Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

1. OGD: Reviewing EPA's interactive datasets

   By Aisha Qidwae Apr 29, 2010 11:20 a.m.

   The Environmental Protection Agency has been ahead of several other cabinet level agencies when it comes to putting data online. For several years now some of their main datasets are available with interactive features such as maps and in a downloadable format. Now according to EPA’s open government plan, the agency is planning on releasing several new data driven projects by the end of 2010, some of which are already public.

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2. New TARP watchdog report cites poor progress and several fraud investigations

   By Aisha Qidwae Apr 20, 2010 5:11 p.m.

   The Office of the Special Inspector General of the Troubles Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) released a quarterly report today stating that although, Wall Street is beginning to regain its footing, Main Street has been showing “disturbingly persistent” signs of distress. 

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3. Local goverment contractors receive billions in 2010

   By Aisha Qidwae Apr 20, 2010 12:16 p.m.

   One of the largest government contracts for 2010 thus far was awarded to two companies in the DC metro area to process non-immigrant visa applications. The $2.8 billion, 10-year State Department contract went to Computer Sciences Corp., a small business based in Laurel, Md., and Stanley Associates based in Arlington, Va.

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4. Bailout watchdog criticizes home loan program

   By Aisha Qidwae Mar 25, 2010 4:33 p.m.

   A year after the $75 billion program to reduce mortgage payments under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) went into effect, a recent audit report criticized  the outcome of the program as "disappointing." So far, out of the million trial mortgage modifications, under which homeowners can have their mortgage payment reduced for three months, only 168,000 loans have been permanently reduced falling drastically short of the 3 to 4 million initial goal of the Department of Treasury.

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5. Available on paper: Government records on jobs lost to foreign trade hard to access

   By Aisha Qidwae Mar 23, 2010 11:42 a.m.

   In December 2009, Bristol Myers Squib, a biopharmaceutical company with international operations, told employees at two Indiana plants that 75 to 100 of them would need to seek other work. In February 2010, HSBC, the British financial firm that bills itself as the "world's local bank," laid off 20 full-time customer service representatives who processed loan modifications in a Kentucky town named, ironically enough, London. Some 125 workers who built and assembled truck cabs for 18 wheelers at Mayflower Vehicle Systems in Norwalk, Ohio, saw their workplace shut its doors in April 2010.

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6. Senate committee calls for tighter regulations on property, bank accounts of foreign politicians

   By Aisha Qidwae Feb 10, 2010 5:36 p.m.

   The subcommittee's 325-page report found that U.S. bankers, lawyers, real estate agents and escrows overlooked foreign political officials moving millions of dollars into the country. For years, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the 40-year-old eldest son of Equatorial Guinea's president was using U.S. banks to move $110 million. Obiang Mangue, also the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of the oil and timber rich western African country, used U.S. financial institutions, including Wachovia Bank, Citibank, Union Bank of California and Bank of America to move money through five shell companies, attorney-clients and other accounts.

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7. OGD: USAID's missing data

   By Aisha Qidwae Jan 27, 2010 4:05 p.m.

   One of USAID's high value data sets on U.S. economic and military assistance aka the Greenbook cannot be accessed on data.gov/ogd. Unfortunately, the source of the broken link is coming from the USAID website.

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8. OGD: Department of the Interior

   By Aisha Qidwae Jan 26, 2010 3:18 p.m.

   Two of the other data sets released Friday, probably the ones most useful to the public, the volunteer opportunities and the recreation data sets are already available online here and here in a better and usable format compared to the XML downloads on data.gov.

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9. TARP Money Funds More Politically-Savvy Banks

   By Aisha Qidwae Jan 7, 2010 2:30 p.m.

   Under-performing banks that are politically connected received more bailout funds, according to a study by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

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Investigations by Sunlight Foundation reporter Aisha Qidwae