Congress

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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Transparency at SEC Threatened by New Financial Reform Law

Aug 3, 2010 by Brian Turnbaugh*

Open government advocates have raised serious concerns over a little-noticed provision in the new financial reform legislation that severely restricts the public's access to records held by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The new provision exempts certain SEC records from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The aim of the new legislation is to increase transparency in the financial sector, but without access to enforcement records and other regulatory documents, the public loses a vital tool for holding our financial system regulators accountable.

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Simplify Choices, Disclose More to Alter Public Behavior, White House Says

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will push government to look at regulation in a new light and reassess how the choices regulators make affect the choices the public makes, according to a new memorandum sent to federal agencies.

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Wrangling over DISCLOSE Act Slows Bill Down, but Deal May Be Near in House

Some members of Congress have started to explore exempting certain nonprofits from the DISCLOSE Act, the bill developed by Democrats to respond to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. While some nonprofits are concerned about donor disclosure requirements in the bill, other groups are concerned that exemptions or changes to the bill would render the legislation ineffective. These organizations worry that without strong disclosure requirements, the bill would allow political ads sponsored by anonymous sources to flood the airwaves at election time.

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White House Issues Guidance on E-rulemaking and Paperwork Practices

On May 28, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) issued two memoranda to federal agencies that impact key features of the regulatory process. The memos direct agencies to change practices related to electronic rulemaking dockets and to paperwork clearances that agencies request when collecting information from the public.

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Contracting Industry Verklempt Over Possibility of Contracts Going Public

Jun 2, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

The Federal Times had an interesting piece last week on the contracting industry's reaction to a recent notice in the Federal Register seeking input on "how best to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to enable public posting of contract actions." Despite the FAR Councils' stated efforts to post contracts "without compromising contractors' proprietary and confidential commercial or financial information," industry executives are beside themselves over such a monumental change. Not surprisingly, their arguments against the idea don't hold much water.

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EPA is First Agency Heard on Spending Data Quality

On May 18, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) became the first agency to release its plan to ensure that federal spending information from the agency is current and of high quality. While the plan details the agency’s current quality procedures, it seems lacking in several areas. Data quality plans for federal spending information were mandated by the Open Government Directive (OGD), but most have not been made public.

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GAO: Recovery Act Reporting Getting Better, But Still Room for Improvement

When Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) in early 2009, the legislation's transparency provisions represented a significant step forward for government openness. While select agencies and programs have been using recipient reporting for years, the Recovery Act represented the first time such reporting had been attempted across all agencies at once and presented to the public online. Thus, bumps in the road toward transparency and accountability, including data quality problems, were inevitable. A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report shows that while there are fewer reporting errors as time passes, there is still room for improvement in both data quality and implementation details.

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House Hearings Highlight Criticisms of DISCLOSE Act

During the first House hearings on the DISCLOSE Act, disagreements and debate arose over the scope and potential impacts of a bill that sponsors say is designed to create new disclosure requirements for various corporate entities that are promoting or opposing candidates for federal office. As Congress continues to move forward with the bill, controversy will likely follow.

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Senate Passes Limited "Audit the Fed" Amendment

During the ongoing Senate debate on the financial reform bill, Federal Reserve transparency briefly took center stage. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced an "Audit the Fed" amendment to the bill during the week of May 16, which the Senate approved in a 96-0 vote after the amendment was greatly scaled back. The amendment would instruct the Government Accountability Office to "conduct a one-time audit of all loans and other financial assistance provided during the period beginning on December 1, 2007 and ending on the date of enactment of this Act."

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DISCLOSE Act Seeks to Blunt Impacts of Citizens United

To blunt the impacts of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) recently introduced companion bills, both called the DISCLOSE Act (the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act). The legislative response would create new, rigorous campaign finance disclosure requirements meant to prevent moneyed interests from drowning out the voices of citizens and smaller advocacy organizations.