How Government Works

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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FirstGov Information Portal Falls Short

OMB Watch's letter to Sally Katzen of the Office of Management and Budget expresses disappointment in the mock-up of the FirstGov online portal to government information, and includes suggestions for improvement. The site falls far short of the objectives identified by the President: "to help our citizens gain one-stop access to existing Government information and services, and to provide better, more efficient, Government services and increased Government accountability to its citizens." July 24, 2000 Ms. Sally Katzen Counselor to the Director Office of Management and Budget

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Testimony on FirstGov Web Portal

The FirstGov web portal is a major accomplishment and the Clinton Administration should be justifiably proud of it. At the same time, there are major policy issues created by FirstGov that have been left unattended. (Statement of Patrice McDermott, Senior Policy Analyst, OMB Watch before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the House Committee on Government Reform on FirstGov.) Statement of Patrice McDermott, Ph.D.Senior Policy AnalystOMB Watch Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the

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What is E-Gov't ? How Will It Affect Us?

E-Government is an exciting frontier. But technology alone is not going to get us there. What it is going to take to move to the kind of government that uses technology as a tool to provide greater accountability through better and more meaningful public access to government information is not bigger and faster servers or more powerful search engines. It is going to take the federal government – both government-wide and agency by agency – to get its information under control and begin to manage it so it can be identified, located and used over time.

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S. 803 - The E-Government Act of 2001

Click here to view a printer friendly version of S. 803, The E-Government Act of 2001.

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City E-Gov Evaluations

San Diego, San Jose, and Seattle are among the best city "e-government" websites in the U.S., according to the August 2001 Civic Resources Group report and Brown University's Taubman Center September 2001 report. The three cities took top spots on both lists.

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Analysis of Cyber Security Information Act

HR 4246, the "Cyber Security Information Act" is the first volley coming from a push by industry over the last year or two to carve out an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act. The bill reflects the concerns of industry to protect information about vulnerabilities from those who would use or exploit that information. What The Bill Does The bill creates five new definitions and a new FOIA exemption. Definitions

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Questions Surround Handling of FirstGov

FirstGov.gov-- the government’s first attempt to coordinate electronic information across federal agencies for public use -- has recently experienced a significant increase in the number of users. As a result of the demand for information since September 11, the FirstGov site received 7 million hits during the month of September, up from an average of 1 million hits per month since its beginning.

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Government Web Portal to Make Major Changes

FirstGov.gov was unveiled by President Clinton in September of 2000 amid much fanfare. As the first official federal web portal, it was to usher in a new age of electronic government, fundamentally changing the way the public interacts with and retrieves information from federal agencies.

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Clinton-Gore Report on E-Commerce

Leadership for the New Millennium: Delivering on Digital Progress and Prosperity is the third and final annual report from the U.S. Government Working Group on Electronic Commerce. The report is the Clinton-Gore Administration's compendium of its accomplishments towards moving from a National Information Infrastructure to a Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. The listing of initiatives and successes is impressive, but also telling with respect to gaps that continue to need addressing.

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