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House Members, Committees and Offices Spend $1.36 Billion in 2010
By Anupama Narayanswamy Mar 21, 2011 10:21 a.m.In 2010, members, committees and other offices of the U.S. House of Representatives spent more than $1.36 billion on salaries, benefits, office equipment, travel, consultants and other expenses. Of that, the largest expense--about $1 billion--was for salaries and benefits, followed by spending on rent and communication costs, technology and related maintenance costs.
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Big business seeks exemption from derivatives rules
By Nancy Watzman Mar 16, 2011 1:29 p.m.Some of Washington’s most powerful trade associations and big corporations are pushing to get an exemption from derivatives regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial law—and House Republicans are planning to introduce legislation to do just that.
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Sunlight Live covers gas price hearing
By Joshua Hatch Mar 16, 2011 10:40 a.m.Tomorrow, when the Committee on Natural Resources will hold a full committee hearing on gas prices and U.S. jobs, the Sunlight Foundation will spin up another instance of its data and live-blogging Sunlight Live platform to cover it live.
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Nuclear power plants live along fault lines
By Joshua Hatch Mar 15, 2011 3:04 p.m.As recent events have shown in Japan, nuclear power plants are just as vulnerable to natural disasters as anything else. So here at Sunlight we were curious about the locations of domestic nuclear reactors. Using data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey, we generated the following map, which shows the location of the aforementioned reactors (there are 104 of them) vis-a-vis geological fault lines. We also included locations of significant historical earthquakes. Take a look and see if we might be vulnerable to a nuclear disaster if/when "the big one" hits, and click on the red dots to learn more about each nuclear power plant:
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Data lacking on overdraft fees
By Nancy Watzman Mar 14, 2011 1 p.m.More than six months after new federal rules went into effect that prohibit banks from charging consumers overdraft fees unless they “opt in” to such an arrangement, government data are lacking on how this has changed banks’ bottom lines.
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As Renco lobbies and Peru deliberates, Doe Run Peru remains idle
By Keenan Steiner Mar 8, 2011 11:03 a.m.Doe Run Peru, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Renco Group and the subject of an ongoing battle between that firm and the government of Peru, has a bumpy history in La Oroya since it acquired smelting operations from the government of Peru there in 1997. The firm directly provided 3,500 jobs in Peru, gained the support of many workers and local people, and claims to be a more responsible environmental caretaker than its state-owned predecessor.
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Current and former officials intervene on company’s behalf in battle with Peru
By Keenan Steiner Mar 8, 2011 11:03 a.m.Battling the government of Peru over an inactive metal smelter in one of the most polluted places on earth, billionaire Ira Rennert’s Renco Group hired eight former government officials from five lobbying firms in a span of 82 days since November.
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Geithner meets with Obama campaign fundraiser
By Nancy Watzman Mar 4, 2011 11:36 a.m.Penny Pritzker, who served as President Obama’s finance chair during his 2008 campaign and whose name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Commerce Secretary, met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and several other top government heavyweights to discuss Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), according to meeting logs released by the agency this week.
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Chamber of Commerce meets with CFTC chairman
By Nancy Watzman Mar 2, 2011 12:33 p.m.Yesterday a lobbyist and executives representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has criticized the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial law, met with Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to discuss the issue.
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Bernanke is positive about economy, despite poor markets
By Ryan Sibley Mar 1, 2011 6:17 p.m.The Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, said he believes the economy will continue to grow this year despite high unemployment rates, weak job growth and an “exceptionally weak housing sector”.
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Koch lobbied on consumer protection database recently defunded in the House
By Nancy Watzman Mar 1, 2011 10:28 a.m.In mid-February, freshman Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, whose top campaign donor is Koch Industries, proposed a successful amendment in an appropriations bill to defund a new public product safety database recently soft-launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Two years ago, when the bill was being debated, Koch lobbied on this specific issue, citing the "consumer reporting database provision" in legislation that passed that year.
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Toy industry wants to put kibosh consumer database
By Nancy Watzman Feb 22, 2011 3:18 p.m.The toy industry is pushing to weaken the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in part by defunding a new database scheduled to launch next month that would allow consumers to go online and report an incident with a product they think is unsafe, reports the New York Times.
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Libya and Algeria rocked by recent protests, have history of US lobbying
By Lindsay Young Feb 18, 2011 1:40 p.m.As the dissent against dictatorial rulers spreads in the Middle East, two countries – Libya and Algeria – experiencing unrest have spent millions lobbying the U.S. government in the past few years on various issues including improving trade relations with the United States and cleaning up tarnished images of their country.
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Top financial regulators meets with industry leaders, lobbyists
By Nancy Watzman Feb 18, 2011 9:57 a.m.Elizabeth Warren, who has been charged with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reported more meetings with individuals outside the government in December than any other Treasury official working on implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial law.
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