Here is some information on how to read the UA: The Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) is assigned by the Regulatory Information Service Center to make tracking regulations easier. You can use the RIN to search for a rule in the Federal Register as well as in the Unified Agenda.

The Food and Drug Administration’s response to bioterrorism has done little to protect our food supply, prompting even the outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services to show concern. In his resignation remarks last week, Tommy Thompson told press that he believed that it would be “easy” for terrorists to contaminate our food supply. “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do,” he said, adding that he “worried every single night” about terrorist threats to the nation’s food supply.

A panel of Fish and Wildlife Service officials has recommended against granting Endangered Species Act protections to the greater sage grouse, based on source materials that included scientific assessments from federal biologists and a critique of that science from a political appointee with no background at all in biology.

In a surprising move, congressional and White House negotiators agreed on intelligence reform legislation that created no major victories for the public interest but could have been much worse for open government and environmental protection near the nation’s borders. The final bill still keeps secret the total intelligence budget, which the Washington Post estimated to be approximately $40 billion. The 9/11 Commission had pushed Congress to catalyze stronger public oversight of the government’s intelligence activities by disclosing the total annual budget.