New Posts

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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OMB Watch Champions Information and Public Access

OMB Watch testified before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs in a June 14 hearing on the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).

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Erosion of Retirement Security Continues in America

A recent wave of bankruptcies has caused the benefit pension plans of many large companies to be significantly under-funded or fold, leaving millions of workers dependent upon the government-sponsored insurance system: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). These bankruptcies have put additional pressure on the PBGC to cover the payments to millions of Americans who were planning on their pensions for retirement.

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Biomonitoring Shows We Have Toxics in Our Bodies

Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, participated in biomonitoring tests with ten other people and writes about the troubling results in his June 8 column, "We've Got Really Bad Chemistry". As California considers a bill for a state-wide biomonitoring research program, this test case bolsters the claims that biomonitoring can become a useful tool for protecting human health.

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Open Records Act Helps Uncover Government Impropriety in Virginia

Two Virginia citizens' fight under the state's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) helped to uncover an African safari that Virginia state officials took on the public's dime. The citizens ended up going to court and winning their case, which could have significance in other states.

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FOIA Continues to Get Congressional Attention

Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced another bipartisan Freedom of Information bill last week that would require any new bills that exempt information from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to say so within the text. This bill joins several bills aimed at strengthening FOIA, while several others would chip away at the act.

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Nuclear Commission Allows Access to Classified Information, Maybe

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published a final rule June 2, allowing individuals or organizations access to classified information on agency licensing activities if they can demonstrate a "need to know." The agency originally published an identical final rule Dec. 15, 2004, but withdrew it after negative comments. The rule amends NRC's regulations (10 CFR 25, 10 CFR 95) governing access to classified information and the procedures for getting the security clearance necessary to handle the information.

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Whistleblower Reveals Bush Administration Altered Climate Change Reports

A former oil industry lobbyist changed language in government climate change reports to undermine the science on climate change and present it as less problematic, according to a government whistleblower, in what is becoming a persistent problem of politics trumping science. Days after news outlets broke the story, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office asking for an investigation into the whistleblower's claims.

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Smith and Conrad Unveil Retirement Savings Bill

Sens. Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) announced yesterday their plans to introduce a Retirement Savings and Security Act, which they could unveil as early as next week. The purpose of the bill is to promote automatic enrollment of workers into company 401(k) plans, in order to minimize the risk of future generations outliving their retirement income. The bill could possibly produce 5.5 million new 401(k) participants over the next five years. The bill would also make changes to the saver's credit, a tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers who contribute to retirement plans and IRAs created under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Conrad said, "We think this can and will be passed this year."

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Senate Finance No Closer to Consensus on SS Reform

Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee met yesterday to discuss options to reform Social Security and achieve solvency for the program. Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said a number of options were discussed during the meeting (including gradually increasing the retirement age and reducing benefits for high-income seniors), but that he was holding off on pushing only private carve-out accounts - a non-solution favored by President Bush - because of lack of consensus on the policy. Democrats were not involved in the meeting, with Grassley saying he needs to achieve consensus among Republicans before talking with Democrats and also because of the Democrats unwillingness to discuss private accounts created from taking a portion of payroll taxes away from Social Security. One of the most vocal critics of the private accounts, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) applauded the chairman's efforts but added she thought the process should begin in a bipartisan way and be deliberate despite President Bush's call for legislation by the end of this year.

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Another Critic of Bush's SS Plan Comes Forward

Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) has joined the long list of Republican opponents to President Bush's plan to reform Social Security. In a letter to Pennsylvanians United, Gerlach stated, "I am opposed to the President's PRA proposal and my focus is on finding other ways to [resolve the unfunded liability]." (more info here). Despite continuous opposition, Congressional GOP leaders seem bent on pushing legislation through. Tom DeLay (R-TX) said yesterday that Democrats "are obviously playing politics. They have decided that they're not going to participate and that creates a very difficult approach to getting the bill done." It is obviously not Democrats alone who are refusing to participate in discussions for reforms which include private accounts.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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