What to watch with EPA data -- GCN

"While the situation at the EPA has people watching closely to see what will happen, at least one Trump nominee has spoken out in favor of open data.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s pick to head the Office of Management and Budget, said the DATA Act, which requires the publication of spending data in machine readable format, is 'fantastic for transparency and fantastic for management,' according to an FCW report.

Both Gurin and Hudson Hollister, the executive director of the Data Coalition, say Congress is likely to pass the Open Government Data Act, which would require government data assets made available by federal agencies to be published as machine-readable data. The bill already passed with a veto-proof majority in the Senate and both Gurin and Hollister said they expect it to do so again when reintroduced.

The trend toward open data hasn’t been a partisan one, Gurin said. It has drawn wide support from both parties.

'If [open data] is your operating principle, you can’t pick and choose -- no administration can pick and choose,' he said. 'If we’re going to continue to strengthen the principle that open government and that open data is a default assumption of how government operates, then you can’t say ‘That’s true for this type of data, but not this other kind of data.’"