The Foreign Service Journal, April 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2014 15 initially denounced such disclosures as interference in its internal affairs; it even formally requested that foreign govern- ments stop making the data public. But beginning in 2012, Chinese authorities did an about-face, ordering local gov- ernments to publish their own data on PM2.5 pollution levels. Today 179 Chinese cities issue real- time statistics, which the Ministry of Environmental Protection publishes online (but only in Chinese) and uses to rank the worst offenders. Many Chinese activists credit the United States for its leadership on environmental issues, citing the Toxics Release Inventory, which the Envi- ronmental Protection Agency created in 1986, as a model. However, Linda Greer, director of the Natural Resources Defence Council’s health and environ- ment program, points out that China’s real-time disclosure program is actually bigger than anything the EPA has ever done. Building on Embassy Beijing’s example, Ma Jun, head of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Bei- jing, is working with experts to design a phone app that shows factories that meet emissions targets in blue and those breaking the law in red. — Steven Alan Honley, Contributing Editor State: Still a Pretty Good Place to Work L ast December the Partnership for Public Service, in collaboration with Deloitte Consulting Services, released its eighth annual survey of “Best Places to Work in the Federal Govern- ment.” The results are based on data the Office of Personnel Management collected between April and June 2013 from 376,000 employees of 371 federal organizations (19 large federal agencies, 23 mid-size agencies, 29 small agencies and 300 subcomponents) represent- ing 97 percent of the executive branch workforce. The Department of State slipped one notch on the large agencies list, from third to fourth, as 65.6 percent of its employees expressed job satisfaction (compared with 68.2 percent in 2012). The top three agencies in that category are NASA, Commerce and the intelli- gence community. (There was no break- out for the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service.) In the mid-size division, the U.S. Agency for International Development edged up from 15th to 14th of 23 con- tenders, even though its score only rose from 58.8 percent to 58.9. At the Broad- casting Board of Governors, the per- centage of satisfied employees jumped four points, from 46.8 to 50.7 percent, but that was still only enough to boost its ranking from 23rd to 21st. (Within the International Broadcasting Bureau, however, job satisfaction fell nearly five points from last year, dropping from 56.4 to 51.7 percent.) In his Feb. 19 Federal Diary column in the Washington Post , Joe Davidson reports on the BBG’s ongoing efforts to improve employee morale. These include informal sessions during which employees can air concerns directly to directors and other senior staff, a “Civility Campaign” to address labor- management issues, and a Workplace Engagement Initiative to get to the root of the agency’s perennially low job sat- isfaction. One step that many observers believe will significantly help is chang- ing the BBG’s structure from a board of directors to a chief executive officer. Among small agencies, the Peace Corps held on to fourth place among