Appropriations

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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Toxic Waste of Financial System Meltdown Could Seep into Your Savings Account

Sep 18, 2008 by Craig Jennings

This past weekend, the Federal Reserve Bank decided to suspend a rule intended to prevent the poor decisions of investment banks from affecting your savings account (and ultimately all taxpayers).

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Happy Birthday OMB Watch!

Sep 17, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

We'll be shutting down the BudgetBrigade a bit early today to head off to OMB Watch's 25th Anniversary celebration. Yup, that's right. OMBW is 25 years young this year and we're primed and ready for our quarter life crisis! We're taking some time to celebrate tonight with friends and supporters and remember 25 years of fighting for a more transparent and accountable federal government.

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DHS Fails in Contracting Oversight Efforts

Sep 17, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Washington Post has an article this morning that details severe contracting problems at the Department of Homeland Security. The Post describes the agency's efforts to oversee $15 billion in contracts over the last six years as having "failed."

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Approps Update: Senate Panel Advances Defense Bill

Sep 11, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Yesterday (Wed.), the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee approved the $487.7 billion FY 2009 Defense Appropriations bill. The defense spending bill is passed every year, despite Congress's chronic inability to approve the other 11 individual annual spending bills, so it's no surprise to see this one advance. With less than three weeks remaining in the fiscal year, here's how close Congress is to passing the legislation necessary to keep the federal government operating past Sept. 30.

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Defense Department Punts on Air Force Tanker Deal

Sep 10, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

I came across another delay in a federal contracting effort to report today. Seems the Department of Defense, and more specifically Secretary Robert Gates, feels it will not have sufficient time to complete the re-competition for the contract to build the next generation of mid-air refueling tankers. Gates announced this morning during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that DoD has decided to cancel the competition and leave the issue for the incoming administration to figure out.

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Virtual Border Fence Still Just...Virtual

Sep 10, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

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Who Is Standing in the Way Of Reform?

Sep 9, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Elizabeth Newell wrote an good summary last week in Government Executive magazine of the state of a handful of reforms to the federal contracting process that have been stalled in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

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Second Stimulus Package In The Works?

Sep 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

CongressDaily and CQ are both reporting that Congressional Democratic leadership are signaling that they will attempt to move a second stimulus package before they adjourn for the year.

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Congress Returns with Little Time, Huge Workload

Congress returned to Washington the week of Sept. 8 to a jam-packed schedule and just three weeks left to complete work for the year before the target adjournment date of Sept. 26. Below is a brief summary of some of the major pieces of legislation covering fiscal policy issues that will likely be addressed:

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CBO Releases Monthly Budget Review

Sep 8, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their Monthly Budget Review on Friday last week, showing lots of red ink for the federal government in FY 2008.