Food Safety Bill Pushed after Salmonella Outbreak
Sep 14, 2010
A salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 1,500 people and led to the recall of 550 million eggs highlights the need for Congress to pass legislation that would empower the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to better protect the food supply, advocates say.
read in fullReports Start Flowing on BP's Gulf Oil Disaster
Sep 14, 2010
New reports on BP's April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster detail problems with oil drilling operations and regulation, including environmental reviews, agency approvals, and industry oversight.
read in fullGAO: Lack of Competition in Some Contracting Difficult to Overcome
Sep 14, 2010
In a recent report to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found systemic hurdles to reducing the dollars spent on contracts not competed or those that are competed but only receive one bid. The reasons provided to GAO for the use of these contract vehicles reveal the difficulties that the Obama administration and Congress will face in instituting further reforms; they range from technical hegemony or general expertise by contractors to institutional indolence.
BP Agrees to $50.6 Million Penalty for Safety Violations that Killed 15
Aug 17, 2010
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced Aug. 12 that BP has agreed to pay a $50.6 million penalty for safety violations related to the 2005 explosion at its Texas City, TX, refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. In addition to the fine, BP has also agreed to allocate about $500 million to address unsafe conditions at the refinery.
read in fullAlaska Court Stops All Oil and Gas Activities in Chukchi Sea
Jul 27, 2010
On July 21, a federal district court judge in Alaska issued an order halting all oil and gas activities in more than 29 million acres of the Chukchi Sea. The order said that the former Minerals Management Service (MMS) failed to adequately consider the environmental impacts of potential natural gas production in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Commission Examines Wartime Contracting and Inherently Governmental Functions
Jul 13, 2010
On June 18, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) held the first of two hearings to examine the proper role and oversight of private security contractors (PSCs) in wartime contingency operations. The commission called six individuals from the private, academic, and nonprofit sectors to testify about the thorny issue of defining and enforcing what should and should not be outsourced to PSCs. While disagreement abounded on the issues, commissioners were able to pick out a few lines of consensus among the witnesses.
read in fullMSHA Limited Number of Mines on Violations List
Jun 29, 2010
Officials at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) purposefully prevented a number of mines with serious safety violations from being placed on the list of mines with patterns of violations. Budget constraints, not safety concerns, led to some dangerous mines not being listed, according to the Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General (OIG).
White House Issues Guidance on E-rulemaking and Paperwork Practices
Jun 15, 2010
On May 28, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) issued two memoranda to federal agencies that impact key features of the regulatory process. The memos direct agencies to change practices related to electronic rulemaking dockets and to paperwork clearances that agencies request when collecting information from the public.
read in fullObama Administration Starts Reforms at MMS
Jun 2, 2010
In the wake of the worst oil spill disaster in the country's history, the Obama administration has begun to restructure the federal agency charged with the development of energy resources and oversight of the oil and gas industry. Critics argue the changes do not go far enough.
read in fullGAO: Recovery Act Reporting Getting Better, But Still Room for Improvement
Jun 2, 2010
When Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) in early 2009, the legislation's transparency provisions represented a significant step forward for government openness. While select agencies and programs have been using recipient reporting for years, the Recovery Act represented the first time such reporting had been attempted across all agencies at once and presented to the public online. Thus, bumps in the road toward transparency and accountability, including data quality problems, were inevitable. A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report shows that while there are fewer reporting errors as time passes, there is still room for improvement in both data quality and implementation details.
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