Blog Posts and Analysis / Open, Accountable Government

Bush Administration Ignores Whistleblowers

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) recently released statistics showing the government’s failure to act on a growing backlog of whistleblower cases. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is the small federal office charged with reviewing whistleblower claims backlog of cases.

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Public Comments Sought for Online Federal Contract Pilot

In a June Federal Register notice, the General Service Administration (GSA) announced a planned pilot project to make Federal contracts publicly available online. The project would require all federal departments and agencies to post contracts on the Internet. This proposal signals a major attempt to increase the level of transparency and accountability in the contract process. Public comments are sought by GSA in order to set priorities for the project.

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EPA Requests Comments on Changes to TRI Reporting

The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed several changes to the Form R under the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) in an attempt to better organize data collection, after receiving feedback from stakeholders.

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Critical Infrastructure Information Docket

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently finished receiving public comments on its proposed rule for the handling of Critical Infrastructure Information (CII). While the June 16th deadline for comments was over a month ago, DHS is still not providing access to the public comments it received, nor has the agency announced any plans to do so.

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Feedback Meeting on ECHO

On July 8th Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) met with various environmental and public interest groups to hear feedback on the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) project. JP Suarez, the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, chaired the meeting.

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EPA Refuses to Release RMP Data

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has denied OMB Watch’s request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for Executive Summaries of the Risk Management Plans (RMPs). This marks the first instance, of which OMB Watch is aware, that EPA has denied a request for information specifically collected to inform the public about homeland security risks they face.

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Another Court Denies Secrecy of Cheney Files

In a 2-1 ruling last Tuesday, a federal appeals court rejected Vice President Dick Cheney’s request to keep documents about his energy task force secret. The decision upholds a lower court ruling that ordered the limited release of documents in a discovery process. Justice Department lawyers defending Cheney then approached the D.C. Court of Appeals to halt that order. The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower courts ruling, stating that current laws would safeguard genuinely privileged information.

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