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May 6, 2016

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz

The Honorable Elijah Cummings

Chairman

Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
United States House of Representatives

Dear Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking Member Cummings,


We, the undersigned businesses, industry groups, civil society organizations, and transparency
advocates, write to express our strong support for the bipartisan Open, Permanent, Electronic, and
Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act (H.R. 5051). This bill would establish a comprehensive policy
across the federal government to ensure that government data is accessible to the public by default.
In recent years, open datadata that is made freely available to use without restrictionshas proven to
be an enormously effective platform for innovation in both the public and private sectors, supporting
significant economic value, increasing transparency, efficiency, and accountability in government
operations, and powering new tools and services that address some of the countrys most pressing
economic and social challenges.
The OPEN Government Data Act would require federal agencies to publish government data in machinereadable and open formats and use open licenses. In addition, it would direct agencies to support
innovative uses of government data, adopt consistent data practices across government, and develop
best practices for open data.
We support the OPEN Government Data Act for several reasons. First and foremost, this legislation
would institutionalize the federal governments commitment to open data and allow the United States
to remain a world leader on open data. Second, adopting a policy of open by default for government
data would ensure that the value of this public resource would continue to grow as the government
unlocks and creates new data sets. Third, a firm commitment to providing open data as a public
resource would encourage businesses, non-profits, and others to invest in innovative tools that make
use of government data.
Given the many benefits of this legislation, as well as the broad industry and public support for open
data, we respectfully ask Congress to take quick action on this bill.

Sincerely,

Amazon Web Services

Institute for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil

American Library Association

Internet Infrastructure Coalition

American Statistical Association

iSolon.org

ARiA

Massive Connections, LLC

Association of Public Data Users

New America's Open Technology Institute

Association of Research Libraries

Niskanen Center

Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending


Dissent Foundation

NuCivic/GovDelivery

CA Technologies
Center for Data Innovation
Center for Open Data Enterprise

Object Management Group, Inc.


OpenDataSoft
OpenTheGovernment.org

Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness

Population Association of America/Association


of Population Centers

CompTIA

Project On Government Oversight (POGO)

Consumer Technology Association

R Street Institute

Council of Professional Associations on Federal


Statistics

Rackspace

Data Coalition
Demand Progress
Elder Research, Inc.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
EMC Corporation
Engine
Esri
Government Accountability Project

Semantic Arts, Inc.


Socrata
SPARC
Splunk Inc.
Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers for Common Sense
The Foundation for Earth Science
TransitScreen

GovTrack.us

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for


Advanced Technology and Innovation

Information Unlimited Inc. (IUI)

U.S. Open Data

May 6, 2016

The Honorable Ron Johnson

The Honorable Thomas Carper

Chairman

Ranking Member
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
United States Senate

Dear Chairman Johnson and Ranking Member Carper,


We, the undersigned businesses, industry groups, civil society organizations, and transparency
advocates, write to express our strong support for the bipartisan Open, Permanent, Electronic, and
Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act (S. 2852). This bill would establish a comprehensive policy
across the federal government to ensure that government data is accessible to the public by default.
In recent years, open datadata that is made freely available to use without restrictionshas proven to
be an enormously effective platform for innovation in both the public and private sectors, supporting
significant economic value, increasing transparency, efficiency, and accountability in government
operations, and powering new tools and services that address some of the countrys most pressing
economic and social challenges.
The OPEN Government Data Act would require federal agencies to publish government data in machinereadable and open formats and use open licenses. In addition, it would direct agencies to support
innovative uses of government data, adopt consistent data practices across government, and develop
best practices for open data.
We support the OPEN Government Data Act for several reasons. First and foremost, this legislation
would institutionalize the federal governments commitment to open data and allow the United States
to remain a world leader on open data. Second, adopting a policy of open by default for government
data would ensure that the value of this public resource would continue to grow as the government
unlocks and creates new data sets. Third, a firm commitment to providing open data as a public
resource would encourage businesses, non-profits, and others to invest in innovative tools that make
use of government data.
Given the many benefits of this legislation, as well as the broad industry and public support for open
data, we respectfully ask Congress to take quick action on this bill.

Sincerely,

Amazon Web Services

Institute for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil

American Library Association

Internet Infrastructure Coalition

American Statistical Association

iSolon.org

ARiA

Massive Connections, LLC

Association of Public Data Users

New America's Open Technology Institute

Association of Research Libraries

Niskanen Center

Bill of Rights Defense Committee/Defending


Dissent Foundation

NuCivic/GovDelivery

CA Technologies
Center for Data Innovation
Center for Open Data Enterprise

Object Management Group, Inc.


OpenDataSoft
OpenTheGovernment.org

Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness

Population Association of America/Association


of Population Centers

CompTIA

Project On Government Oversight (POGO)

Consumer Technology Association

R Street Institute

Council of Professional Associations on Federal


Statistics

Rackspace

Data Coalition
Demand Progress
Elder Research, Inc.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
EMC Corporation
Engine
Esri
Government Accountability Project

Semantic Arts, Inc.


Socrata
SPARC
Splunk Inc.
Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers for Common Sense
The Foundation for Earth Science
TransitScreen

GovTrack.us

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for


Advanced Technology and Innovation

Information Unlimited Inc. (IUI)

U.S. Open Data

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