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OGD: FDA to launch product recall database
By Nancy Watzman Jun 16, 2010 2:23 p.m.When salmonella outbreaks were discovered last year in peanut butter and pistachios, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took action by posting information about affected products on its web page, creating a widget where consumers could do look-ups, and providing a downloadable database of the information--all of which proved tremendously popular. Starting this fall, the public will have access to a similar database containing details about all food, drug, and medical device recalls that occurred throughout the year, according to agency officials.
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Farm credit regulator won't disclose enforcement actions against banks
By Joe Eaton Jun 16, 2010 12:39 p.m.As Congress negotiates a final version of financial reform, one group of lenders has already won a blanket carve out from increased bank regulation — the more than 90 banks and associations of the Farm Credit System, a government-sponsored enterprise that dates back to 1916. The system, which has $30.8 billion in capital, includes about 90 agricultural credit associations that are cooperatively owned, plus five wholesale lending banks.
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Quest for EPA documents reveal deliberate misclassification by agency staff
By Naseem Miller Jun 16, 2010 11:21 a.m.For the past four years, as executive director of Citizen Action New Mexico, Dave McCoy has been hounding the local and federal government for documents.
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States of Transparency: Kentucky
By Sarah Dorsey Jun 15, 2010 3:47 p.m.The Open Government Directive encouraged states to put valuable government data online. In this series we're reviewing each state's efforts in this direction.
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Citizens United: West Virginia's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 15, 2010 3:04 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 states' election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're onto our sixth state, West Virginia:
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Citizens United: Iowa's Response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 14, 2010 1:23 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 states' election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. This week we're starting with Iowa:
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OGD: Treasury refines its plan
By Ryan Sibley Jun 11, 2010 3:53 p.m.Last month the Department of Treasury released the second iteration of its open government plan. The agency says it worked on three points to improve upon its first plan, adding specificity, clarifying the FOIA process, and addressing things missing from the first attempt – such as an outline revealing information requests from Congress. Treasury says it is continually working to improve its Open Government plan to satisfy what the public would like to see.
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Citizens United: Minnesota's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 10, 2010 3:03 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 state election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're featuring Minnesota, the fourth state in our series:
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In six months, House offices spent $673 million on salaries, equipment, expenses
By Anupama Narayanswamy Jun 9, 2010 5:46 p.m.In the final month of fiscal year 2009, House committees and offices went on a shopping spree, spending more than $60 million left in their budgets before it disappeared. More than $12 million went towards purchasing computer hardware, which could include new laptops and desktops.
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Citizens United: Colorado's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 9, 2010 11:56 a.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 state election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're featuring Colorado, the third state in our series:
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Citizens United: South Dakota's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 8, 2010 10:02 a.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 state election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. We’re going state by state, and now onto South Dakota:
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Citizens United: Arizona's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 7, 2010 3:36 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 state election laws unconstitutional.The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions.Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. We’ll go state by state, starting with Arizona:
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Coast guard database makes oil spill penalties nearly impossible to track
By Ariel Wittenberg Jun 7, 2010 1:39 p.m.The U.S. government has investigated potentially thousands of BP leaks, spills and other incidents but the information is stored in a Coast Guard database that keeps key details such as investigative findings and penalties out of the public’s reach.
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Center for Public Integrity: Coast Guard logs contradict White House Deepwater timeline
By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2010 6:27 p.m.From our colleagues at the Center for Public Integrity:
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