E-Government Reauthorization Might Not Pass

I had thought that the E-Government Reauthorization Act was at a standstill and likely to die, but apparently it was still moving... until recently. Sunlight cites Congress Daily, explaining that it is being held up for reasons unrelated to the substance of the bill.

OMB officials and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins have battled behind the scenes in recent months to reauthorize the E-Government Act of 2002 before President Bush leaves office, but a standoff in the Judiciary Committee has probably killed the bill, sources said Wednesday.

I agree with the Sunlight blog post by Wonderlich. This is a real bummer. Although the E-Government Act doesn't solve some of the fundamental problems of public access to government information (which I discussed in my recent Berkman lecture) it would do a few things to improve the situation.