New Posts

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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Commentary: Issa Releases New Spending Transparency Bill

On June 13, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced a bill to revamp federal spending transparency. The new bill, called the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), would create a new board to oversee spending transparency, as well as implement full multi-tier recipient reporting. While the bill is a welcome effort to improve federal spending transparency, it still lacks some key details, contains a few worrisome provisions, and does not go far enough in broadening transparency in federal spending.

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Open Government Groups Urge Congress to Restore Funding for Transparency Efforts

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2011—OMB Watch today released a letter, signed by more than 30 transparency and good government groups, calling for restoration of the funding for the Electronic Government Fund (E-Gov Fund). This fund supports important government websites such as USAspending.gov, the IT Dashboard, Data.gov, and Performance.gov.

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The Transparency-Killing Budget

Progress toward increased government transparency will stall, and in some cases reverse, according to new details about the damage stemming from recent federal budget cuts. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra explained the cuts' impact on key transparency and technology projects in a May 24 letter to Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE).

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Reports Detail Agency Efforts to Improve FOIA Implementation

New reports from federal agencies' chief FOIA officers reveal efforts to improve the performance of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) system. The reports show that many agencies have taken steps to improve their FOIA performance over the last year but that many challenges persist despite these advances.

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White House Makes Boneheaded Move in not Proactively Disclosing Transparency Meeting

Two days ago, I posted a message about my meeting with President Obama to acknowledge his commitment to transparency and to give him an award for that commitment. During that meeting, the president reaffirmed his belief in transparency and demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the issues involved. I left the meeting assured I had an advocate for transparency running the government, even as we talked about ways of strengthening transparency. Yesterday, I learned that the meeting was not listed on his public calendar. There is no good excuse for this.

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A Face-to-Face with the President about Transparency

Yesterday, I had a once-in-a-career opportunity – to discuss transparency in the Oval Office with the President of the United States.

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Our Six-Point Plan for Spending Transparency

As I wrote about yesterday in this post, last Friday the House Oversight Committee held a great hearing focusing on spending transparency. We submitted written testimony for the hearing, which you can read here. In it, we talk about the six changes Congress and the Obama administration should make to USAspending.gov, the government's spending website which is based off of one of our websites, FedSpending.org.

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OMB Watch Assesses Obama Administration's Progress on Open Government Recommendations

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2011—OMB Watch today published an in-depth analysis of the Obama administration's progress on a wide-ranging set of open government recommendations. The recommendations were crafted by a diverse group of organizations and individuals as part of the 21st Century Right to Know Project, which was coordinated by OMB Watch in 2007 and 2008.

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OMB Watch Analysis Finds Obama Administration Slowly Rebuilding Government's FOIA Performance

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2011—Today, OMB Watch released an initial analysis of the Obama administration's performance on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) implementation based on federal agency annual reports under the act. Though some progress has been made, the analysis shows that the federal government is still in a rebuilding phase when it comes to FOIA openness.

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PATRIOT Act Provisions Get Three-Month Extension, But Nearly Lose Funding

The House voted yesterday to agree to the Senate's three-month extension of expiring PATRIOT Act provisions. The President is expected to sign the bill before Feb. 28, when the current provisions expire.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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