Per word confirmed by Senate Minority Leader Reid's office and via the apparent blogo-euphoric Dr. Frist, there now appear to be no current holds now on S. 2590... for now. Meanwhile, OMB Watch joined a broad spectrum of groups yesterday to promote S. 2590 at a Capitol Hill press conference. The Hill has an excellent piece on it today. Also take a look at the joint sign-on letter signed by 82 organizations in support of S. 2590 organized by the National Taxpayers Union and OMB Watch. The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) after the press conference yesterday.

The controversy over secret Senate legislative holds following the confession by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) last week rages on. The trailblazing reformer Trent Lott has just found religion. "Secret holds are outrageous…. It's one of the fundamental problems we have in the Senate today. It's abused and misused… It's corrosive." And now today even Stevens has seen the light and lifted his hold on the database bill "now that [Coburn] has ceased blocking several Commerce Committee with his secret holds." But wait, there's more —- Bill Frist can't resist joining the fun:

The Government Accountability Office has released several reports on U.S. disaster preparedness. You can find the reports here. One of GAO's main findings supports claims by the Brookings Institute that there's been inadequate transparency for Katrina-related spending. Across the board, government agencies are not tracking and reporting how they've been using funds for the recovery. If they have been doing it, they've mostly botched it. From CongressDailyAM (sub.):

Remember earlier this year when the Abramoff scandal spawned urgent bipartisan calls for lobby and earmark reform legislation? Might wanna get ready to throw that, along with reinstatement of PAYGO rules and a minimum wage increase, in the tax-and-budget Do-Nothing congressional trash can.