Nine months into his administration, President Joe Biden has made strides in several areas related to accountability, including restoring ethics requirements, revoking harmful Trump administration orders, and reversing COVID-19 pandemic secrecy. However, his administration still has not made a substantive commitment to transparency and oversight.

We cannot afford to let this set the tone for the remainder of his presidential term.

Long before the start of his presidency, in 2020, a broad coalition of more than 40 good government organizations and experts from across the political spectrum convened to produce Accountability 2021, a wide-ranging set of recommendations for the Biden administration to repair the critical gaps in transparency, ethics, and oversight the previous administration exposed.

The Washington Post’s editorial board recently urged Biden to implement several transparency recommendations in Accountability 2021 with more expediency – “the sooner the better”.

Let's call on Biden to uphold the “highest standard of transparency” he promised early in his administration.

Biden recognized the value of the practical ethics solutions mapped out in Accountability 2021 when he heeded advocates’ call to issue a strong executive order on the first day of his presidency to elevate ethics as a core value in the executive branch. Urge him to do the same for transparency by adopting key open government recommendations in Accountability 2021 such as:

- Appoint a Chief Accountability Officer to lead the administration’s ethics agenda and interagency collaboration on records, proactive disclosures, and adherence to the Freedom of Information Act.

- Direct Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue a memo to agencies on the implementation of the FOIA and how to fully comply with the law, especially its presumption of openness, to strengthen transparency throughout government.

- Issue a Presidential Memorandum on Transparency that sets the tone and communicates the significance of transparency as a core value in the executive branch and all agencies.

All of us have a stake in forging a more transparent and accountable government because the flip side of transparency is secrecy, which paves the way for waste, malfeasance, and abuses that harm civil rights and civil liberties.

Sign your name to tell Biden Americans care about greater transparency in our government and prompt him to adopt these critical recommendations to repair our democratic foundations and strengthen our nation. Transparency is the foundation of an accountable government.