In This Issue Budget Resolution Progress?   Supplemental Appropriations   Nonprofit Disclosure Legislation   CTCs Pick Up Steam   Congressman Seeks to Foil Environmentalists   Small Business Paperwork Reduction Act   Pesticides and Children   Clean Air Under Attack   HREF="#dec">Auditing Declassified Data   Toxic Products   Tech Help: Free Search  Engines   Letter To The Editor: Takings Erode Liberty   Notes and Sidebars Budget Resolution Progress? The Senate passed its FY 2001 budget resolution on Friday. That means a joint House and Senate budget resolution might actually be completed by the April 15 deadline on Saturday, if an agreement can be reached in conference this week (set to open tomorrow, April 11th). While the Senate bill allocates $600.5 billion for discretionary spending, which is more than the House figure of $596.5 billion, this is no victory for those who had hoped for increases in domestic discretionary spending, since the increase ($4 billion) goes entirely to defense spending. Both the House and Senate have allotted the same amount for non-defense discretionary spending, $289.7 billion. Both versions place an emphasis on tax cuts, even providing that they be increased if the estimates of the budget surplus become higher. They simultaneously make rule changes to prevent the discretionary budget caps being exceeded, even though the non-defense discretionary spending level will force cuts in domestic programs. Both versions contain a prescription drug benefit. Both versions also set aside the so-called "Social Security" surpluses to retire the public debt. This determination not to spend any of the Social Security surplus, by both Democrats and Republicans, is a resolve that could have chilling effects on spending for education, job training, social services, environmental protection and the vast array of other government efforts that are funded from the discretionary spending allocations. This is especially troubling given the determination to pass tax cuts. If the economy slows down, and lawmakers stick with their resolve, even deeper cuts in domestic spending could result. There are some significant differences between the bills that will need to be resolved, like the increased defense spending in the Senate bill, different tax cut bill scheduling, a House measure creating a $50 billion reserve fund for tax cuts, and variations in the prescription drug benefit plans. Back to Top Supplemental Appropriations The Supplemental Appropriations bill for FY 2000 appears to be a no-go. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss) has succeeded so far in blocking a mark-up of the bill. President Clinton issued a statement last Wednesday expressing his disappointment, and warning that the delay could compromise American interests here and abroad. Given the Senate’s approval of $4 billion more in defense discretionary spending in the FY2001 budget resolution, the resolution may be the tool to get defense increases passed in place of the supplemental appropriation, while avoiding the more controversial aspects of the supplemental. Back to Top House Ways and Means Committee Kills Nonprofit Disclosure Legislation Days after an article on the front page of the New York Times drew attention to the issue, legislation to force disclosure by organizations incorporated under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code was defeated by the House Ways and Means Committee last Wednesday (April 5th). Nonprofit groups incorporated under Section 527 can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities -- as long as they do not specifically advocate voting for a candidate-- without any disclosure requirements. This loophole was created over 25 years ago as a mechanism to keep most income of political parties free from taxation, but the emphasis on "issue advocacy" in recent campaigns has caused the number of Section 527 groups to blossom. It is these organizations that are at the heart of the debate over "soft money." An amendment to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2000 (H.R.4163) was offered by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), which would have required disclosure of the finances of Section 527 groups to the Federal Election Commission and their existence to the Internal Revenue Service. The amendment was defeated 21-15, with all the committee's Republicans voting against it. Doggett will offer his amendment again when the bill comes up for debate on the House floor, as early as this week. This is not the only attempt being made to cut through the secrecy surrounding Section 527 groups. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) has said that he will be introducing legislation that would require Section 527 groups to comply with campaign finance laws, which would limit their contributions and require them to file disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has also recommended that the tax returns of Section 527 groups be published (although currently they only file returns if they make more than $100 in interest in a year). Vice President Gore also calls for disclosure of the finances and officers of Section 527 groups in his campaign finance reform package. Back to Top CTCs Pick Up Steam on the Hill and White House Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), and Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) were three initial House members to explicitly put in a request for the $100 million for CTCs in their appropriations "wish lists," in support of the Administration's request. Last year, Rep. Moran was the only member (and full Appropriations Committee member) who put this as a specific request. This year, both Jackson and Moran sit on Appropriations, with Jackson sitting on the Labor/HHS/Education subcommittee that determines whether or not the request goes through. Rep. Jackson, moreover, has made technology access a legislative priority, and is poised to help mobilize the Congressional Black Caucus on the issue. Rep. Reyes' support is significant. He leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' task force on technology issues, and he is also the sponsor of the House companion bill to Sen. Mikulski's National Digital Empowerment Act. Both he and the caucus chair, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, reportedly pushed each CHC member to include CTCs as items in their appropriations "wish lists" as well. The CHC is being nudged to be more visible on digital divide issues, and will attempt to do outreach on the Hill as well. CTCs also got a big boost during President Clinton's April 4th speech in advance of his upcoming third New Markets tour, this one focused specifically on the "digital divide." Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, and Julian Lacey, 29, a Silicon Valley Web designer and volunteer at Plugged In (an East Palo Alto CTC) joined the President in calling attention to efforts to narrow the digital divide. Starting April 17, Clinton will visit East Palo Alto, CA; a Navajo Indian reservation in Shiprock, NM; rural communities in North Carolina; and the spring Comdex convention in Chicago. This tour is designed to elicit private-sector commitments to both sign a "National Call to Action," and offer solutions and contributions of money and services to address different digital divide needs. Building off of those remarks, on April 5th, there was a daylong White House conference on the "New Economy" attended by high-profile technology executives and economic experts. All of this is tied to Clinton's proposed 2001 budget, which includes a 10-year, $2 billion in tax incentive package, and a $380 million in proposed grants to encourage private-sector engagement in computer donation, community technology access efforts, and workforce training. The package seeks to address two main goals (1) connecting children, teachers, and schools to technology tools and online learning resources and (2) bringing technology to every community through Community Technology Centers and high-speed networks and home connectivity, in addition to providing lifelong technology learning opportunities. Back to Top Plans for New White House to White Out Green Earth Counting the days in this election year closely, one member of Congress used the extra day in this year's Leap Year to begin developing a plan to attack environmental protections and those who support them when a new administration takes over the White House next January. Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA) mailed a letter asking for suggestions for steps that "a new president can enact immediately upon taking office to go on the offensive against the extreme environmentalists." According to the letter, Doolittle's goal is not only to fight environmental and protections, but to "force [those who support human health and environmental protections] to spend money and resources, weakening their influence." Rep. Doolittle received a 6% rating by the League of Conservation Voters for his voting record on the environment. Misnaming the effort "Project Evergreen," he proposals several steps that could be taken:

• Reversing the right to recover legal costs incurred while ensuring environmental protections laws are followed,
• Barring the federal government from managing forests,
• Restricting the public's ability to participate in managing forests,
• Cutting support for community-based solutions to environmental problems ("taxpayer financed propaganda")

Comments on the project should be sent to: Office of Rep. John T. Doolittle ATTN: Project Evergreen 1526 Longworth Building Washington, DC 20515-0504 202-225-2511 project.evergreen@mail.house.gov Please also send a copy of any written or electronic communication to Rick Blum, OMB Watch, 1742 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009-1171. Back to Top Small Business PRA Likely to Move in Senate HREF="/ombwatcher/ombw20000214.html#r rn">As hope for comprehensive regulatory "reform" fades, the Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), seems likely to turn its attention to the HREF="/article/articleview/479/1/4/">Small Business Paperwork Reduction Act (S. 1378), which passed the House in February of last year. Introduced by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), S. 1378 would prohibit federal agencies from fining small businesses for first-time violations of paperwork requirements as long as compliance is achieved within six months after being notified of the violation (with certain exceptions). The problem with this, as pointed out by Citizens for Sensible Safeguards, as well as HREF="http://www.whitehouse.gov/OMB/legislative/sap/106-1/HR391-r.html">the Clinton administration, is that agencies would not have the flexibility to take steps against willful violators. And in fact, the bill could encourage more violations since small businesses would know they could avoid reporting requirements -- without fear of fine -- until they are caught for the first time. Fortunately, Voinovich has indicated his willingness to work on these problems and resolve any health and safety concerns. Link for OMB Watch's complete analysis of S. 1378. Back to Top Pesticide Manufacturers vs. Children The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), which Congress passed unanimously in 1996, directs EPA to give the benefit of the doubt to America's children in deciding how to regulate pesticides. A HREF="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:SB01464:@@@X" >new bill (S. 1464) by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), however, would turn this precautionary principle on its head. It says that if we are unsure exactly how dangerous a pesticide is for children, we must continue to allow current use patterns and residue levels -- even if some evidence suggests strongly that those levels are dangerous for children. EPA would be prevented from taking action until it had collected every last piece of data. That would reward ignorance, perpetuating the incentives for manufacturers to delay needed testing that existed before Congress passed the FQPA. Back to Top Clean Air Under Attack Sens. George Voinovich (R-OH) John Breaux (D-LA) are expected to introduce legislation in the very near future that would require EPA to conduct cost-benefit analyses before setting new clean air standards -- a step that has long been advocated by polluters. Currently, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to set its standards based solely on the scientific evidence and what's best for public health. Costs are then taken into consideration as EPA and the states devise programs to meet those standards. Read the HREF="http://www.cleanairtrust.org/release.032900.html">reaction from the Clean Air Trust. Back to Top Does Declassifying A Document Twice Make It Twice As Public? The majority of a proposed increase in declassification spending in FY 2001 will be used to audit previously declassified documents at the National Archives, according to testimony of Gen. Eugene Habiger, director of the DOE Office of Security: "The declassification budget request for FY 2001 is $4.2 million more than our FY 2000 appropriation, representing a 25% increase over the FY 2000 funding level. The majority of this increase is required to implement P.L. 106-65, section 3149, which supplements P.L. 105-261 and requires the Department to audit an additional 450 million pages of documents at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which have already been declassified by other agencies and designated for release by NARA. To date, the Department has audited in excess of 64 million pages of documents under these two statutes and, in the process, has discovered erroneously declassified documents containing Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data. To date, the audits have prevented the inadvertent release of significant amounts of sensitive nuclear weapon design information. " The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, section 3161, "Protection Against Inadvertent Release of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data," require that the Secretary of Energy provide the Committee on Armed Services a report of the inadvertent release of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data in other Government agency records declassified under Executive Order 12958 that occurred after enactment. In a letter dated February 15, 2000, Secretary Bill Richardson states that, "As a result of the Department's audit of approximately 52 million pages of records, the Department has discovered the inadvertent release of other Government agency records compromising approximately 25 documents, which contain pages of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data. None of the inadvertent releases was made by Department of Energy personnel." Read General Habiger's full statement and Secretary Richardson's letter, both posted by Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists. Back to Top Everyday Toxics... The Environmental News Network reports that automobile manufacturers use a deadly chemical to rapidly inflate air bags in cars sold in the United States. Once air bags are deflated, the danger from sodium azide, which looks like ordinary table salt but can be fatal to humans in very small doses, is dramatically reduced. Left in discarded cars with inactivated air bags, the toxic chemical is left to be released into the environment or exposed to humans when the car is sent to a junk yard or crushed. Air bags utilizing toxic chemicals are one example of everyday products on the market today that contain or use toxic chemicals. The existence of these dangerous chemicals in products goes unreported to the public. Two states, Massachusetts and New Jersey, require companies to report toxic use in products, however efforts to require disclosure of toxic chemicals in products have stalled in Congress. More information about sodium azide Back to Top Tech Help: Free Search Engines Does your nonprofit web site suffer from search envy? Now your web site can host feature its own search engine... for free. How? If you were subscribed to NPTalk, your search would be over... Back to Top Letter to the Editor: Takings Erode Liberty Just about every concept discussed in your article on takings was presented in a fundamentally dishonest way. It is absurd to argue that Congress thinks about anything. They have spent the last one hundred years working on destroying liberty. The Fifth Amendment is clear. It enumerates an existing right given by the Creator. The government cannot take something from you without compensating you for it. The anti-liberty concept that has been grafted into our system involves the restriction of legitimate uses of property to appease an interest group's whims. Are you really going to continue to pretend to be unaware of the cases where the government has almost completely destroyed the value of property held by individuals? If I approach you on the street while you are carrying $1000 and take only $300 dollars from you, would you argue that I was entitled to it if I gave some of it to someone that I liked better than you, or to my favorite charity? You even lie about the link you provide. You state that the link is to the "Economic Policy Project", in fact it is to the "Environmental Policy Project". You ought to just eliminate the middleman and create a link to a Communist Party website. Sincerely, Don Kosloff Your comments are always welcomed! Back to Top Notes and Sidebars Job Announcement OMB Watch is seeking a person to play a large role in our organization as the Manager of our Community Education Center. The Manager will be responsible for overseeing our work related to strengthening nonprofit advocacy. If you have a commitment to social justice, experience working with the nonprofit community, and excellent verbal and written skills, please check out our job announcement. IMF/World Bank Protests Washington D.C. is gearing up for the Mobilization for Global Justice protests that will be occuring April 16th and 17th. This week, leading up to the event, there will be many activities and opportunities to learn about how current IMF and World Bank practices are affecting developing countries. Visit the A16 web site for more information. Right To Know Update No date has yet been set for release of the latest data on toxic chemical releases in the United States. The data for 1998 was scheduled to be released at the end of February. See Vol. 1 No. 4 of the OMB Watcher Online. Call for Papers Independent Sector is seeking papers for its Spring Research Forum 2001, to take place March 15-16, 2001, in Washington, DC. The topic is "The Impact of Information Technology on Civil Society: How Will Online Innovation, Philanthropy, and Volunteerism Serve the Common Good?" Deadline for submissions is September 9, 2000. Visit Independent Sector for more information. EPA Web Site Update EPA's web site is returning to normal service after the March 16 shut down of the agency's Internet services, which affected public access to EPA's web site and EPA staff's access to email. EPA has resumed its email updates on its activities, including its dissemination of Federal Register announcements. This week the agency enabled the public to once again download files that utilize the file transfer protocol (FTP) from the site; FTP is widely used on the site and provides access to environmental modeling software and other tools. Technology Grants Progressive Technology Project's Spring 2000 guidelines are now available. Grants are awarded to support the technology efforts of nonprofits. The deadline for this year's grants is May 5, 2000. Visit the Progressive Technology Project's web site for more information. Environmental Conference The Pew Center on Global Climate Change and The Royal Institute of International Affairs will co-host an international conference on Innovative Policy Solutions to Global Climate Change in Washington, D.C. on April 25th-26th. Government officials, business executives, and individuals from the non-governmental and academic communities will gather to discuss progressive yet pragmatic solutions to climate change being undertaken in industrialized countries. For more information visit The Pew Center on Global Climate Change web site. Conference on Race A conference on Race and Public Policy entitled, "Race Rules: Equity, Justice and Public Policy," will take place May 19th-20th, at American University in Washington, D.C.. The meeting is a project of the Grass Roots Innovative Policy Program and its focus will be on generating concrete ideas and recommendations for race and public policy. For more information visit the Applied Research Center web site. Internet Taxes As more and more purchases have shifted from retail stores to the Internet, the issue of taxation has become increasingly critical. On April 13th here will be an Internet Taxation briefing and discussion on Capitol Hill. Co-sponsored by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, AFSCME, OMB Watch, and the National Governor's Association, the briefing will address emerging federal legislation to bar state and local governments from collecting sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet. The briefing will be held at 4:00 in Room G-11 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Education Report The National Priorities Project is releasing its new education report, "Recess is Over!", today (April 10th). To view it, or the NPP’s "State of the States" report released last month, visit the NPP web site.