Protecting Nonprofit Rights

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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Church Based PAC Formed

"Margin of Victory," a new political action committee dedicated to turning out Christian voters, has been formed as a political committee exempt under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which governs PACs.

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House Passes Bill to Revoke Exemption for ?Terrorist Support Organizations?

PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS SUE GOVERNMENT FOR RECORDS ON PATRIOT ACT ACLU and three other public-interest groups filed suit against the Justice Department last week seeking disclosure of information on its use of the PATRIOT Act Congress passed last year. The suit was filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to a Freedom of Information request, asking for statistics on how many times the government had used its expanded wiretapping authority.

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Stealth PAC Amendments Become Law

Congress approved a compromise bill just before its fall recess exempting state and local PACs from reporting requirements under the Stealth PAC law of 2000 and requiring data from reports to be made available on the Internet in a searchable format. President Bush signed the bill into law a week later.

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Study Finds Deficient Tracking for Federal Grants to Faith-Based Groups

The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, a non-partisan research organization, has released a report on government funding of faith-based social services, stating in its press release that “it is nearly impossible to track how most of the money is being used.” The primary reasons cited for difficulty in tracking these funds were:

Devolution -- States contract out federal funds at many different levels;
No centralized system or database tracks grants, contracts and vouchers;

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General Accounting Office Releases Charitable Choice Report

The GAO has released a report on implementation of "charitable choice" legislation that allows the federal funding of faith-based social service programs. Several programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Community Services Block Grant and substance abuse programs currently have charitable choice provisions in them. While charitable choice was designed to increase grant opportunities for these organizations, the GAO found that only 8% of the $1 billion in TANF funds granted to non-governmental organizations went to faith-based organizations.

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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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OMB Watch Comments on FEC's Proposed Coordination Rule

OMB Watch filed comments October 11 2002 in a Federal Election Commission rulemaking that will define when communications with a federal candidate, campaign, or party, may turn an expenditure into an in-kind campaign contribution. Since corporations, including nonprofits, are prohibited from making contributions to federal candidates, this definition could impact any group that communicates with the public about issues and interacts with public officials or community leaders that are also federal candidates.

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Campaign Finance Reform Update

Below is a summary of new developments concerning campaign finance issues. BCRA Rulemaking

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U.S. Department of Education Website Drops Record Number of Electronic Files

The U.S. Department of Education has caused a stir among educators, researchers, public interest groups, and libraries and information access/service providers with its decision to remove and deleter files from its websites, highlighting a conflicting set of interests buffeting federal agencies with respect to their online information.

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House Reaches Webcaster Royalty Payment Agreement

As a followup to an earlier NPTalk on webcasting royalty fees, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the webcasting royalty payment resolution bill introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The bill, H.R. 5469, basically allows small webcasters to pay out a percentage of their revenues, instead of the flat-fee to be paid by larger webcasters, to labels and artists, for permission to play recorded content.

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