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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FERC Claims CEII Not A Problem for Public Access

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) quietly issued a Feb. 12 notice soliciting public comments on the functions and procedures of the agency’s new restrictive information rule, Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEII).

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Bad Budget Rule Changes Could Still be Proposed

The Senate budget being debated this week includes only a two-year cap on appropriations, and continues Senate pay-go rules that apply to both entitlement increases and tax cuts. However, concern over other changes in budget rules remains.

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No Budget is Better than the Senate Budget

The budget resolution approved last week by the Senate Budget Committee has nothing good to recommend it. It will hand more tax breaks to the extremely wealthy while slashing assistance to low-income working families and children. Funds for education, housing, the environment and a host of other services that benefit ordinary Americans will also be cut. Ironically, in spite of all these cuts, the committee?s resolution will increase -- not reduce -- the deficit.

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Cost of Estate Tax Repeal

Mar 3, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Acording to the Joint Committee on Taxation, making permanent an estate tax repeal would cost $206 billion over the next ten years.

See x-14-04r.pdf (application/pdf Object)

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CBO Account-level Data on Government Spending, 2005-2014

The 2005 Budget submitted by the president last week contained only partial information for spending over the next 5 years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has since developed estimates of costs contained in the president's FY2005 budget covering the period from 2005 to 2014.

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Watcher Articles 2/24/04

Feb 24, 2004 by Guest Blogger

New articles from the Watcher newsletter:

OMB Watch - The Watcher - February 23, 2004 Vol.5, No. 4 -

Federal Budget

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Fighting Secrecy -- And Winning

Government secrecy has undermined the public’s ability to hold our leaders accountable for keeping our country secure and community safe. Yet the government’s claims that providing citizens with information harms national security may be overblown.

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DHS Releases CII Rule

Months after receiving comments on the proposed rule, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally published the interim final rule for Critical Infrastructure Information (CII) in the Feb. 20 Federal Register. Although an interim final rule with a public comment period open until May 20, the rule went into effect immediately.

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EPA Reviews TRI Burden Reduction Comments

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to review the hundreds of comments it received on burden reduction proposals for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program. EPA outlined the proposed changes in a 2003 white paper in Phase II of the TRI Stakeholder Dialogue.

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Office of Special Counsel Scrubs Website

The new head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), Scott J. Bloch, recently scrubbed the agency’s webpage removing references to protection from sexual orientation discrimination. The OSC is an independent agency with a primary mission to safeguard federal employees by protecting their workplace rights for activities such as whistleblowing.

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