President Obama has often talked of the importance of transparency and accountability in government and he has chalked up some landmark achievements in this area. As a senator, he co-sponsored with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 that established the USASpending.gov web site to enable citizen tracking of federal expenditures. As president, he launched the Recovery.gov web site to do the same for stimulus spending. Both sites have had and will have future hiccups, but they are precedent-setters for which Obama deserves great credit. Unfortunately, transparency and accountability go out the window when they conflict with the demands of organized labor and environmentalists, two special-interest groups that are key supporters and contributors to Obama’s political campaigns.