Blog Posts and Analysis / Open, Accountable Government

FEMA Ignores Toxic Trailers of Hurricane Victims

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) turned a blind eye to Katrina victims who became ill while living in FEMA-provided trailers, according to testimony given at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 19. Trailer tenants and experts described how FEMA, with evidence of toxic levels of formaldehyde in the trailers from construction materials, refused to substantively evaluate the extent of the problem, respond to known instances of formaldehyde poisoning or take adequate precautionary action.

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Surgeon General Warning: Manipulated Science

At a July 10 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former Bush administration Surgeon General Richard Carmona joined a growing list of officials to disclose the executive branch's political manipulation of science. Carmona's claims that agency science is being distorted for political purposes echoes charges leveled by recent whistleblowers from the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Energy Task Force Advisors Revealed, Six Years after Meetings

In the long-standing struggle to gain access to details regarding Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force meetings in 2000 and 2001, the Washington Post reported last week some of the many players who influenced the vice president's policy recommendations. An undisclosed former White House official gave the Post a list of approximately 300 names, companies and organizations who met with White House staff.

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An Examination of Government Openness

OpenTheGovernment.org and People For the American Way recently released Government Secrecy: Decisions Without Democracy, which gives a comprehensive examination of the importance of government transparency and the various legislative and policy means for promoting and curtailing open government.

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Baltimore Calls on Congress for More Chemical Security

On July 16, the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting federal chemical security legislation that would require, when feasible, the use of safer chemicals and technologies.

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Federal Government Kept Nuclear Accident Secret

Details on an accidental release of highly-enriched uranium at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tennessee were kept secret from the public and Congress by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for thirteen months.

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Federal Appeals Court Dismisses NSA Spying Case

On July 6, a divided Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a 2006 federal district court finding that the National Security Agency's (NSA) Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Without ruling on the constitutionality of the TSP, the judges dismissed the case based on the plaintiffs' lack of standing.

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