Building Nonprofit Advocacy Capacity

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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Welcome to NPAction.org!

OMB Watch announces the pilot launch of NPAction, a new online resource for nonprofit advocacy. NPAction is being developed as a vibrant central advocacy hub that provides nonprofits access to information about rules governing policy participation, examples of successful and unsuccessful efforts, and identification of key resources. Our goal is to increase the awareness of groups already engaged in public policy participation, and to, thereby, enhance opportunities for building communities of interest among new and emerging and existing public policy participators. We are working live behind the scenes to continuously improve our offerings. Nonprofits are therefore encouraged to actively explore what's available, suggest their own ideas for resources to add, and provide comments on our work to date. Visit NPAction today!

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2002 Stockholm Challenge Winners

The winners of the 2002 Stockhom Challenge have been announced. The international awards, recognizing public, private, or academic attempts to utilize technology in ways that impact the lives of people while alleviating the effects of the digital divide. 2002 Stockholm Challenge Winners

e-Government: "The eCitizen Portal. Government Services A Click Away" (Singapore)
Culture: "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" (Oxford, MS)
Health: "Health Information Project" (Watertown, MA)

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Election Results Could Impact CARE Act

If the CARE Act on charitable giving is not passed in the lame duck session, it will have to be re-introduced in the next Congress, and re-considered by the Senate Finance Committee, which as a result of last week's elections, will have a new Republican chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley (IA).

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IRS Seeks Comments on Revised Application for Exempt Status

Nonprofits are encouraged to review proposed IRS revisions to Form 1023, the application for recognition of exempt status under Section 501(c)(3), which includes charitable, educational, scientific, religious and other groups. In Announcement 2002-92, issued Oct. 15, the IRS seeks comments from nonprofits, regulators, practitioners (attorneys and accountants) and others on: “1. Ease of comprehension, 2. Customer burden, 3. Technical accuracy, and 4. Sufficiency of information requested." The draft is based on comments received in a prior public comment period.

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PowerUP Centers Program Comes to an End

John Schwartz, writing in the 10/30/02 New York Times discusses the shutting down of the PowerUP initiative, launched in late 1999 to combat the digital divide in underserved communities. Launched in late 1999, PowerUP (http://powerup.org) was an effort to provide capital and technological expertise to youth-serving entities within underserved communities across America. Over 950 technology centers were developed or enhanced through the project, and each will now be supported through other organizations, local financing, or other means.

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CARE Act Update: Sponsors Still Pushing, Compassion Capital Grants Awarded

Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the lead sponsors of the CARE Act, say that they are close to a unanimous consent agreement that would bring the CARE Act to a Senate floor vote with a limited number of amendments dealing with religious discrimination, proselytization, preemption of state and local laws and direct funding of pervasively religious groups.

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FCC Releases Media Ownership Studies Tied to Regulatory Overhaul

On 10/1/02, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released 12 studies in regarding the state of the "media marketplace" in America, as part of a massive review of all federal rules regarding media ownership. the background behind the media ownership rules at issue and the review process was discussed in a September 2002 NPTalk. The studies are summarized in this article, and are all available for download at: http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/studies.html. Comments are sought on the studies by December 2, 2002, with reply comments due January 2, 2003.

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IRS Outlines 2003 Workplan for Exempt Organizations Division

The IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) division will issue more guidance to, and increase audits of, tax-exempt organizations in the coming year, according to the division’s 2003 workplan. The EO division has also made a priority of electronic filing for the Form 990 and a web-based interactive application for 501(c)(3) charity status (Form 1023).

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Faith-Based Bill on the Precipice in Senate

The opportunity to enact the Bush Administration's faith-based initiative this year is nearly at end. Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) have tried in vain to get a Unanimous Consent Agreement to bring their "Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment Act" (CARE Act) up under special rules that would limit the amount of debate on the bill. Given the limited time left before Congress leaves for fall elections, about the only way the Senate will act on the CARE Act is under a Unanimous Consent Agreement.

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Third Annual US State and E-Government Study Released

Darrell West and his team of researchers at the Brown University Center recently published the third annual U.S. federal and state e-government survey for Public Policy. The survey looked at 1206 state government websites, in addition to 45 federal legislative executive branch websites, and 13 federal court websites. The full report is available online: www.insidepolitics.org/Egovt02us.html (HTML) www.insidepolitics.org/egovt02us.PDF (PDF)

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