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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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House Lobby Disclosure and Reforms Proposed

Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA) announced July 14 that he is filing legislation to strengthen lobbying disclosure requirements and reform the way the House of Representatives operates. Supported by Common Cause, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, Meehan said the legislation is needed because "... never before have special interest lobbyists claimed so great an influence over the policy process." The bill does not have a number yet.

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CBO Releases Two New Studies Examining Impact of Estate Tax on Charitible Giving

The Congressional Budget Office has released two new reports on the impact of the estate tax on charitable giving. The reports confirm that there is a significant negative impact on charitable giving that would result from the elimination of the estate tax.

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Court Says State Must Accept Voter Registrations From Nonprofit Project

A Georgia education group involved in a multi-state effort to register voters won a preliminary injunction in early July barring the Georgia Secretary of State from rejecting voter registration cards mailed in bundles. The case, Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation, Inc. v. Cathy Cox, et al., was a test of whether state officials can impose rules on voter registration drives that are inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

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More Evidence of Misconduct by Head Start Bureau Chief

On June 30, the National Head Start Association issued a statement calling for the immediate resignation of Windy Hill, the U.S. Head Start Bureau Chief. Hill is the subject of an Inspector General investigation into misconduct during her tenure as head of a Texas Head Start agency prior to coming to Washington. The investigation began after NHSA released details of Hill's misconduct in April, alleging thousands of dollars in unauthorized pay, vacation time and undocumented expenses.

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Legality of Campaign Coordination with Nonprofits Questioned

Two presidential campaigns are facing challenges about their ties to nonprofit groups. The Bush campaign's appeals to churchgoers to recruit from their congregations, and the Ralph Nader campaign's office rental agreement with a 501(c)(3) group founded by him, both raise the possibility that charitable or religious resources are being used for partisan purposes. Both are the subject of a complaint filed at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that alleges illegal coordination between the campaigns and two nonprofits in Oregon working to get Nader on the state ballot.

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Senate Finance Committee to Hold Roundtable on Nonprofit Issues

The Senate Finance Committee recently announced it will hold a roundtable discussion Thursday, July 22, on issues concerning exempt organizations. The two main purposes of the roundtable are to follow-up on the committee's hearing on charities, and to further review the staff's discussion draft regarding proposed reforms to exempt organizations.

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AmeriCorps Programs Violate Separation of Church and State

On July 6, a federal court judge ruled that AmeriCorps must stop funding programs that place volunteers in Catholic schools.

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IRS Suspends Tax-Exempt Status of Group on Terrorist List

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Announcement 2004-56 on June 24, suspending the tax-exempt status of the Rabbi Meir Kahane Memorial Fund (the fund), which is a part of the Kahane movement. The action was based Section 501(p), a new section of the tax code created in 2003 as part of the Military Family Tax Relief Act.

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New FEC Complaint Filed Against America Coming Together

Three campaign finance reform groups have filed a new complaint at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against an independent political committee, America Coming Together (ACT), alleging violation of FEC rules on what activities must be paid for with hard money. Hard money refers to funds raised subject to the limitations of federal campaign finance regulations, which prohibit corporate donations and individual donations over $5,000. ACT has used soft money to pay for direct mailings urging voters to defeat President Bush and elect progressive candidates all across the country.

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Implementing Electioneering Communications Gets Complicated

With the party conventions and fall election getting closer, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has published a brochure that explains restrictions on paid broadcasts that mention federal candidates 30 days before a primary or party convention and 60 days before a general election. This is the first election implementing the "electioneering communications" rule, which passed as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). FEC regulations exempt 501(c)(3) organizations and unpaid broadcasts.

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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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