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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House Overwhelmingly Passes Contracting Reform Act

Mar 16, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

Yesterday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the "Accountability in Contracting Act" by a vote of 347 - 73. The bill (H.R. 1362) would improve oversight of federal contractors by restricting the use of sole-source, or no-bid, contracts and require large contracting agencies to minimize their use of cost-reimbursement contracts. It would also tighten post-employment restrictions on government procurement officials and permanently extend the acquisition workforce training fund. Despite unsubstantiated objections by the White House, the House moved quickly this week, marking up the contracting bill in both the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, and passing the bill on the floor in the span of only nine days. The bill was the fifth passed by the House during Sunshine Week, all of which would expand and strengthen the transparency and accountability of the federal government. The other bills concerned protecting government whistleblowers, expanding the Freedom of Information Act, restoring the automatic release of presidential records, and requiring disclosure of donors to presidential libraries. TAKE ACTION: Contact your Senators and Representative today to increase contractor responsibility and oversight!

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Please Protect the Food Supply ... You Know - If You Feel Like It

Mar 15, 2007 by Matthew Madia

On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued to the produce industry guidance on reducing the risk of contamination in fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. The "guidance" (regulatory lingo for "suggestion") urges the industry to develop food safety plans. The guidance is completely voluntary. FDA's nonchalance is odd considering recent events. Highly publicized food-borne illness outbreaks — such as the E. Coli tainted spinach of 2006 and the current case of salmonella in peanut butter — have raised concern over the safety of our nation's food supply. One would think America's leading food monitor would begin to do its job with more, not less vigor. See this Associated Press article for more.

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OMB Earmark Site Fails to Meet its Own Standards

Mar 13, 2007 by Dana Chasin

We were quick to praise OMB for setting guidelines and a deadline -- per a January 25 memo from Director Rob Portman -- for a website to provide details on all earmarks funded in 2005. The deadline was yesterday. The website was launched on time. But it contains no references to specific earmarks, only aggregate agency and account funding data.

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Citizenship Requirements- Backdoor Budget Cuts?

Mar 13, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Quick comment on Robert Pear's article yesterday on Medicaid- a must-read, by the way- that demonstrated that falling caseloads may be in part due to new "proof of citizenship" requirements. Medicaid costs, too, have been going down. Supposing these two trends are related, and it would seem they are, citizenship documentation seems nothing more than a high-handed way to cut budgets and deny people (the vast majority of whom are citizens) health care. Let's remember this if the President ever decides to boast of the cost-containment his policies have achieved.

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6 Degrees of Privatization

Mar 12, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The contractor at Walter Reed who's taken much blame for the wretched conditions there is tangled up in IRS privatization, too. Unbossed has the story.

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White House Blocks OMB Earmark Website Launch

Mar 12, 2007 by Dana Chasin

In an embarrassing reversal of its promise (reported here) to have a full searchable database of all FY 2005 earmarks on line by today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has announced that it will release information today only on the aggregate number and cost of earmarks from that year.

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IRS to Privatize Regulation

Mar 9, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Ace investigative tax reporter David Cay Johnston has tracked down another ridiculous IRS proposal: outsource the writing of IRS regulations to the people they regulate. Check out the story in today's New York Times. Money quote (from our executive director): Looking at the issue in its broadest terms, Gary D. Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that tracks the Office of Management and Budget, warned that the Bush administration was turning over too much government responsibility to those it is supposed to be keeping an eye on.

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Waxman Introduces Contract Reform Bill

Mar 9, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House committee on government reform and oversight, has introduced a bill that would go a long way toward reforming the contracting process. The bill would make publicly available more information on contracts, fix parts of the contracting process that have been exploited by wasteful contractors, and move towards closing the revolving door between government employees and contractors. We look forward to see where Waxman takes this bill. Meanwhile, check out FedSpending.org for the most comprehensive data set out there on government contracting.

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OMB to Launch Earmarks Website next Monday

Mar 8, 2007 by Dana Chasin

As promised, OMB will launch its earmark identification-and-tracking database website next Monday, March 12. The database's operational definition of eamarks and the information about them are outlined in attachments included in this January 25 memo from OMB Director Rob Portman. Among the information to be reported on each earmark:

earmark cost
identification of recipient
description of project
whether the earmark is statutory or non-binding
the relevant bill or report language

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GSA's Long War on Accountability

Mar 7, 2007 by Matt Lewis

As the saga of the General Services Administration (Or GSA, a government agency that handles contracts for other agencies) Adminstrator Lurita Doan unfolds, let's take a look back at everything that got us where we are. There seem to be four things at issue: a contract with Sun Microsystems, a contract with a friend of Doan's, the GSA's inspector general's budget, and talk of GSA employees engaging in electoral campaigning. So far, it amounts to abuses of power, a war on accountability, and potential violations of federal law. Here's a condensed timeline of what we know so far:

January 2006: The GSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducts a pre-audit of a contract renewal with Sun Microsystems. It concludes that GSA could get a better deal with a different company.
July 25th: Doan allegedly intervenes to steer a $20,000 contract to a long-time friend, Edie Fraser.

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