Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:40 PM

E-Government Ball Already Rolling At Commerce

By DAVID HERBERT

If Barack Obama wants to prioritize e-government, he might look to the Commerce Department, which has quietly gained a reputation for being one of the most Web-savvy departments in the federal government.

Commerce has long been viewed as a sprawling, almost ungovernable bureaucracy, but over the last few years it has seen significant advances in areas both small (online video) and large (the 2010 census).

"I think the Commerce Department has been aggressive and progressive," said Arnold Jackson, associate director for the 2010 census.

Recently, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez pushed the Census Bureau to overcome technological barriers and offer an online form for the 2010 census, Jackson said. While the security software wasn't quite there to make the jump online in time for 2010, offering an Internet-based questionnaire is at "the very top of our agenda" for 2020, he added.

Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson will oversee the 2010 census, and, depending on how long he serves, could be around when planning begins for the 2020 survey.

The bureau is also rolling out American FactFinder, an online database geared towards letting users dive into census numbers for themselves.

"I really think we're heading towards a Google-like approach to information search and dissemination," Jackson said.

Another Commerce agency, the Patent and Trademark Office, has turned to the Web in recent years to help alleviate its chronic backlog of applications, and Richardson could push for further movement online. The agency has an online wiki where the public can examine scores of software and business applications and point out existing inventions that might disqualify a submission.

Expanding the Community Patent Review Project could lighten the workload for examiners, a majority of whom favor the program, an agency spokeswoman said. The PTO has also successfully encouraged patent seekers to streamline the process by applying online. In 2008, 78 percent of patent applications were filed electronically, up from less than 2 percent in 2003.

Commerce was also the first department to negotiate a government-specific contract with YouTube, a spokeswoman said, and it remains one of the only Cabinet-level departments with a YouTube channel, which has led other agencies to come calling for Web advice.

Richardson's challenge won't be starting from scratch, but maintaining the brisk pace of Web innovation already under way at the department. On his watch as governor, New Mexico has "done a reasonable job" of establishing a presence online, said Jane Hill, director of the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association, though she added that the state's telecommunications infrastructure is "lousy." Access to broadband service in the Land of Enchantment still lags behind the national average.

The New Mexico governor's office did not return calls seeking comment, and the Obama transition team declined to comment for this story.

With a host of economic issues vying for his attention, innovation may not be at the top of Richardson's to-do list. He does have experience managing a federal bureaucracy, having led the Energy Department for two-and-a-half years at the end of the Clinton administration.

But the Commerce Department is a different beast, a hodgepodge of agencies so disparate, ranging from the PTO to the National Weather Service to the Minority Business Development Agency, that Commerce secretaries themselves don't always grasp it all.

When he took over the department after Ron Brown's death in 1996, former Secretary Mickey Kantor is said to have turned to an aide and asked with bewilderment, "Did you know we have a navy?" -- a reference to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's research fleet.

Whether Richardson ever learns about his YouTube channel remains to be seen.