Yet another Bush administration secret program that gathers private information came to light last week. The New York Times on Jun. 23, much to the ire of the White House, broke the story of government monitoring of banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and financial institutions.

While House leadership announced that sunset commissions would come up for a vote later than initially predicted, the Senate unexpectedly set the stage for its own consideration of a sunset commission proposal. OMB Watch reported conflicting accounts two weeks ago about the timing for unveiling, and bringing to a vote, a final House package on sunset commissions. At the time, House GOP leadership suggested that a vote could happen imminently, while Hill sources speculated that leadership was being overly optimistic.