The “Czar” of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) secretive National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), Rod Beckstrom, submitted his resignation to Secretary Janet Napolitano on March 5.  Beckstrom’s letter illuminates several key problems in the program that have resulted from bureaucratic infighting.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reportedly negotiating a settlement in the multi-state lawsuit seeking to overturn the current reporting rules to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), according to Inside EPA (subscription required). The agency has requested and received a 60-day extension on the deadline for its response to the states' motion to throw out the current TRI reporting rules.

For the fourth time Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced a bill to require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically, rather than in paper. S.482 currently has 25 bipartisan co-sponsors. Unlike presidential and House candidates, the Senate does not require the electronic filing of these reports. "Under the current paper filing system, the FEC's detailed coding, which allows for more sophisticated searches and analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports.

The recently introduced House omnibus appropriations bill includes a provision to reverse the Bush-era change that weakened the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), one of the nation's most successful pollution prevention programs. Buried deep within the 1122-page document, sandwiched among the hundreds of earmarks, lies a welcome sight.