On Sept. 2, 30 public interest organizations, including OMB Watch, presented the U.S. government with three requests to improve access to environmental and public health information and public participation in environmental policymaking. The requests aim to empower Americans to protect themselves, their families and communities from pollution and health risks through better access to data and decision-making.

Yesterday, OMB Watch submitted its recommendations for the Obama administration's national plan for the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The administration will unveil its plan, with new concrete commitments to increase transparency, at the international OGP meeting on Sept. 20.

Warren Buffett's op-ed last week calling on Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy has struck a nerve with conservatives, stirring charges of class warfare and zingers about how the billionaire investor should write a check to help Uncle Sam. Exemplifying the right's opprobrium, the reactionary Tax Foundation has been lambasting Buffett in a series of recent posts and has actually gone so far as to call on low- and middle-income Americans to pay more before the rich do.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced in a blog post today that nearly all the agencies participating in the development of scientific integrity policies had submitted draft policies to OSTP. The deadline for agencies to do so was last week. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are behind schedule but are expected to submit their policies soon.