Earlier this month, OMB Watch reported that articles authored by the nominee to replace John Graham as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Susan Dudley, were no longer available on the website of the Mercatus Center, the industry-backed think tank where Dudley was previously employed. Now, all the missing articles have mysteriously returned to the website and several previously unavailable articles by Dudley have also been posted there.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs unanimously passed the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) on Aug. 8. The bill would create a searchable website that provides information about all federal spending, including government contracts and grants. Following the quick committee action, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the committee's chair and ranking member respectively, jointly requested that the bill be fast-tracked and brought to the Senate floor for a unanimous consent vote.

The Senate voted last week to reject a tax and wage package dubbed the "trifecta" that would have slashed the estate tax permanently, increased the minimum wage modestly, and extended a broad set of tax breaks. The bill, passed by the House last month, also contained a number of "sweeteners" to entice targeted senators to vote for the bill. "What I will do over the next month [is] assess where America is," Frist said. "And what I would very much like to do or to have happen is ... pressure from the American people. If I felt that, I would use that procedural option in bringing these back."

The Federal Election Commission is set to vote soon on a grassroots lobbying exemption to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's election-season ban on broadcast communications that discuss a federal candidate. On Aug. 3, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) released a proposal to allow corporations and unions to fund advertisements 60 days before a general election or 30 days before a primary, on either television or the radio, discussing a federal candidate's position on an issue. Specifically, the advertisement must: