
President's Obama's first executive action was to sign the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, which sought to bridge the gap between the American people and their government.
This website, launched in response to the subsequent Open Government Directive, aims to document the U.S. Department of Commerce's efforts to become more open, participatory and collaborative.
Scott B. Quehl
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration,
Head of Open Government Working Group
open@doc.gov
Jonathan R. Cantor
Chief Privacy Officer and Director of Open Government
Justin Ehrenwerth
Counsel, Office of the General Counsel
Joey Hutcherson
Deputy Director for Open Government
Dennis Sutch
IT Project Manager, Office of the CIO
Interact with Commerce on the social media sites you already use every day.
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whitehouse.gov/open - Learn more about the President's efforts to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration throughout government.
Recovery.gov - See open government in action by tracking the spending associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Data.gov - Access and discover new uses for the range of data produced by the federal government from one central location.
Open.commerce.gov Links
Office of the Secretary Links
Department of Commerce Person Finder
Office of the Secretary Report to Congress
Office of the Secretary Speeches and Testimony
The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) creates the conditions for economic growth and opportunity by promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and stewardship informed by world-class scientific research and information.
Commerce places a premium on effectively and efficiently delivering customer services. Customer Service is one of the six major themes of the Department's Strategic Plan and Balanced Scorecard, which the Secretary uses to track each bureau's progress towards key programmatic and management goals on a quarterly basis. Accordingly, Commerce includes customer service goals and objectives in the performance plan for every employee throughout the Department.
As required by Executive Order 13571 on Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service, Commerce has developed a plan that identifies specific actions and initiatives to further advance its customer service delivery over the next year, focusing on key service areas and technology-driven initiatives. This plan outlines the key elements of these initiatives.
Our first initiative is Commerce Connect, a collaborative partnership of all Commerce bureaus to streamline public access, through a one-stop model, to over 70 Department-wide programs that support U.S. businesses. Our other initiatives represent best practices of individual bureaus.
The International Trade Administration is upgrading the content and navigability of its web site in support of the National Export Initiative. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is pursuing several projects to provide ready access to its backlog and pendency metrics, to accelerate its examination of patents for environmentally-friendly and conversation technologies, and to make bulk patent and trademark data readily available to the public, free of charge, on Google.
The Economic Development Administration will implement customer surveys on its upgraded grant application process, launch a microsite to highlight best practices in regional innovation, and facilitate the exchange of innovative ideas and perspectives in economic development. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has upgraded the features and functionality of its web site and will survey users for their feedback. The U.S. Census Bureau has implemented a search tool that enables readily searchable and exportable access to detailed economic data. Lastly, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is working to preserve and enable searchable public access to the extensive multi-agency data related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
On August 4, 2011, the Department of Commerce and other Federal agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop or revise existing environmental justice (EJ) strategies to protect minority and low-income populations from experiencing disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects caused by an agency’s programs, policies, and activities.
In compliance with this commitment, the Department of Commerce is releasing for public comment a draft EJ Strategy, which will completely replace the Department’s original EJ Strategy produced in 1995 in response to Executive Order 12898 section 1-103. Through November 30, 2011, the Department welcomes any comments or feedback on this draft EJ Strategy. In addition, the Department is soliciting feedback on the following specific topics:
When providing feedback, please put “EJ” or “environmental justice” in the subject line.
The White House's Open Government Directive requires Cabinet-level agencies, such as the Department of Commerce, to pass certain milestones as part of our efforts to be more open and transparent. The timeline below details the specific benchmarks we're moving toward, and shows the Department's progress in achieving them.
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45 days—January 22, 2010
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60 days—February 6, 2010
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120 days—April 7, 2010
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