Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

1. Recovery.gov redesign released

   By Bill Allison Sep 28, 2009 3:45 p.m.

   We're poking around it now. The maps are done very well, but as of this writing, we haven't been able to get any of the XML feeds from the Download Center to work (we've learned that they're working on it) and the spreadsheet on Recovery contracts from the Federal Procurement Data System, while helpful, had the usual glitches--including a contract for bridge construction with an effective data of

2. Open Notebook: Health care

   By Bill Allison Sep 22, 2009 10:22 p.m.

   Transparency-related provisions in the summary of the chairman's mark that Sen. Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee released last week: Lots of new disclosure requirements for physicians who refer patients to hospitals in which they or their family members have a financial interest, for nursing homes, for hospitals, for medical device manufacturers, suppliers, and pharmaceutical companies. Little oversight of government (there's a few requirements for new entities created by the bill to act in a transparent manner). Still, what's more interesting is what's not transparent -- updates on that coming later. Here's the descriptions of the provisions.

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3. Lobbying disclosure upheld

   By Bill Allison Sep 8, 2009 10:14 p.m.

   Details available from Legal Times blog here:

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4. In 1983, Congress changed Medicare payment system with little scrutiny

   By Bill Allison Sep 8, 2009 8:50 p.m.

   This 1984 paper, which summarizes a number of academic publications that raised questions about a 1983 reform to the Medicare payment system, suggests that whether things have gotten better or worse, they certainly have changed. It's hard to imagine Congress moving so quickly on a health care measure developed behind closed doors.

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5. Open Notebook: Tax Havens

   By Bill Allison Sep 8, 2009 7:22 p.m.

   Just a few odds, ends and bits of reporting that didn't make it into this post that relies on data from the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker that we collaborated on with our friends from ProPublica:

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6. MSNBC: Obama administration visitor disclosure policy exempts its first eight months

   By Bill Allison Sep 4, 2009 4:50 p.m.

   Bill Dedman, and investigative reporter at MSNBC.com, points out some limitations in the new policy announced by the White House today on providing open records:

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7. Rangel releases do-over financial disclosure

   By Bill Allison Aug 25, 2009 7:49 p.m.

   When it comes to financial disclosure, the second time, apparently, is the charm for House Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel. Real Time reported last February 28 separate instances in which Rangel had failed to disclose his ownership, purchase or sale of assets stretching back to 1979; CQ reports today that Rangel has filed an amended financial disclosure form that includes "hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unreported assets":

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8. Raising Their Ugland House: Cayman Islands Lobbies to Keep Haven Safe

   By Bill Allison Aug 20, 2009 10:37 p.m.

   When President Barack Obama promised in May to raise an additional $210 billion in taxes a year by closing corporate loopholes and cracking down on individual tax cheats, he pointed to an address in the Cayman Islands listed by 12,000 corporations as the kind of abuse his proposals would shut down. "Either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world," the President said.

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9. Training

   By Bill Allison Aug 1, 2009 2:42 p.m.

   Top recipients of contributions from registered lobbyists, 2010 election cycle.

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10. 5,000 earmark requests databased

    By Bill Allison Jul 27, 2009 2:39 p.m.

    Our friends at Washington Watch have had some success in their effort to turn messy, un-formatted member earmark requests into usable, analyzable data:

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11. Washington Watch Releases Earmark Request Entry Form

    By Bill Allison Jul 20, 2009 7:43 p.m.

    For the first time in 2009, members of Congress had to release their earmark requests to the public. As we've documented before, this information is scattered over 535 Web sites in all kinds of different formats. Jim Harper and Washington Watch have now released a tool that allows volunteers to capture that earmark information for posterity, centralize it in a single location, and allow for all kinds of additional analysis and investigation. And, if you participate, you can win a Kindle!

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12. USDA misses the point

    By Bill Allison Jul 20, 2009 4:11 p.m.

    Matt Drudge has linked a dozen or so examples of what look to be wasteful spending in the stimulus--$2,531,600 for 'HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB', $1,191,200 for '2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED' (I linked that one immediately below), $351,807 for 'REPLACE AND UPGRADE THE DUMBWAITER, $1,562,568 for 'MOZZARELLA CHEESE'... and so on. In response, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture posted the following clarifying information:

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13. Stimulus Funds Premium Pork?

    By Bill Allison Jul 19, 2009 3:32 a.m.

    I'm assuming that either there's an error somewhere, or this is really, really good ham. From Recovery.gov's new recipient data comes this contract, which if I'm reading it right, spends $1,191,200 for "2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED."

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14. New Data from Recovery.gov

    By Bill Allison Jul 16, 2009 9:09 p.m.

    The office of Vice President Joe Biden sent out a statement with links to new Recovery maps:

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Investigations by Sunlight Foundation reporter Bill Allison