Notice and Comment

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

Electronic Reporting Will Lead to Safety Gains, FDA Says

Aug 20, 2009 by Matthew Madia

Tomorrow, the Food and Drug Administration will publish two proposed regulations that hold the potential to improve access to and analysis of safety information provided by the medical product industry (drug, device, and biologic makers, and others in the supply chain). Both regulations will be open for comment for 90 days.

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Oil Industry Lobbying for Changes to GHG Inventory

Aug 17, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The oil industry is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change its plans for establishing a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. In April, EPA proposed a regulation that would require facilities to report greenhouse gas emissions above a certain threshold. The data would then be made available in a publicly accessible, online database. (More on the proposed regulation here.)

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EPA Faces Clean Air Test, Advocates Say

Aug 4, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The Environmental Protection Agency is mulling a new air quality standard for nitrogen dioxide – a pollutant that can irritate the lungs and trigger asthma attacks.

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EPA to Emphasize Environmental Justice Issues

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publicly committed to emphasizing environmental justice issues at a recent meeting of the agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). EPA officials, including Administrator Lisa Jackson, described to the council ways in which the agency intends to reflect environmental justice concerns in the future as EPA formulates rules and emphasizes enforcement.

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After White House Interference, EPA to Reconsider Lead Monitoring

Jul 23, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday that it may require more air quality monitoring devices to be placed around the country to calculate levels of airborne lead.

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FDA’s New Salmonella Standard and a Focus on Prevention

Jul 9, 2009 by Matthew Madia

Today, the Food and Drug Administration published a final rule that will reduce the risk of salmonella contamination posed by shell eggs. The agency estimates the new regulation will prevent 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths every year.

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OMB Watch Comments on E-Rulemaking

Jul 6, 2009 by Matthew Madia

As OMB Watch wrote in the latest issue of our biweekly newsletter The Watcher, the Obama administration is asking the public for ideas on reforming e-rulemaking – government’s system for displaying regulatory information and receiving public comments on proposed rules.

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OMB Watch Calls for E-Rulemaking Reforms

On July 2, 2009, OMB Watch made the following comments as a contribution to the Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative. The comments were posted here: http://mixedink.com/OpenGov/ERulemaking.

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HHS Reinstates Medicaid Benefits Removed under Bush

Jul 2, 2009 by Matthew Madia

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rolled back three Bush administration regulations designed to limit Medicaid services.

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OMB Watch Comments on Greenhouse Gas Reporting

Jun 10, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

OMB Watch has submitted comments on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) registry. Our comments focused on ensuring that information about emissions is made available to the public in a comprehensive, timely, and useful manner. Without sufficient transparency, the GHG registry could end up sabotaging our nascent climate policies.

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