US Government Opens Datasets to Public

Yesterday, the Obama administration launched Data.gov to allow the public access to large set of raw data in a variety of readable formats.  The move marks a new step in the government’s use of technology and appeals to the growing interaction between average citizens and lawmakers.  While the site is still noticeably lacking the wealth of information the US government holds, it starts a number of interesting projects such as the access to widgets tracking the H1N1 Flu and the NOAA Weather Watch.  Wired writes about the current state of the site,

“Data.gov says that our information is your information,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. “It bothers me less that there are 50 feeds available today because it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”

A quick search for energy data yielded results of the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) from 2005.  The hefty 10 megabytes of raw data could be downloaded in CSV format and analyzed. For the average citizen this isn’t a huge resource, but it will be interesting to see how individuals and organizations utilize this important step in transparency.

[via The Sunlight Foundation]