The Center for Effective Government (formerly OMB Watch) ceased operations as of March 2016. The majority of work and materials has been passed on to the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). This site is being maintained as an archive of materials produced.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new guidance April 1 that should limit the impacts of mountaintop coal mining in Appalachia. The agency issued the guidance to clarify EPA's expectations regarding legal and scientific interpretations when issuing permits for the destructive surface mining practice.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently launched a new online database that provides access to the scientific studies used in making key regulatory decisions. The EPA released the Health and Environmental Research Online (HERO) database on March 24. According to the agency, this action "is part of the [Obama administration's] open government directive to conduct business with transparency, participation, and collaboration."
The Obama administration recently announced new standards that will improve fuel efficiency in new vehicles starting in 2012. The standards mark the first time in U.S. history that the federal government has crafted regulations aimed specifically at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stemming the impact of global climate change.
On Dec. 22, 2008, an earthen dam holding back a pond of coal ash in Kingston, Tenn., broke, sending 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic goo cascading across the landscape. That's enough to fill the White House from top to bottom 200 times over.
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled an action plan for addressing bisphenol-A (BPA), a common chemical found in a variety of hard plastics and the lining of food can containers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed requiring companies to alert the government if contaminated or mislabeled meat or poultry products escape into the market. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published a notice of proposed rulemaking yesterday. The proposal is open for public comment until May 24.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed several changes to its greenhouse gas (GHG) registry, a new mandatory program requiring thousands of facilities economy-wide to monitor and report their emissions of global warming gases. EPA is proposing to add oil and natural gas facilities and facilities that inject carbon dioxide (CO2) underground for storage, along with other facilities. EPA also wants to collect additional data from all covered businesses to get a better understanding of emissions at the corporate level and within whole industry sectors, not just by facility. Overall the changes would strengthen the registry and provide the agency and the public with crucial additional information needed to design policies to mitigate climate change and hold polluters accountable.
The Obama administration’s dance with mountaintop mining continued this week, as the administration pledged to revise the Bush administration’s policy on protections, or lack thereof, for rivers and streams. Environmentalists are hopeful that the Department of the Interior will set standards that prevent mountaintop mining from destroying waterways.
Incidents of sudden acceleration that led to the recall of millions of Toyota vehicles have sparked a debate over whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency in charge of auto safety, needs enhanced powers and resources.
A recent proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would endanger workers by reducing the amount of information on chemical hazards provided to them, according to several public interest groups. OSHA's proposal is part of its effort to make its Hazard Communication Standard conform to a United Nations system for classifying chemicals. The effort has been criticized by several public interest groups who view portions of it as an unnecessary contraction of workers' right to know and as contrary to the rhetoric of transparency and movement toward greater disclosure seen elsewhere in the Obama administration.
Incidents of sudden acceleration that led to the recall of millions of Toyota vehicles have sparked a debate over whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency in charge of auto safety, needs enhanced powers and resources.