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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Restore FOIA Bill: An Important Step in Fixing the Homeland Security Act

Today Senators Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Jeffords (I-VT), Lieberman (D-CT) and Byrd (D-WV) introduced the “Restore Freedom of Information Act”. The new legislation, called “Restore FOIA” for short, proposes to fix troubling information provisions that were passed in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The bill would clarify and narrow a broad FOIA exemption that was created for the Department of Homeland Security and would completely eliminate various provisions that seriously restrict the government’s ability to use information.

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JCT Report Calculates Total Costs of President?s Latest Tax Cut Proposals

On March 4, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released its estimates of the costs of the tax provisions contained in the President’s FY 2004 budget proposal. Since the President’s Budget proposal is just that – a proposal – these analyses are important for providing a neutral examination of these policy changes that can permanently affect the federal government’s resources.

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CBO Issues Analysis of Options for Repeal and Reform of Estate Tax

As part of its annual look at budget scenarios, which includes a wide array of tax and revenue options, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released an analysis of four different options for the estate tax and the revenue effects of each option.

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FERC's Final CEII Rule

On March 3, 2003, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) published in the Federal Register its final rule restricting access to critical energy infrastructure information (CEII) and establishing new procedures outside of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for requesting access. FERC began this process in response to the terrorist acts committed on September 11, 2001, and published its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on September 13, 2002, to obtain public comments.

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Data Quality Cases and Decisions Begin to Mount

As the first challenges under the Data Quality Act are being decided and appeals are being considered, new industry challenges are being filed: recently two data quality challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been decided at least in part; and two new challenges have been filed, one also with the EPA and another with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA). Data Quality Challenges Answered Atrazine

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Committee for Economic Development (CED) Opposes the President?s Plan

The Committee for Economic Development (CED), an influential organization of business leaders and educators, released a report on March 5, 2003, titled "Exploding Deficits, Declining Growth: The Federal Budget and the Aging of America."

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GAO Authority Undermined

The recent decision by the General Accounting Office (GAO) to drop its lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney likely further weakens the agency’s ability to get information from an already overly secretive administration. The GAO lawsuit set an important precedent as the first time in GAO’s 81 years that the agency sued the Executive Branch in order to obtain information. This raised the struggle for transparency and accountability in government to a new level.

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Illinois Bill Reinstating FOIA Fee-Shifting

In an effort to encourage use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to access information, Illinois State Reps. Barbara Flynn Currie and Mary K. O'Brien have introduced House Bill 438 to the Illinois state legislature. The bill would provide reimbursement for court costs and attorney fees for individuals who are successful in lawsuits brought under the Illinois FOIA. This would ensure that individuals previously constrained due to financial burdens, as well as attorneys who were discouraged by fees, could utilize opportunities to access information and participate in democracy.

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Fair Taxes for All Coalition

OMB Watch is a member of Fair Taxes for All (FTFA), a growing coalition united in opposition to massive, irresponsible tax cuts.

President Bush's "economic growth" plan is a tax cut for millionaires that most economists agree will not effectively stimulate our weak economy or create jobs now. The reduction in public revenue resulting from the overall Bush tax package would leave our government $2 trillion dollars poorer, at a time when many public needs must be met. The FTFA website has fact sheets on the ramifications of these proposed tax cuts on local, state, and federal revenue, as well as analyses of the tradeoffs these tax cuts force. Read more about this effort and how you or your organization can get involved.

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Federal, State, Local Budget Cuts Compounded by Shrinking Private Funds

EPI, Campaign for America’s Future and State Groups Release Reports Detailing Damage Caused by Bush Tax Cuts

Check for the report on the problems your state will face if the Bush tax cut goes through – and find out how to work to stop it.

A person can’t open a newspaper these days without catching sight of at least one article reporting on recent slashes in some local or state budget or in one of the many threads of the country’s social safety net. From coast to coast, over the course of just the last two weeks, cuts have been announced: Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) announced that several million dollars will be cut this year and next from the state’s Medicaid program, which had been heralded for its success in providing mental and dental benefits, in addition to the traditional hospital care, to Oregon’s poor, elderly, and disabled residents; newly-elected Maryland Governor Bob Erhlich (R) has proposed a $25 million cut in state-funding for child care for low-income parents – this is on top of a 70% cut in funds for Maryland’s Child Care Resource Centers Network, which provides families of all income levels with guidance and information on available local child care providers.

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