Blog Posts and Analysis / Open, Accountable Government

EPA Sheltering Information Under Gag Order

A recently leaked internal memo from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) orders agency employees to refrain from discussing information regarding enforcement actions. The gag order came a week before the Bush administration revealed it would drop pending investigations of 70 power plants accused of violating the Clean Air Act (CAA). The Oct. 28 memo from J. P. Suarez, the assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance, instructs staff to refrain from discussing “sensitive enforcement information” with external parties. These third parties include:

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    Data Quality Lawsuit Settled Out of Court

    A controversial lawsuit challenging global warming was recently settled out of court, thereby leaving the issue of whether federal agencies’ data quality guidelines are judicially reviewable unanswered.

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    White House Grants Limited Access to 9/11 Information

    Last week, the White House agreed to grant the 9/11-investigation commission limited access to portions of classified presidential briefings. The commission will have some degree of access to briefings from both the Bush and Clinton administrations. The decision comes after the chairman of the panel threatened the White House with a subpoena if the documents were not released. While the willingness of the White House to grant some access is a positive gesture, many feel that the agreement is not enough.

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    FOI Advocates Get Mixed Results from Defense Authorization Bill

    Open government advocates scored what optimists might call a minor victory when Congress granted the National Security Agency (NSA) a narrowly-tailored exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to Secrecy News.

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    High Court Asked to Lift Secrecy in Habeas Corpus Proceedings

    The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has asked the Supreme Court to hear a case in which the plaintiff is identified only by his initials and 63 of 65 motions are kept secret. The existence of the case (M.K.B v. Warden) was discovered when a court clerk mistakenly inserted files related to the case in a public docket and a reporter discovered the misfiled papers, according to news reports.

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    Proposed ExxonMobil Plant to Test New Restrictions on Information

    Mobile, Ala., appears to be the testing ground for new restrictions on energy information. Inquiries into a proposed natural gas plant will test if policies meant to increase security will actually compromise the public’s safety.

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    NAS Holds Workshop on OMB Peer Review Standards

    The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has scheduled an all-day workshop on peer review for Nov. 18. The workshop is an effort to foster greater dialog on the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) recent draft bulletin proposing uniform standards for peer review throughout the federal government. According to a draft agenda, the speakers are predominately regulators and academics, with a few public interest groups and others also represented (though not all speakers have been confirmed). It has been reported that almost 80 people have already registered to participate in the workshop.

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