Government Performance

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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Waxman Asks Bloch to Step Down

Jul 30, 2008 by Craig Jennings

House Committee on Oversight Government Reform chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written a letter to Office of Special Council chief Scott Bloch asking him to resign.

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Senators Ask SecDef Gates: WTF?

Jul 29, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Tester (D-MT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to formally investigate why the Army relived the Defense Contract Audit Agency of its duty to audit the Army's largest Iraq reconstruction contract.

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Waste in Iraqi Reconstruction Continues...

Jul 28, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Kahn Bani Sa'ad Corrections Facility, Iraq The Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR) has released a new audit report today concerning the work (or lack thereof) of Parsons Delaware, Inc., a contractor who was doing design and construction work on

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GAO Report Details Disturbing Lack of Independence of Pentagon Contract Auditors

Jul 24, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The GAO has released a report written as part of its investigation into complaints that the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) acted improperly in making some contractor audit decisions. Specifically, GAO looked into whistleblower allegations that, in 14 audits of seven contractors, DCAA worked to suppress findings of contractor waste, fraud, and abuse.

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Congress Votes to Reauthorize Administrative Conference of the United States

The House voted July 14 to reauthorize the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) by accepting an earlier Senate-passed bill. The bill now moves to the White House, where President Bush is expected to sign the legislation. ACUS was a small government agency, abolished in 1995, that advised Congress on reforms to administrative and regulatory processes and saved the government millions of dollars over its life.

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Bloch Deputy: Very Existence of the Office of Special Counsel "At Risk"

Jul 18, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The office in charge of overseeing employment practices of the Executive is a complete mess.

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Congress Moves Toward Suspending Competitive Sourcing

Jul 14, 2008 by Craig Jennings

If signed into law, the FY 2009 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee would stop the Executive from joining the race to the bottom for cheap labor.

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Bloch Deputy Resigns in Protest

Jul 11, 2008 by Craig Jennings

NPR is reporting that Office of Special Counsel Deputy James Byrne resigned Thursday in protest over the way the OSC has been managed by its embattled chief Scott Bloch.

Byrne sent a message to office employees, saying, "I am grateful for the opportunities I have been afforded during my time at OSC." Sources close to Byrne describe this as a resignation in protest ov

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Questionable KBR Contract Oversight Practices Detailed in Senate DPC Hearing

Jul 10, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing in which Charles M. Smith discussed the circumstances under which he was removed from his position as head of the Field Support Contracting Division of the Army Field Support Command. As the official in charge of overseeing a multi billion contract with KBR, he refused to sign off on some $1 billion in unsubstantiated charges by the contracting firm, and as a result, the Army reassigned him to a different post.

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America's Wetlands Sullied by Supreme Court Decision

Jul 9, 2008 by Matthew Madia

A 2006 Supreme Court decision has seriously hindered EPA's ability to enforce the Clean Water Act, according to new documents released by two House Committee chairmen. The decision in the case, which pertained to enforcement of the act in non-navigable wetlands, made a real mess of things. According to The Washington Post, "That 5 to 4 decision, known as Rapanos v. United States, held that the Army Corps of Engineers had exceeded its authority when it denied two Michigan developers permits to build on wetlands…"

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