Recent actions by investors and the New York State Attorney General are pressuring companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from climate change. Many regard such information as essential to investors' right to know about the potential liabilities facing thousands of industries as the climate warms and new emissions regulations become a near certainty.

The 2008 election cycle has produced a number of complaints about religious and charitable organizations illegally opposing or endorsing candidates. The final weeks leading up to the election were no exception, as Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) filed three new complaints to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

On Oct. 30, a group of economic experts testified before the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) on the necessity and scope of a second economic stimulus package. While committee members and witnesses agreed on the severity of the ongoing economic situation, there was a clear ideological divide on which course of action Congress should pursue. At the center of the divide were the competing concerns for families facing certain hardships inflicted by a contracting economy and for the consequences of an increase in the federal budget deficit, which would be required to aid those families and help reverse the current economic trend.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox recently emphasized the urgent need for transparency of currently unregulated credit transactions, called credit default swaps (CDS), that contributed to the ongoing economic crisis. Cox is using the SEC's program to modernize its electronic disclosure system as a platform to call for oversight while the agency investigates alleged fraudulent transactions. Meanwhile, two other federal agencies are vying for regulatory oversight of CDS and industry is lobbying to minimize the impact. At issue will be whether transparency is accompanied with any other forms of accountability.