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...

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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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more news

OMB Watch Appeals Recovery Act FOIA Decision

Sep 18, 2009 by Sam Rosen-Amy

Back when the Recovery Board released the Recovery.gov redesign contract, many in the transparency community were upset at the extent to which the General Services Administration redacted the contract. While we certainly expected General Services Administration (GSA) - the agency which conducts most of the federal government's procurement - to redact proprietary information, the document had massive swaths blacked out, including such ridiculous sections as the number of peak users and one part titled "Introduction."

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House Considers Scrapping Virtual Border Fence

Sep 18, 2009 by Adam Hughes*

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report yesterday before a House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on the embattled Secure Border Initiative (SBI) program - a multi-billion dollar program designed to secure the U.S. borders. A subset of that program, called SBInet is supposed to be building a fancy, virtual fence along the U.S. southern border. The program, begun during the Bush administration, has consistently been behind schedule and over budget - and that's when the new technologies have worked at all. And now it looks like Congress may want to cancel the program altogether.

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Two Conferences on Debt, One Proclaims Debt Good, the Other Declares Debt Bad

Sep 17, 2009 by Gary Therkildsen*

I should mention that the first conference – sponsored by the New America Foundation on Tuesday – discussed the merits of short-term deficit spending in the midst of a recession, while the second academic panel – held yesterday and sponsored by the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform – discussed the mountainous mid- to long-term debt anticipated with the looming entitlement crisis. The distinction is important, yet often lost in discussions of deficits and debt.

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EPA Asking the Public to Help Set Enforcement Priorities

Sep 16, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is collecting ideas from the public on what its enforcement and compliance priorities should be for the next three years (the 2011-2013 fiscal years). These priorities address the most pressing environmental problems and are accompanied by strategies to tackle the problems. The public may comment on an online forum on the EPA's blog until Sept. 30.

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Presidential Records Act Enters the 21st Century with Social Media

Sep 16, 2009 by Roger Strother*

Earlier today, the Washington Times ran an article that appeared critical of the Obama administration under the overly dramatic title “[White House] Collects web users’ data without notice.” This White House effort is, however, unsurprising and mandated by law – the Presidential Records Act. However, with the new age of government engaging citizens on Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 social tools the task of archiving electronic presidential communications is more complicated and requires the application of modern archival standards.

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Secrecy Report Card Gives Modest Grades to Bush and Obama

On Sept. 8, OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of 70 open government advocates, released its sixth annual Secrecy Report Card. Focusing on 2008, the report card serves primarily as a final assessment of the Bush administration but also addresses early actions of the Obama administration. Overall, the report notes a decrease in secrecy at the end of the Bush years but concludes that greater efforts are needed to increase federal transparency.

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CBO Jumps to 20-Year Budget Window for Health Care

Sep 15, 2009 by Adam Hughes*

There is an interesting article ($) in CQ this morning about a possible change in forecasting techniques used by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, announced on Monday that CBO would likely provide cost estimates for the forthcoming Senate health care reform bill beyond the standard 10-year budget window - extending that window to 20 years.

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EPA Pushing Data Out to the Public

The Obama administration has made government transparency a high priority in its early months, and of all the federal agencies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to be making the quickest progress in turning rhetoric into action. Across a range of issues, the EPA is taking proactive steps to improve transparency, collecting and releasing to the public important environmental data needed to protect the environment and public health.

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October Surprise: Looming Recovery Act Data Quality Issues

At the end of October, the first round of recipient reporting for the Recovery Act will be released on Recovery.gov. This reporting is a crucial step in Recovery Act oversight and transparency, but there is no guarantee that the reporting process will proceed smoothly. Come October, the diffusion of responsibility for Recovery Act data quality could result in a great deal of confusion, as a flood of bad data could stymie the administration’s efforts at Recovery Act transparency.

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Recovery Act Fraud: How the Senate Wasted an Entire Perfectly Good Morning

Sep 11, 2009 by Sam Rosen-Amy

This post should be about all the great Recovery Act transparency and oversight issues the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee learned about yesterday when it held a hearing titled "Follow the Money: An Update on Stimulus Spending, Transparency, and Fraud Prevention." But it isn't.