The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) held a briefing on Jan. 14 that provided a glimpse of findings in its soon to be published book The Election after Reform. In a special presentation on independent political committees (often referred to as 527s) CFI analyst Steve Weissman said these groups did not become substitutes for party soft money that could no longer be given to political parties under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The findings provided more detail on 527 groups based on data and interviews conducted after the election and compared with data from 2002.

While an Environmental Protection Agency draft risk assessment for a chemical compound used in the production of Teflon did find that exposure could lead to adverse health effects, EPA fell far short of condemning the chemical or its makers.

Over the past several months, the White House has met with industry representatives to develop a sweeping deregulatory strategy. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has given industry a leg-up on the upcoming reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). According to Inside EPA, OIRA has been working with a coalition of industry groups to strategize using the PRA reauthorization as a vehicle for developing new anti-regulatory policies.

Just two days before Christmas, the White House announced its intention to renominate to the federal bench 20 radical right-wing and corporate-friendly extremists whose nominations had been thwarted in the 108th Congress. The White House will be supported in this effort by both social conservatives, who see Bush nominees as friendly to conservative positions on controversial social issues like abortion, and the corporate sector, which is dedicating millions of dollars in an unprecedented lobbying effort on behalf of the Bush judicial picks. Safeguards at Stake