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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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Matching bundlers to fundraisers
By Lisa Chiu Jun 3, 2010 11:29 a.m.Here at the Reporting Group, we’ve always wanted to tie the fundraising invitations in our Party Time database to actual donations reported to the Federal Election Commission by a politician or a political action committee--to be able to show a donor gave money to a politician at a certain event.
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In House and Senate, appropriators got most contributions from earmark recipients
By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2010 10:49 a.m.The Center for Responsive Politics and Taxpayers for Common Sense -- two of our favorite organizations -- have released their comprehensive earmark and influence database for fiscal year 2010 requests.
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Net neutrality: Do campaign contributions tell the whole story?
By Bill Allison Jun 2, 2010 12:04 p.m.After 74 Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski warning that the FCC should not advance net neutrality rules without explicit direction from Congress, Free Press put together a page showing career campaign contributors from PACs, employees and lobbyists of interests that oppose the measure, intended to keep the Internet a level playing field.
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Critics say federal student privacy law misused by colleges
By Claritza Jiménez Jun 1, 2010 4:13 p.m.Reports of NCAA football violations, lists of who gets free tickets to big games, and disciplinary records of students found responsible for sexual assault are among the records that U.S. colleges and universities have refused to release, citing a federal student privacy law. Last month, a Wyoming community college even went to court to stop a local newspaper from publishing a leaked internal report about a trip the college president took to Costa Rica.
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Disappearmarks: Buffalo’s Switcheroo saves earmark
By Lisa Chiu Jun 1, 2010 2:27 p.m.Congressman Brian Higgins (right) breaks ground with Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown on historic streets in the Buffalo Inner Harbor in September 2009. (Photo: http://www.buffalowaterfront.com)
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Study: Earmarks, federal spending follow political power, inhibit economic growth
By Bill Allison Jun 1, 2010 9:51 a.m.Rep. James Moran takes the gavel
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CPI's Jim Morris talks about BP's OSHA violations
By Bill Allison May 28, 2010 4:42 p.m.Our colleague Jim Morris, who runs Data Mine, our joint project with the Center for Public Integrity, talked about his story on BP's pattern of OSHA violations at its refineries on ABC yesterday. Jim appears at 10:10 in the clip; if the player below doesn't work it's available here.
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BP had no plan for Deepwater Horizon disaster
By Ryan Sibley May 28, 2010 3:36 p.m.British Petroleum did not have an emergency response plan for its Deepwater Horizon drill rig; such plans direct personnel to the proper procedures for responding to incidents like the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Oil spill: BP pipelines trigger safety violations
By Sarah Dorsey May 28, 2010 3:01 p.m.This week, we've been gathering resources for reporters looking to put the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill into context. While the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) doesn't have jurisdiction over the safety of the offshore wells themselves, they do enforce safety regulations for oil pipelines and can tell us if BP has violated any of these regulations of late.
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Oil Spill: Wildlife data shows several species may be affected
By Anupama Narayanswamy May 27, 2010 3:14 p.m.As the millions of gallons of oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Services has started an uphill battle with their rescue efforts. The agency has deployed a 200-person workforce in the area who are reviewing the natural habitats affected by the oil spill.
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Search new Subsidyscope database on federal aid to nonprofits
By Lisa Chiu May 27, 2010 2:22 p.m.Subsidyscope nonprofit funding map.
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BP blamed in 8,000 spill reports, federal data shows
By Bill Allison May 27, 2010 1:49 p.m.British Petroleum and its subsidiaries have been the subject of roughly 8,000 reported incidents of spills, emissions and leaks of oil, chemicals and gases into the environment, according to a government database. (download them here).
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DOE site up to date: President Bush's goals for 2005
By Bill Allison May 25, 2010 10:42 p.m.The Reporting Group spent the day digging through government websites looking for resources for reporters covering the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Tonight I started looking for useful data sets on the Department of Energy's website. Put the word "oil" in the site's search interface, and the first result (as of this writing) explains...
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