SIGIR: Pentagon Flushed Iraqi Funds down Toilet with Alarming Efficiency

Will this make the Iraqi people like us more or less?

On Tuesday, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released a devastating report on the Department of Defense's (DOD) control of Iraqi reconstruction funds. SIGIR reviewed the Pentagon's control of the funds from 2004 to 2007 and found that DOD could not account for 96 percent of the $9.1 billion it received during that time.

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Administration Unveils Accountable Government Initiative

President Barack Obama

Last week, in remarks before a signing ceremony for the recently passed Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, President Obama highlighted the measure as the latest in a series of accomplishments his administration has made toward their goal of fundamentally changing the way Washington works. The White House has strung those accomplishments together – along with their other open government and anti-fraud, -waste, and -abuse programs – to create the Accountable Government Initiative.

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Mine Safety Bill Approved by House Panel, with Nips and Tucks

The House Education and Labor Committee yesterday approved a bill to improve safety conditions for miners and expand the powers of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The bill is a response to the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that killed 29 miners in April.

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Outsourcing National Security

He Hears All

If you haven't been reading the Washington Post's new series "Top Secret America" on the state of the intelligence community since 9/11, I highly recommend checking it out. William Arkin, one of the authors of the series, gave an interview this morning on "Washington Journal," C-SPAN's morning call-in program. Discussing today's piece on the extensive use of contractors in intelligence work, Arkin found placing "the functions of a third of our government in the hands of private companies" to be a "fundamental issue" that the public must grapple with.

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Bloch (Lightly) Sentenced

The travails of Scott Bloch are coming to a rather unsatisfying end.

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'High Road' Contracting: Unprincipled Contractors Need Not Apply

For all those principled contractors out there

Last week in the Los Angeles Times, Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley wrote a compelling op-ed on why President Obama should end the delay and sign an executive order enforcing a new "high road" contracting policy for the federal government. While it's not likely to have the same instant stimulative effects of the Recovery Act, a "high road" contracting policy could, as Edley argues, "do more for the economy than [a] second stimulus measure."

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Quigley Introduces Contracting Reform Bill in House, Action Needed

The U.S. Capitol

Yesterday, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced in the House companion legislation to Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) recent contracting reform bill. As companion legislation, the House version of the "Federal Contracting Oversight and Reform Act of 2010" is a mirror image of the Feingold bill. The measure has several strong provisions, and, "if enacted, will lay the foundation for future [contracting] reforms." More members of Congress need to support this legislation.

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EPA Behind Schedule for Air Toxics Standards

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program to evaluate and regulate air toxics, especially in urban areas, is way behind schedule, according to an Inspector General report released last week. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA established a Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy in 1999, but has yet to implement much of the strategy. “For example, EPA has not established baseline risk data to measure progress in reducing air toxics risks,” according to the report.

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Administration Unveils New Fraud-Fighting Measures

This is presumably not what the 'do not pay' list will look like

Writing in his Federal Eye blog over at the Washington Post, Ed O'Keefe put up an interesting piece this morning about the Obama administration creating a government "do not pay" list to help prevent certain improper payments, and ordering the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to begin using a Recovery Act fraud-fighting tool.

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Obama Addresses Food Safety Concerns in the Gulf

The Obama administration is attempting to reassure Americans that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat amid the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. President Obama discussed food safety yesterday during a trip to the Gulf. "Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf today is safe to eat," Obama said.

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