The Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch) ceased operations as of March 2016. The majority of work and materials has been passed on to the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). This site is being maintained as an archive of materials produced.
Recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) invited me to speak at the National TRI Conference about my ideas for where the new administration might take the Toxic Releases Inventory (TRI) program. I thought some people who missed the conference might be interested in the ideas so I’m posting them here in a series of blog posts.
President Obama has yet to nominate leaders for many of the regulatory agencies responsible for protecting public health and safety, but two more of those agencies may soon have leaders.
The latest salmonella scare, this one tied to contaminated pistachios from California, has, thankfully, not proven to be a major public health crisis like the months-old peanut scandal. But an examination of the facts can be just as frustrating.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has once again announced that it is behind schedule in creating a registry for the reporting of food safety problems, according to Congress Daily (via nextgov.com).
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is permitted to weigh compliance costs against environmental benefits when writing certain rules under the Clean Water Act.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and environmental subcommittee chair Edward Markey (D-MA) have drafted a bill that would establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, mandate increases in the renewable energy supply, and require better energy efficiency in cars and other consumer products. The ultimate goal of the bill is to cut emissions 83 percent by 2050.
Today, Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel Levinson testified before an appropriations subcommittee to discuss the FDA’s ability to keep track of the comings and goings of food. “FDA’s ability to fulfill its duties largely depends upon whether it can follow a food product’s movement through each stage of the food supply chain, a process referred to as traceability,” Levinson said in testimony.
The federal agency responsible for investigating employers who employ children, fail to pay proper wages, and violate other fair labor laws is riddled with inadequacies, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today.
The Environmental Protection Agency stands ready to declare greenhouse gases a harmful air pollutant, setting the federal government on a path toward regulating emissions, according to a plethora of news sources. The New York Times predicts the effects.
Gun safety and park conservation advocates scored a victory yesterday when a federal judge temporarily blocked a Bush administration regulation permitting loaded weapons in national parks.
