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 news reports are now coming in with a tragic ending to the West Virginia mine fire: according to a state spokesman, rescue teams found the bodies of the two miners who had been missing since a conveyor belt fire.
USA Today is reporting criticisms of the Bush administration's decision to abandon most previously identified priorities for mine safety and health, criticisms that took on renewed life after the Sago tragedy and now are intensifying as another West Virginia mine accident keeps mine safety in the news.
For a compilation of those abandoned priorities for protecting the public, click here. You can download a recent overview of MSHA's failures as well as those of other agencies. Some abadoned plans worth noting in light of recent news:
When it rains, it pours: the same day the White House closed the comment period on its proposed bulletin to govern agency guidance practices, the White House Office of Management and Budget released a proposed bulletin to govern agency risk assessments.
Correspondences obtained by OMB Watch between the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) raise significant questions about the influence SBA exerted over EPA's decision to pursue its current proposals to reduce chemical reporting under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
A White House proposal will hinder federal agency efforts to provide important information to the public by opening guidance documents to politicization and industry influence, according to comments filed by Citizens for Sensible Safeguards.
Washington--January 9, 2005--A recent White House proposal threatens federal agency efforts to provide important information to the public and stakeholders, by opening guidance documents to politicization and industry influence, a coalition of public interest groups told the White House today.
The Proposed Bulletin represents an unacceptable power grab by the White House. The principles and traditions of the American political order abhor the excessive centralization of authority that OMB would win with the Proposed Bulletin, which contravenes Congress’s role in delegating responsibility and discretion to the agencies and assumes the right to amend the Administrative Procedure Act by executive fiat.
OMB claims that it seeks to make agency guidance practices “more transparent, consistent, and accountable,” but the Proposed Bulletin fails to serve those goals and is, instead, a roadmap for government that is less responsive to the public’s needs.
