San Francisco - A nationwide coalition of public interest groups yesterday sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) urging openness in government rule-makings.
Organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the informal coalition includes the American Lung Association, AFL/CIO, League of Conservation Voters, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, and the National Wildlife Federation.
EFF initiated the coalition letter after several environmental groups contacted the organization with concerns about U.S. Forest Service policies that would limit public participation in rule-making processes. For instance, the Forest Service uses e-mail filters designed to stop unwanted commercial e-mail ("spam") on public comments, sometimes rejecting thousands of legitimate citizen messages. Additionally, the Forest Service is considering a rule that would ban "substantially similar" comments from portions of the rule-making process. This policy would negatively impact groups that use online action centers to help members communicate with the government.
"The Forest Service's decision to reject comments in their rule-making process has damaged public participation in government," said EFF Activist Ren Bucholz. "Our coalition has asked the Office of Management and Budget to encourage all government agencies to adopt the best practice of receiving and reviewing all public comments related to each government rule-making."
OMB administers Regulations.gov, a website that centralizes rule-makings for many agencies.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
