Cross-posted from the OMB blog.

As I’ve written before, one source of ineffective and inefficient government is the technology gap between the public and private sectors.

While a productivity boom has transformed private sector performance over the past two decades, the federal government has almost entirely missed this transformation and now lags far behind on efficiency and service quality.  We are wasting billions of dollars a year, and more importantly are missing out on the huge productively improvements other sectors have benefited from.

Quite simply, we can’t significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government without fixing IT.

That’s why today, in our ongoing effort to make sure that taxpayers’ dollars are spent on projects that work, we are taking three specific actions to advance IT reform.

Supreme Court confirmation hearings have a rich history in America.  Supreme Court Justices have gone through confirmation in the Senate since our country was founded, and have been considered regularly by the Senate Judiciary Committee since 1868 – nominees have been testifying there since 1925.  This week Elena Kagan takes her place in that history, with the Judiciary Committee holding a hearing to evaluate her nomination.  If they decide to vote her out of the committee, the entire Senate will then vote on whether to confirm her to the Supreme Court.

So what should you expect to see?  Well, you’ll likely see two things really: one is Elena Kagan, a woman who has dedicated her career to public service and to the study of how American law affects the American people, with values instilled in her by a father who was an attorney and represented ordinary people in his community, and a mother who was a beloved public school teacher.   You’ll see a brilliant woman who has been an independent thinker from the beginning of her career, garnering respect from all quarters as one of Nation’s leading legal minds.  You’ll see a trailblazer – the first woman to become Dean of Harvard Law School, beloved by students and widely respected for her skills as a consensus builder and openness to different points of view.  And you’ll see a woman widely praised as a commanding, effective advocate for the American people as America’s Solicitor General, the first woman to serve in that position as well.

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With Congress having finalized a strong Wall Street reform bill, the President urges Congress to finish the job and send the bill to his desk. The legislation reflects 90% of what the President originally proposed, including the strongest consumer financial protections in history with an independent agency to enforce them. It ensures that the trading of derivatives, which helped trigger this crisis, will be brought into the light of day, and enacts the “Volcker Rule,” which will make sure banks protected by safety nets like the FDIC cannot engage in risky trades. It also creates a resolution authority to wind down firms whose collapse would threaten the entire financial system. Wall Street reform will end taxpayer funded bailouts and make sure Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street’s mistakes.

Earlier this week, we took another big step forward in the Obama Administration’s efforts to encourage more sustainable development as we announced $100 million for our new Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program to encourage regions to integrate economic development, land use, and transportation investments – which will help to tie the quality and location of housing to broader opportunities such as access to good jobs, quality schools, and safe streets. 

For all the implications of “sprawl”—from job loss, economic decline and segregation, to obesity, asthma rates, to climate change and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil—all of them share by one fundamental problem: the mismatch between where we live and where we work. Whatever else we do to address these problems, America must find a way to connect housing to jobs.

In September 2009, the President announced that – for the first time in history – the White House would routinely release visitor records. Today, the White House releases visitor records that were created in March 2010. Today’s release also includes several visitor records created prior to September 16, 2009 that were requested by members of the public during May 2010 pursuant to the White House voluntary disclosure policy. This release brings the grand total of records that this White House has released to well over 450,000 records. You can view them all in our Disclosures section.

Norm Eisen is Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

Cyberspace has become an indispensible component of everyday life for all Americans.  We have all witnessed how the application and use of this technology has increased exponentially over the years. Cyberspace includes the networks in our homes, businesses, schools, and our Nation’s critical infrastructure.  It is where we exchange information, buy and sell products and services, and enable many other types of transactions across a wide range of sectors. But not all components of this technology have kept up with the pace of growth.  Privacy and security require greater emphasis moving forward; and because of this, the technology that has brought many benefits to our society and has empowered us to do so much -- has also empowered those who are driven to cause harm.  

Today, I am pleased to announce the latest step in moving our Nation forward in securing our cyberspace with the release of the draft National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).  This first draft of NSTIC was developed in collaboration with key government agencies, business leaders and privacy advocates. What has emerged is a blueprint to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and improve online privacy protections through the use of trusted digital identities. 

As the President was preparing to depart for the G8 Summit in Canada, to be followed by the G20, he received some welcome news regarding efforts to avoid another global economic crisis.  The House and Senate, having both passed their own versions of Wall Street Reform, had broken through with an agreement after a long final night of negotiations.  The agreement is the final product of over a year of work, and a triumph over armies of lobbyists that most predicted would be able to gut reform the same way they so often have in the past.

The President spoke early this morning, commending the House and Senate for closing in on yet another historic accomplishment:

Mailbag Day! We decided to make episode thirteen of West Wing Week a chance to respond to some of your letters and emails. This week, find out if the White House composts, learn which direction the eagle on the Presidential seal faces, and examine the process by which the flag flying over the White House is lowered to half-staff.

The Obama Administration has made domestic production of renewable energy a national priority because it will create quality American jobs, combat global warming, reduce fossil fuel dependence and lay a strong foundation for a strong rural economy.  While the President’s Biofuels Interagency Working Group, which I co-chair, continues its work to shepherd our Nation's development of this important industry and to coordinate interagency policy, the USDA released a report yesterday outlining both the current state of renewable energy efforts in America and a plan to develop regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels.

The Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) mandates that there will be 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year in America’s fuel supply by 2022.  I am confident that we can meet this threshold, but to do so we must make further investments in areas including research and development of feedstocks; sustainable production and management systems; efficient conversion technologies and high-value bioproducts and analysis tools.

While corn-based ethanol production will remain important to America’s producers, we are also gearing up research efforts to assist growers of advanced biofuels to produce energy from new feedstocks on a regional basis and in an environmentally sustainable manner. 

Renewable energy development not only promotes energy independence; the regional strategy I’ve outlined sets the stage for job creation in rural communities that are often located in distressed areas and persistent poverty counties.

To view the report in its entirety, visit www.usda.gov.

Tom Vilsack is the Secretary of Agriculture