President Joseph Biden Cabinet Transparency Report:
A Review of the Public Calendar Practices of Leaders at 19 of the Most Impactful Federal Agencies
Introduction
One of the foundational principles of the American system is that the government exists to serve its citizens. A necessary outgrowth of that is the public has the right to access “information on the basis of which government agencies make their decisions, thereby equipping the populace to evaluate and criticize those decisions.”
Transparency is vital to the functioning of our government. An essential piece of the information the public needs to assess those decisions and the actions of the decisionmakers is knowing who is in a position to influence key policymakers. The American public deserves to know which organizations, individuals, and agencies are meeting with the policymakers in our government. Therefore, it is essential for members of the public to have ready, timely, and seamless access to cabinet officials’ schedules and calendars, including the details that reveal with whom these officials are meeting and the topics they are discussing.
Without this information, the public has little basis through which to determine if senior officials and those they supervise are indeed serving the public’s interest. In addition, this information is essential in evaluating the extent to which our public servants are acting within the ethical boundaries set out for them.
To that end, federal watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust has compiled information on the public calendars of cabinet members leading several public agencies and departments. Within this report, the public will find a description of the quality, completeness, timeliness, and accessibility of information the agency provides regarding who is meeting with and potentially influencing the agency’s principal official. We attempt to answer the question, does a cabinet official regularly post meaningful information about their daily schedule in a format accessible to the public?
For each agency, we will detail whether or not a public calendar is available, along with a description of its completeness, frequency, ease of accessibility, and other important aspects of transparency. PPT’s goal in providing this information is to assist the public in assessing the extent to which cabinet members’ calendars allow them to:
- See into the daily affairs of top federal officials in charge of large bureaucracies.
- Evaluate whether powerful public officials are acting within the designated ethical and legal boundaries.
- Determine which groups or individuals are influencing policy within a department.
- Judge an agency’s commitment to transparency.
- Easily track an agency or department’s actions without experience or training in navigating a government website.
- Offer meaningful, contemporaneous input on agencies’ active policymaking and decision-making on topics of public interest.
Please note that the information contained in this report was gathered up to and through the first week of December 2021. Updates after that time, which we are deeply hopeful have occurred, are not reflected in this report.
Background
For this report, Protect the Public’s Trust evaluated the publicly available calendars of the principal officers (Secretary, Administrator, etc.) of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Commerce, Defense (DoD), Education (ED), Energy (DOE), Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Interior (DOI), Justice (DOJ), Labor (DOL), State, Transportation (DOT), Treasury, and Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Small Business Administration (SBA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The calendars were evaluated on a combination of the following criteria – accessibility, quality, completeness, and timeliness.
- Accessibility – How easy or difficult is it for the layperson to find and to navigate through? Information that is available only via Freedom of Information Act request is not considered easy to find. To gauge accessibility, we looked for links to the calendar on the agency’s home page, the principal’s and principal’s office’s information page, used relevant search terms such as “secretary calendar” or “administrator calendar” and “[principal’s last name] calendar”, and searched for links to calendars in the agency’s FOIA Reading Room, where they post common requests.
- Quality – Does the calendar provide meaningful information regarding who has the ear of the agency principal? Can the reader determine whom the principal met with and what they discussed? Does it contain only public appearances, or does it also list private meetings? The best examples are copies of the official’s Outlook/Google calendar or an online document in which all of the information that would be contained in that calendar, including individual attendees and topic, is presented.
- Completeness – How much of the principal’s tenure is available on the calendar? An agency can hardly be deemed transparent if the publicly available calendar is missing significant blocks of time.
- Timeliness – How often are the entries posted? The more time that elapses from the date of a meeting until it is made public, the less useful the information.
Each agency’s grade is based on an overall assessment of the criteria. For example, an abundance of low-quality information or missing data that is very accessible is not very useful. Likewise, revealing all the important aspects of meetings regarding with whom the individuals met and topics discussed but not doing so until months later or only for intermittent time periods limits the public’s opportunity to provide meaningful oversight or significantly participate in the agency’s decision-making. Thus, the overall grades consider all the factors in combination to assess whether the agency demonstrates an appropriate level of transparency to the American public.
Executive Summary
Each agency was given an “X” or “✓” based on its performance in each of the four criteria. A corresponding letter grade was then assigned: Four checks = A, three checks = B, and so on.
Using the metrics in the Background section, by far the most transparency in this area is provided by EPA. Though it still falls short of the ideal, EPA Administrator Michael Regan’s calendar is easy to find, use, and understand. In addition, the information is updated frequently, with the latest entries often less than a week old. While this calendar presents much useful information, it is still what the agency itself describes as “simplified,” and EPA notes an “official record-copy of the Administrator’s calendar” is available only via FOIA request. For this reason, EPA could do better.
Based on extensive real-world experience, having to wait to obtain information via a FOIA request can take precious time and severely limit public oversight of agencies’ actions. It is much preferred for the agency to provide all necessary details on the online calendar or to make it accessible on a timely basis via the agency’s FOIA Library.
The Department of Labor’s calendar for Secretary Marty Walsh is, likewise, fairly easy to find, use, and understand. Calendars for Secretary Walsh and his predecessors, Eugene Scalia and Alexander Acosta, are available on the Department’s DOL-Wide FOIA Library. These schedules, available by month, contain the top-line information obtained from the Secretaries’ Outlook calendars. The lack of more detailed information on meetings is a shortcoming. Though it is similar to the level of detail provided by EPA, the language on the EPA website indicates more information is available via FOIA while the presence of the Labor Secretary’s calendar on the FOIA Library page indicates that no more information would be provided via FOIA.
The Departments of Defense, Education, and State provide information only on their Secretaries’ public appearances. This information is primarily useful for media and sheds virtually no light on which groups and individuals have the Secretary’s ear. In addition, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s public calendar displays only the current week, with archived information either unavailable or difficult to find; the public schedule of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin can be accessed only one day at a time; and the public schedule for Secretary of State Anthony Blinken must be accessed via the webpage of a subordinate office that most members of the public have likely never heard of and will struggle to locate.
The publicly available calendars of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also demonstrate the wide variation in approaches to calendar practices across federal agencies. The Treasury Department provides detailed information for Secretary Yellen’s meetings through June 30 but has not updated it since then. Secretary Haaland’s calendar covers only a month-and-a-half of her nearly nine months as Secretary with her first twelve days documented along with a bare-bones schedule for August that appears to be randomly released with no meaningful information to understand who is influencing the agency’s daily decision-making or meeting with the Secretary. Similar to the DOL calendar, Secretary Haaland’s August calendar is within the Department’s FOIA site, hinting that the Department would likely not provide more detail in response to a FOIA request. (Note: PPT is currently involved in FOIA litigation regarding a request for information related to Secretary Haaland’s calendar and meeting records.)(UPDATE: After this report was sent to publication, the Department of the Interior added the months of April through July to the publicly available schedule for Secretary Haaland. The additional months also included more detail than Interior had previously provided.)
Considering all aspects, the Biden Administration’s Cabinet is largely failing to live up to their transparency goals. Nearly every Department PPT reviewed simply does not offer the public a meaningful opportunity to hold the agency accountable in a timely manner when it comes to major policy decisions and concerns over potential misconduct.
Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Michael Regan (confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2021) Link to Calendar: Calendar for Michael S. Regan, EPA Administrator
Summary: A public calendar for EPA Administrator Michael Regan is readily accessible on EPA’s website. Administrator Regan’s public calendar is easy to find, use, and understand. The EPA’s website describes his publicly accessible calendar as “simplified,” noting it “does not constitute the official record-copy of the calendar for the purpose of documenting [his] activities.” The “official record-copy of the Administrator’s calendar” is available via FOIA request. Entries on the simplified calendar include calls and meeting titles, participant group affiliations, times, dates, and locations.
The meetings have titles such as “Call with Renewable Fuels Association,” which provide some top-level information but little details regarding the topics discussed in the meetings. While the overall value of the information presented by EPA is superior to that of all the agencies studied for this report, making these details of the administrator’s calendar available only via FOIA is far from ideal.
✓ Accessibility: A public schedule for Administrator Regan is readily accessible. Entering “Administrator calendar” in the search function of the EPA website yields, at the top of results, a link to Senior Leaders’ Calendars. This page has a prominent link to Administrator Regan’s simplified calendar as well as additional info about these leaders’ calendars and how to go about getting official record-copy.
✓ Quality: The “simplified” calendar contains information on public and private meetings and events, often including individuals and groups meeting with the Administrator. However, the calendar provides little data about the topics of meetings and EPA declares this is not an official record-copy of his calendar, which is available only via FOIA. The agency can do better in this category but relative to other agencies and its proactive efforts to provide this information, we determine the agency currently satisfies this criteria.
✓ Completeness: The calendar covers virtually the entire tenure of the Administrator.
✓ Timeliness: It appears to be updated frequently with the most recent entries a little more than a week old.
Department of Labor
Secretary Marty Walsh (confirmed by the Senate on March 22, 2021) Link to Calendar: Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh’s Monthly Schedule (links on DOL-Wide FOIA Library)
Summary: A public calendar for Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is readily accessible on the DOL website. The calendar is relatively easy to find, on the DOL-Wide FOIA Library page. Titled “Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh’s Monthly Schedule,” the calendar is provided per month in a searchable pdf format, making it easy to use and understand. Monthly calendars for former Secretaries Eugene Scalia and Alexander Azar are also available on this page of the DOL website.
The monthly schedule contains only the top-line data from the Secretary’s Outlook-like calendar, with little information on individual attendees or topics discussed. In some cases, the names of attendees and other information is redacted. Thus, the public may lack important information to determine who may be attempting to influence the Secretary. In addition, the calendar is posted only through September, leaving more than two months of the Secretary’s nearly nine-month tenure unavailable.
✓ Accessibility: The calendar for Secretary Walsh is relatively easy to find, on the Department’s FOIA Library page. They are also very easy to navigate, presented as searchable pdfs.
X Quality: The calendar provides similar information to that on most other Cabinet calendarsthat are available – top-line data on meetings and attendees. While events listed as “Meeting with National Restaurant Association” are relatively descriptive, though the public is left to guess the topics discussed, others (“InternaI Job Corps Briefing via Microsoft Teams”) are even less so. The quality of information provided is similar to that of EPA Administrator Regan, but Secretary Walsh’s calendar is posted in the Department’s FOIA site, indicating no more information would be provided in responseto a FOIA request.
✓ Completeness: The monthly calendars available cover more than two-thirds of Secretary Walsh’s nearly nine months leading DOL.
✓ Timeliness: September is the most recent month any calendar is available, leaving a more than two-month gap since the latest entry. However, PPT credits DOL for timeliness because less than a quarter has elapsed. Our evaluation would change if more months of calendars did not become available early in the first quarter of 2022.
Department of Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin (confirmed by the Senate on January 22, 2021) Link to Calendar: Today in DoD Summary: A public calendar for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is readily accessible on DoD’s website. However, it includes very little meaningful data on meetings or attendees, is unavailable for direct searching, and is probably better described as a summary of the day’s press events in which he is involved.
✓ Accessibility: A public schedule for DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin is accessible on DoD’s website and the page is fairly easily found through the search term “Austin calendar,” though the page “Today in DoD” is hardly intuitive. The schedule is unavailable for direct searching, takes the form of a pop-up, text-based window, and appears to be searchable exclusively by date, not by event, topic, meeting title, or attendees. A user wishing to access the Defense Secretary’s schedule would only be able to obtain access to open press events and then only by using the date selection tool to view each date individually.
X Quality: The calendar information for Secretary Austin is provided by DoD as one of the public schedules of senior leaders presented on the “Today in DoD” page. It includes very little meaningful data on meetings or attendees and contains information that is useful largely to media covering the Department rather than the general public. The descriptions for top DoD officials on this page cover open press events and include, for example, instructions for journalists covering meetings with foreign dignitaries. The ability to assess compliance with ethical and legal obligations, as well as, understanding external influence on the daily decisions of the Secretary is very limited.
✓ Completeness: The DoD public calendar for Secretary Austin was available for every day of his tenure at the time of this report.
✓ Timeliness: The public schedule appears to be updated daily.
Department of Education
Secretary Miguel Cardona (confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 2021) Link to Calendar: Schedule of U.S. Secretary of Education
Summary: A public calendar for Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona is readily accessible on ED’s website. It is easy to find and understand but is not searchable and contains few or no details on non-public meeting attendees’ names and group affiliations. The content of the ED Secretary’s calendar mirrors that of Secretary of Defense Austin’s calendar in that it is perhaps better described as a summary of the day’s events which are open to the press (e.g., speaking on a panel with Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra at a Tribal Youth Forum). It is even less useful than the Defense Secretary’s as it contains information only for the current week.
✓ Accessibility: A public schedule for Secretary Cardona is readily accessible. Entering “Secretary calendar” in the search function of ED’s website yields, on the first page of results, a link to his public schedule for the current week as well as a number of former Secretary DeVos’s monthly calendars. The Frequently Requested Records page of the FOIA section on the Department’s website contains the calendars (by month) of former Secretary Betsy DeVos from February 2017 through March 2019. These contain information on both public and private meetings. No calendars for Secretary Cardona are available on this page.
X Quality: The schedule available appears to be only for public events and seems designed primarily for media rather than the general public. There is little ability for the public to see into the Secretary’s daily decision-making, external influences and compliance with ethical and legal obligations.
X Completeness: The public schedule is for the current week only. If records are kept of previous weeks’ calendars, they are not readily apparent to the typical user how to find them.
✓ Timeliness: The public schedule has information only on the current week.
Department of State
Secretary Anthony Blinken (confirmed by the Senate on January 26, 2021) Link to Calendar: Public Schedule Summary: A public calendar exists for Secretary of State Antony Blinken; however, it is moderately difficult for the average user to find, as no links to it appear when searching “Blinken calendar” within the State Department’s website. A “Public Schedule” for a “collection” of U.S. Department of State officials is on the “Office of the Spokesperson’s” page. This is not a prominent page and would be difficult for a layperson to locate.
By navigating to the Public Schedules page and applying a filter specific to “Secretary of State,” the public can view a schedule of meetings and events. This calendar is inconsistent in terms of specificity. Some entries include times, dates, and locations of the Secretary’s general activities, such as tours, press conferences, and meetings with foreign dignitaries. Other entries are too general to be meaningful or useful (e.g., the November 4 entry in full reads “Secretary Blinken attends meetings and briefings, from the Department of State”). Secretary Blinken’s public calendar is similar to those of Secretary Austin and Secretary Cordona.
X Accessibility: The public schedule page is difficult to find. It is on a page that is not prominently displayed, is not intuitive for someone searching for the Secretary’s schedule, and is not a top result for a “secretary calendar” search.
X Quality: The public schedule is hit-or-miss. Some days contain specifics for the Secretary’s meetings and events, others contain little or no detail.
✓ Completeness: The public schedule appears to cover the entirety of Secretary Blinken’s tenure.
✓ Timeliness: The public schedule appears to be updated every day through the current day.
Department of Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen (confirmed by the Senate on January 25, 2021) Link to Calendar: Calendars and Travel of the Secretary Summary: A public calendar for Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen is readily accessible on Treasury’s website. Though Secretary Yellen’s calendars are easily found and easily understood, the information they contain is only updated quarterly. Some information in the Secretary’s calendar is redacted. The viewable data in her calendar include meeting titles and topics as well as names and group memberships of people with whom she has phone calls and meetings. Not all names of meeting attendees are provided. Some, for example, are full names (e.g., Sweden Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson), while others appear as a more general description by group membership (e.g., World Bank Development Committee Meeting). The “Calendars and Travel of the Secretary” page contains calendars for Secretary Yellen and her predecessors (Steve Mnuchin, Timothy Geithner, and Henry Paulson) going back to July 2006.
✓ Accessibility: The “Calendars and Travel of the Secretary” page is relatively easy to find, showing up as one of the top results in a “secretary calendar” search.
✓ Quality: Typical entries include meetings, phone calls, briefings, lunches, and media appearances. Staff meetings contain neither attendees nor topics. Phone call entries include names but not topics. Working meal meetings include names, but not topics. The main calendar page does mention that “certain limited aspects of the Secretary’s calendars have been reformatted to protect sensitive information.”
X Completeness: The calendars are posted quarterly. Only the first two quarters of 2021 were available at our deadline.
X Timeliness: Secretary Yellen’s calendar is published quarterly. As of this writing, the public can view the Secretary’s calendar entries through June 30, 2021. Clearly, such a publication schedule affords citizens very limited opportunity to address issues of concern. Two tranches of calendar entries are currently available. When the third tranche is released, which should include entries beginning July 1, the oldest content in that tranche may be five months old or older.
Department of the Interior
Secretary Deb Haaland (confirmed by the Senate on March 15, 2021) Link to Calendar: Calendars and Secretary Haaland’s External Schedule
After this report originally was submitted for publication, DOI updated the “Calendars” page to include Secretary Haaland’s calendars for the months of April through July. We have updated relevant areas of this page to reflect the new information.
Summary: The public calendar for Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, while fairly easily found on Interior’s website, could create confusion. Two entirely different calendars covering different, though at times overlapping, timeframes exist on the DOI website. One page is titled “Secretary Haaland’s External Schedule.” The website contains another page titled “Calendars,” which provides information on the calendars of Interior Secretaries going back to and including Sally Jewell (through January 2016).
The calendar on the “Secretary Haaland’s External Schedule” page is of very limited use for two reasons. First, it has not been updated since March 31, 2021 (more than 8 months out-of-date at the time of this writing). Second, the calendar’s content mirrors that of the publicly available calendars for Secretary Austin and Secretary Cardona in that it is limited largely to a summary of daily events or media appearances open to the press. Internal meetings are typically described with the phrase: “Throughout the day, the Secretary attended internal meetings and briefings at the Department of the Interior.”
The calendar on the “Calendars” page provides information regarding four days early in the Secretary’s tenure (March 29 – April 1) as well as for the month of August. Relative to her predecessors David Bernhardt, Ryan Zinke, and Sally Jewell, very little information is revealed regarding which individuals, outside organizations or Tribes attended meetings or are influencing decisions being made by Secretary Haaland.
After this report originally was submitted for publication, DOI updated the “Calendars” page to include Secretary Haaland’s calendars for the months of April through July. The information contained in the newly added pages is comparable to that of Secretary Haaland’s predecessors, though nearly four months of information is still missing.
✓Accessibility: The calendars for Secretary Haaland are relatively easy to find, using a “secretary calendar” search. They are also fairly easy to navigate. However, the fact that different calendars are available on different pages adds confusion.
X Quality: (UPDATED)
✓Quality: The calendar at “Secretary Haaland’s External Schedule” is little more than a public schedule, more useful to media than the public. While the calendar available on the “Calendars” page supplies more information, it also provides significantly less transparency than those of her predecessors on the very same page. While the quality of information provided is similar to that of EPA Administrator Regan, Secretary Haaland’s calendar is posted in the Department’s FOIA site, indicating no more information would be provided in response to a FOIA request.
UPDATE: The calendars for the months of April through July that were recently added to the DOI website contain higher quality information than those previously on the site. Meetings shown on the calendar identify participants, including for internal meetings. The quality of the information provided on these particular calendars is similar to that of the calendars of Secretary Haaland’s predecessors and are at least equal to that of any other current Cabinet member in this report.
X Completeness: Combined, the calendars cover only about one-sixth of the Secretary’s tenure. Further, the four-month gap between entries is inexplicable and perplexing.
UPDATE: With the new information provided by the Department, about five-and-a-half months of Secretary Haaland’s nine-month tenure are available for the public to see.
X Timeliness: The most recent entries are nearly four months old.
UPDATE: The Department of the Interior took more than nine months after Secretary Haaland was confirmed to furnish a significant amount of information.
Department of Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack (Confirmed by the Senate on February 23, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available
Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. A search of USDA’s website for “Perdue calendar” yields a link to the public calendar of former Secretary Sonny Perdue on the first page of results. The Office of the Secretary’s FOIA Reading Room contains top-of-list links to former Secretary Perdue’s Calendars, but has no link to any calendars for current Secretary Vilsack.
Earlier this year, PPT submitted a FOIA request to USDA that asked for, among other records, calendar and meetings records for Secretary Vilsack. USDA’s first interim response to PPT’s FOIA request for the Secretary’s calendar yielded 395 pages of general correspondence—virtually none of it related to the Secretary’s calendar or schedule. Though a small portion of this correspondence mentioned invitations to meetings or media appearances, the bulk comprised public inquiries or comments apparently forwarded from the USDA’s website, form letters requesting a specific action, or letters from members of the public making requests or commenting on USDA policy.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Commerce
Secretary Gina Raimondo (confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The Department’s FOIA Electronic Library contains a list of Frequently Requested Records. Among them are Secretary calendars for the years 2017-2020. These calendar records, for former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, are searchable, easy to use, and easy to understand. No records for the current Secretary are available on this page.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Energy
Secretary Jennifer Granholm (confirmed by the Senate on February 25, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. No documents from the current administration are available on the FOIA Frequently Requested Documents page. A search using the term “Secretary calendar” yields no result containing a calendar for Secretary Granholm nor any previous secretary.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Health and Human Services
Secretary Xavier Becerra (confirmed by the Senate on March 18, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. There also appears to be no readily accessible public calendar for former HHS Secretary Alex Azar within HHS’s website. A Google search, however, yields the results of a 2018 FOIA request for Sec. Azar’s calendar from January 29, 2018, through April 30, 2018.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: If a current public calendar exists for Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, it is difficult for the average citizen to find. A search of “secretary calendar” reveals a link to a page of calendars of Secretaries of Homeland Security from 2009-2018 (Napolitano – 2009-2012; Johnson – 2013-14; Kelly and Duke – 2017; and Nielsen – 2018) but none for the current secretary. This page indicates it contains “the annual calendars for the current and past Secretaries of Homeland Security,” though this practice appears to have ended with Nielsen in 2018.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Marica Fudge (confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar available for HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge. Nor does a search for “secretary calendar” reveal results for any current or former Secretary’s calendars on the HUD website.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Justice
Attorney General Merrick Garland (confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar on the DOJ website for Attorney General Merrick Garland. Calendars of former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker are available in DOJ’s FOIA Library but the calendar for the current Attorney General is not.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Attorney General’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Office of Personnel Management
Director Kiran Ahuja (confirmed by the Senate on June 22, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar available for OPM Director Kiran Ahuja. If a public calendar exists for Director Ahuja, it is very difficult for the average person to uncover. Nor does it appear that easily accessible, public calendars for previous directors exist.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Director’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Small Business Administration
Administrator Isabella Guzman (confirmed by the Senate on March 16, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman. A search of SBA’s site yields no public calendars for former SBA Secretaries.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Administrator’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Transportation
Secretary Pete Buttigieg (confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2021)Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Though an “Event Calendar” link appears on the Office of the Secretary’s page in a sidebar, it shows only DOT “conference and event pages across various websites.” It is not a calendar for Sec. Buttigieg. A search for “Chao calendar” reveals no publicly available calendar for former DOT Secretary Elaine Chao.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
United States Agency for International Development
Administrator Samantha Power (confirmed by the Senate on April 28, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for USAID Administrator Samantha Power. Searches do not reveal calendars for previous administrators.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Administrator’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
Department of Veterans Affairs
Secretary Denis McDonough (confirmed by the Senate on February 8, 2021) Link to Calendar: None available Summary: There is no readily accessible public calendar for Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, nor do searches reveal calendars for any previous Secretary.
X Accessibility: The agency has not posted a public calendar on their website or in their FOIA portal.
X Quality: Since there is no public calendar to review, there is no meaningful information to assess the Secretary’s daily activities.
X Completeness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.
X Timeliness: Without a public calendar, the agency fails to satisfy this criteria.