Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

1. Big banks press financial agencies on Volcker rule

   By Nancy Watzman Feb 14, 2012 12:42 p.m.

   Big banks paid calls on federal financial agencies in the days leading up to Monday's midnight deadline for the public to submit comments on the controversial Volcker rule, a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory legislation meant to prohibit banks from using customers' money to make risky bets on the market.

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2. No government money to criticize soda, says freshman lawmaker

   By Nancy Watzman Feb 13, 2012 2:22 p.m.

   Outraged that federal stimulus money has been used for local advertisements targeting soda as unhealthy, Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., has introduced the Protecting Foods and Beverages from Government Attack Act, which would make it illegal to use federal funds to criticize a legal food or beverage product.

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3. Revolving door from CFTC to lobbying firm

   By Nancy Watzman Feb 7, 2012 3:26 p.m.

   A former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner has gone through the revolving door to the law and lobbying firm firm Patton Boggs, where he'll work as a senior policy advisor, the firm announced Tuesday.

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4. Revolving door boosts private equity lobbying

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 30, 2012 7:22 p.m.

   The Private Equity Growth Capital Council has a new president with Democratic credentials who has been through Washington's revolving door.

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5. Despite Fed's steps toward transparency, much remains opaque

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 24, 2012 2:25 p.m.

   In a bid to increase transparency, the Federal Reserve will for the first time make public the forecasts for benchmark interest rates that will inform discussions at tomorrow's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets monetary policy for the nation. But despite this action, there is still plenty of opacity in how the Fed conducts business.

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6. Regulators lobbied by industry testify on Volcker rule

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 18, 2012 3:42 p.m.

   Federal regulators have had at least 89 meetings with outside groups, most of them big banking interests, about the controversial "Volcker rule," the provision in the Dodd-Frank financial law that prohibits banks from making bets with their own money. The effort to curb the practice, widely held to be a contributor to the 2008 financial meltdown, was the subject of a hearing in Congress today.

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7. Data lacking on private student loans

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 13, 2012 12:50 p.m.

   With student debt rising to a projected $1 trillion and concerns rising in the Occupy Wall Street movement and beyond about the bursting of the student loan bubble, the new federal consumer protection agency has set a Tuesday deadline for the public to send in data and stories about the rapidly expanding private student loan market—loans students are getting from banks and, increasingly, by for-profit universities such as Corinthian Colleges and DeVry University.

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8. Futures industry nabs former government regulator as new leader

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 10, 2012 5:06 p.m.

   In the latest example of a former financial regulator finding employment in the industry, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) has announced that its new president will be a former leader at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

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9. Super PAC profile: Ron Paul Volunteers offers contributors' protection program?

   By Nancy Watzman Jan 4, 2012 1:14 p.m.

   Lack of transparency can be a good thing, declares the treasurer of “Ron Paul Volunteers,” a Miami-based Super PAC he recently established in hopes of raising “in the low six figures” to help support Paul bid in Florida's Jan. 31 presidential primary.

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10. Food and media companies donated generously to lawmakers opposing food marketing guidelines for kids

    By Nancy Watzman Dec 20, 2011 4:50 p.m.

    Last summer, a bipartisan group of House members from Pennsylvania wrote federal agencies complaining that proposed guidelines restricting the marketing of unhealthy food to children marked “an alarming regulatory overreach.” They emphasized their sugary roots in “the leading confectionary producing state in the nation.” 

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11. Meetings missing from CFTC website

    By Nancy Watzman Dec 7, 2011 1:32 p.m.

    A week before Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioners unanimously approved new rules restricting how brokerage firms may invest customer funds, executives from Newedge, which had pushed against the rules along with the now bankrupt firm MF Global, attended several meetings with high ranking CFTC officials.

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12. Food and media companies lobby to weaken guidelines on marketing food to children

    By Nancy Watzman Dec 5, 2011 11:38 a.m.

    A major lobbying push by a powerful group of food and media companies appears to be working, with a federal agency indicating it would back off on parts of proposed voluntary guidelines for marketing food to children. The guidelines are meant to combat childhood obesity.

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13. Central banks ease terms on currency swaps

    By Nancy Watzman Nov 30, 2011 11:11 a.m.

    Stocks surged today as the announcement settled in that six central banks are joining forces to ease terms of currency liquidity swaps. As we have reported earlier here and here, the European Central Bank has recently been increasing its borrowing under the emergency swap facility, which is similar to that set up during the 2008 financial crisis, when lending at one point peaked at $586 billion.

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14. Senators grilling FTC commissioner on obesity guidelines took campaign money from industry

    By Nancy Watzman Nov 16, 2011 10:09 a.m.

    When Jon Leibowitz faced a Senate committee yesterday afternoon for a hearing on his renomination as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), he got a grilling from several Senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, on a controversial issue: the agency’s proposed guidelines on advertising food to children, meant to help in the fight to reduce childhood obesity.

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Investigations by Sunlight Foundation reporter Nancy Watzman