Economic Argument

U.S. Domestic Policy Making Coordinated by the Domestic Policy Council (DPC), the domestic policy-making process in the White House offers policy advice to the President. This Council in addition works to make certain that the proposal of domestic policy are synchronized as well as constant throughout federal agencies. Furthermore, the execution of these domestic policies is also supervised, where the President's priorities to other branches of government is signified by the DPC (Domestic Policy Council). Moreover, under the U.S.

President, the Domestic Policy Council oversees chief domestic policy areas such as health, education, welfare, justice, federalism, environment, transportation, labor, and other veterans' affairs. In addition, the offices that are affiliated with the Domestic Policy Council are the Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), along with the formal membership including the cabinet Secretaries and Administrators of federal agencies that impact the matters addressed in the U.S. Domestic Policy Making (Domestic Policy Council).

Secrecy in Federal Agencies Secrecy is commonly the rule instead of the exception in Federal agency decision-making policy. This may be a privilege in a democratic society, where for this privilege some may say many in the Federal Government exercise it in much free way. Below are few of the domestic policy making issues including bankruptcy, environmental law, nuclear energy, Internet domain names and fisheries. Bankruptcy: Congress established a commission 1994 in order to recommend ways to restore the nation's bankruptcy laws.

However, in August 1997, the New York Times reported that the commission might have dishonored the Government in the Sunshine Act by holding a secret teleconference meeting. Such changes were strongly opposed by banks, credit card companies, and other businesses strongly and were argued that such regulations were not strong enough on debtors. Thus, these financial institutions sued the commission in Federal district court and succeed due to the panel's violation of Federal open-meeting rules, which, consequently, raised the bar for consumers in bankruptcy court (Diana B. 1997).

Environmental Law: Appointed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an environmental advisory group in 1992 drafted suggestions for environmental sentencing guidelines, which was further criticized and ultimately taken to court for deliberating behind closed doors. However, ironically, corporate representatives accused the panel of imposing a "gag rule" on communications with outsiders (Karen. 1992).

Nuclear Energy: In a more recent case of August 1999 involved Tri-Valley Cares, a Livermore, Calif, watchdog group, and the Department of Energy (DoE), where Tri-Valley Cares accused the DoE of lying about operational changes at the Lawrence Livermore national laboratory as well as the need for a site-wide environmental review. They claimed that the DoE planned to shift its nuclear weapons upgrade work from Los Alamos to Livermore.

Thus, the watchdog group raised safety as well as environmental concerns due to the facility's closeness to the heavily populated San Francisco area (George. 1999). Internet Domain Names: The Internet Domain Names is another concern of domestic policy making. In July 1999, the Commerce Department ordered the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the nonprofit governing body were made responsible for registering as well as supervising Internet address registrations to open its board meetings to the public instantly along with the elimination of $1 fee on Internet address registrations (Jeri. 1999).

As Jeri Clausing wrote in the New York Times: They (ICANN) are mysteriously appointed, they meet behind closed doors and they have questionable public accountability. Yet members of the interim board of the Internet's new oversight body are beginning to make decisions and shape policy that could ultimately affect everyone who uses the global network." (Jeri. 1999) The development of ICANN appeared to be a good example of the positive effects of an open-door policy.

Thus, by implementing internal reforms and offering open the doors to its meetings, ICANN has made a long way towards the improvement in the accountability. Fisheries: Fishermen.