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

Tax Day

As people around the country bring last-minute work on their tax returns to a close today, the House Republican leaders are gearing up for their annual "Tax Freedom" day – a time for denigrating government spending and the taxes that enable the government to provide the services that help support the country. This year, the legislative focus of their Tax Freedom day is likely to be the introduction, on April 18, of legislation to make permanent last year’s $1.35 trillion tax cut, which expires (or "sunsets") at the end of 2010.

read in full

OMB Watch Online Poll: Super-Waiver

OMB Watch is closely following renewed efforts to develop a "super-waiver" for states (see OMB Watcher story). Please help us by taking part in our Super-Waiver Poll.

read in full

Watch Out For The Super-Waiver

The new "super-waiver" legislation proposed in the House is dangerously broad and should be opposed by all nonprofits concerned with social justice.

read in full

Data Quality Approaches

Government agencies are busy working on their data quality guidelines with many looking to a draft release for public comment in May. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines, issued January 3, 2002, each agency must implement agency specific information quality guidelines by October 1, 2002.

read in full

Whitehouse Memo Orders Review of Information Procedures

On March 19, a little over six months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the White House took action to "safeguard information" in the name of homeland security. The White House released two memos providing steps agencies should take to protect government information from being used by terrorists.

read in full

FERC Update

On March 25, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) stopped accepting comments on its ideas for limiting public access to "critical energy infrastructure information" (CEII). FERC first released an initial policy statement addressing this issue in October 2000, and followed it up with a January 16 Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in the Federal Register. The Notice of Inquiry sought public input on possible regulatory changes that would allow the agency to restrict unfettered general public access to CEII, but still permit those with a "need-to-know access to such information.

read in full

Trustees Issue 2002 Annual Report on the State of Social Security

Last week, the Social Security Board of Trustees issued its 2002 Annual Report on the status of Social Security’s finances, in which it extended its estimates of the number of years before Social Security’s surpluses will reach certain key milemarkers.

read in full

Using Social Security's Surplus for Current Needs

Policy adjustments to Social Security – and not locking these surplus funds away – are the key to "saving" Social Security.

read in full

Resolutions Not Worth Keeping

The FY 2003 Congressional budget plan is probably not going to be a resolution worth keeping.

read in full

OMB Watch Submits Comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

On January 16, 2002, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released a statement seeking "responses to questions on the best way to handle the confidentiality of certain documents as it weighs its regulatory responsibility against the need to protect against attacks on the nation's critical energy infrastructure facilities." For this purpose, FERC issued a Notice of Inquiry and Guidance for Filings in the Interim (NOI) seeking public input, and OMB Watch submitted the following comments. To: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission From: Sean Moulton, OMB Watch

read in full