President Obama announced in his 2011 State of the Union that he would pursue reorganizing federal agencies to improve government operations. A year later, he announced a specific set of proposals, with a focus on reorganizing the government’s trade and export functions. He requested reorganization authority from Congress and by late 2013, Congress was still discussing the initiative, but with no legislative actions taken. As top agency and White House officials turned over, the reorganization proposals faded from public view.
Was the initiative actually a failure or did it lead to some administrative improvements below the radar screen? What insights from this effort would be helpful to those running the current Administration’s government reorganization initiatives?
Discussants:
Lisa Brown, former Executive Director, White House Government Reform for Competitiveness and Innovation Initiative
Randy Lyon, former OMB Commerce Branch Chief, and OMB staff lead for the Initiative
Logistics: We will meet on Friday, October 19th, from 10:00 AM until 11:45 AM, (a light lunch will be available at noon) at NAPA’s offices, 1600 K Street, NW, on the 4th Floor. Please note the entrance is on 16th St.
Please RSVP to Elijah Evans (eevans@napawash.org) and denote whether you intend to participate in-person or virtually.
** This session will be closed to media and not for attribution. **
We look forward to seeing you at this session!
John Kamensky, Chair
Standing Panel on Executive Organization and Management
Pre-read Links:
Government Reorganization Fact Sheet (January 2012):
Obama Seeks Reorg Authority (January 2012):
Uphill Task (December 2013).