The best chance for reform of the deeply troubled Freedom of Information Act appears in peril at this hour. U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the retiring Democrat from West Virginia, placed a hold on the legislation out of last-minute concerns he expressed in a Facebook post Friday: "I am concerned that provisions in this bill will have the unintended consequence of harming our ability to enforce the many important federal laws that protect American consumers from financial fraud and other abuses. According to experts across the federal government, these provisions would make it harder for federal agency attorneys to prepare their cases, and they would potentially give defendants new ways to obstruct and delay investigations into their conduct."

Open government advocates are scrambling to rescue the bill, but in this lame duck Congress, time is running out. I know this is how it works in the Senate, but it's still disappointing for us out here in the real world to see how a single politician - heeding the fears of the FTC, SEC and some other federal regulators - can derail a bill with remarkable bipartisan support.