Congress officially adjourned last Friday, after passing its seventh Continuing Resolution (CR) of the year. This CR, H.J. 124, was necessary to provide the funding to keep government running because Congress was unable to pass 11 of the 13 appropriations bills for FY 2003, which began on October 1, 2002. This CR funds departments and programs at their FY 2002 levels through January 11. It appears there will be an effort to pass the FY 2003 appropriations before the President’s State of the Union address, so at least one more CR will be necessary.

The Bush administration announced on November 22 that it is rolling back protections to limit air pollution from factories, refineries and power plants as part of a long-expected overhaul of EPA’s New Source Review program. Specifically, EPA issued a final rule that:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has published a fact sheet for PACs (Section 527 organizations) detailing new exemptions and filing requirements in order to comply with this fall's Congressional amendments to the Stealth PAC law of 2000. The amendments were designed to eliminate duplicative reporting for PACs that work on state and local elections, and to improve the usefulness of information on federal elections by making it available on the web in searchable form. See the outline of the new rules and the detailed IRS Fact Sheet.

During the recent lame duck session, Congress passed the Homeland Security bill that creates the cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, and President Bush signed it into law today. Unfortunately the bill contains several troubling provisions addressing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).