Open, Accountable Government

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

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...

read in full

more news

PowerUP Centers Program Comes to an End

John Schwartz, writing in the 10/30/02 New York Times discusses the shutting down of the PowerUP initiative, launched in late 1999 to combat the digital divide in underserved communities. Launched in late 1999, PowerUP (http://powerup.org) was an effort to provide capital and technological expertise to youth-serving entities within underserved communities across America. Over 950 technology centers were developed or enhanced through the project, and each will now be supported through other organizations, local financing, or other means.

read in full

U.S. Treasury Releases FY 2002 Deficit Numbers

On Friday, October 25, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitchell Daniels released the Treasury Department’s summary of the budget results for fiscal year 2002, which ended September 30. According to this report, FY 2002 closed with a $159 billion deficit -- $2 billion larger than the $157 billion the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted in its Monthly Review earlier this month.

read in full

Online Interaction Between Local Government and Citizens

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in conjunction with the National League of Cities -- a municipal organization consisting of 1,800 cities and towns, released a report on October 2 on how local officials use the Internet for dealing with constituents online. The study suggests that localities may have embraced online technology out of necessity more so than their federal counterparts, but that a significant disconnect exists with respect to the expectations and attitudes of local officials and their constituents, as they address community issues.

read in full

Judge Orders White House to Turn Over Energy Task Force Documents, Again

In one of several lawsuits brought against the Bush administration for its failure to disclose key documents relating to its energy task force, a federal judge ordered the Bush administration to turn over the documents for the second time; the same ruling was previously made in August, according to the Washington Post.

read in full

Ideology Trumps Science at HHS, Letter Charges

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is suppressing scientific information on contraception and abortion, and apparently increasing audits of nonprofit grantees that disagree with the administration’s “abstinence-only” program, according to a recent letter from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and a group of House Democrats to Tommy Thompson, secretary of HHS. “A growing number of cases provide evidence that actions directly affecting the public health are being driven by ideology rather than science,” the letter charges, referencing

read in full

A Call for Action Against Secrecy

Concerned about the current administration?s preference for policies of secrecy and information restriction OMB Watch recently issued a working paper entitled "The Bush Administration?s Secrecy Policy: A Call to Action to Protect Democratic Values" detailing the growth of secrecy in government, its impact and current public opinion on increased secrecy. The paper concludes with a call to action that emphasizes the need to build a coordinated campaign that not only addresses the increased secrecy, but also promotes strengthening the public's right-to-know.

read in full

CBO Says 2002 Had Largest Percentage Drop in Federal Revenue in 50 Years

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Monthly Budget Review reports that the $137 billion drop in revenue for FY 2002 represents the largest one-year drop in 50 years. The combination of this reduction in revenue and the increase in spending in response to last year’s terrorist attacks, the increase in the unemployment rate, and steep increases in Medicaid costs amounted to a $157 billion deficit for FY 2002, which ended September 30. Though this return to a deficit represents a $254 billion turn-around from last year’s $127 billion surplus, the deficit is only 1.5 percent of GDP, a manageable size and a great deal smaller than the deficits of the mid-1980’s, which amounted to 6 percent of GDP. For an overview of CBO’s report on what happened to the surplus, see this OMB Watcher article.

read in full

Too Much Spending? Or Not Enough?

Only 9 billion dollars separates the House and the Senate Budget Committee FY 2003 discretionary spending totals, but this small divide has been widened by continuing efforts to limit spending on domestic programs. Each of the budget proposals that has been put forth calls for reductions in this year’s real per capita spending from last year’s levels. Yet a recent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) argues that we are nowhere near a discretionary “spending explosion,” in either domestic or military spending.

read in full

U.S. Department of Education Website Drops Record Number of Electronic Files

The U.S. Department of Education recently sparked controversy in the education and research communities for its decision to both remove and delete information from its agency websites, in the interests of consolidating information and making it more usable and accessible to the public. Critics charge that it is both an effort to remove information with which the Bush Administration does not agree, and symptomatic of broader long-standing problems facing intra- and inter-agency electronic document and records management.

read in full

Comment Deadline Extended on FERC Rule Limiting Public Access

On October 9, 2002, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced it was granting a 30-day extension for public comments on the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued September 5, 2002, and published in the Federal Register on September 13, 2002 in Docket Nos. RM02-4-000 and PL02-1-000.

read in full