1. Description of Citizenship Database Available – If You’re Willing to Pay Nearly $112,000

    By Jim Morris Mar 18, 2010 10:22 p.m.

    After taking nearly four years to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request, the U.S. immigration agency is demanding $111,930 for records that describe what is in a government database of claims for U.S. citizenship – not the actual database itself.

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  2. POIA aims to make public records truly public

    By Bill Allison Mar 16, 2010 2:45 p.m.

    According to a procurement officer in the Transportation Department, SF-LLLs, a disclosure form filed by lobbyists when they help their clients pursue contract or grant awards, are filed away with other contracting documents and "kept in a secure place so no one has access to the them." This, despite the fact that, in fine print on the lower left hand side of the document are the words, "This information will be available for public inspection."

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  3. Public Blocked From Key Parts of U.S. Dam Inspection Data

    By Jim Morris Mar 15, 2010 12:26 p.m.

    In the middle of the night on Nov. 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam near Toccoa Falls, Georgia, gave way, unleashing a wall of water that killed 39 people. In a report, federal investigators blamed the failure on a combination of factors, including heavy rains and a breach in the 38-year-old earthen dam’s crest that had been followed by progressive erosion.

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  4. OGD: Freeing health care data

    By Nancy Watzman Mar 10, 2010 9:11 a.m.

    We're still tracking government's performance under the Open Government Directive, and we're also asking for specific information to be released. Here's the data we'd like to see on food and drug safety, which we posted over at the Department of Health and Human Services "open" Web page. The agency set up this commenting system as part of President Barack Obama's open government directive. Please take a moment to visit and vote for our suggestions. (Unfortunately the HHS comment format made our paragraphs run together and slightly truncated our comment. This is fixed below.) We'll be posting more of these at other /open pages in the coming days and weeks.

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  5. D.C. lobbyists drive Burr's fundraising

    By Nancy Watzman Mar 8, 2010 2:38 p.m.

    Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., formally announced his reelection bid on Feb. 22, 2010, with an open house at his Winston-Salem campaign headquarters, but the first term member has been raising money since he took office.  Since January 2009 alone, he and his campaign have sent out at least 38 invitations to fundraisers, according to our Party Time database, the great majority of them in Washington, D.C. The events have helped him raise a total of $6.7 million, $4.3 million of which he still has in the bank.

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  6. New Ways and Means head courted by tax lobbyists

    By Anupama Narayanswamy Mar 4, 2010 4:48 p.m.

    The Ways and Means committee skipped the seniority process and appointed Rep. Sander Levin to the helm of the powerful tax committee, and lawyers and lobbyists that specializes in tax issues will have an early opportunity to congratulate him.

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  7. How are House members spending taxpayer money?

    By Anupama Narayanswamy Mar 2, 2010 4:56 p.m.

    The House of Representatives released its tabulations of members' office expenses--including personnel costs, travel, district office expenses and vehicle expenses--last Friday, and the Sunlight Foundation turned the 3,000 page PDF into a searchable database, enabling reporters and curious constituents to do easy aggregation.

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  8. Former health policy aides try to shape ex-employers' positions from K Street

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 26, 2010 12:43 p.m. 1 comment

    At least 69 people formerly employed by some of the 40 or so Congressional leaders present at yesterday's healthcare summit have gone through the revolving door to lobby for the health industry, representing a combined 180 companies and trade associations, Center for Responsive Politics data shows. Many worked on health issues as Hill aides, garnering policy chops on the issues that matter to health insurance companies, medical professionals associations, and pharmaceutical companies. But they also have easier access to their former colleagues on Capitol Hill.

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  9. Health industry lobbyists have hosted scores of fundraisers for summit attendees

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 25, 2010 5 p.m.

    An on-the-fly analysis by the Sunlight Foundation shows that 84 lobbyists who represent a combined 266 health care and medical association interests have hosted a total of 61 fundraisers--that we know about--benefiting the campaigns of 18 of the approximately 40 Congressional leaders in attendance at today's health care summit.

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  10. More laws, longer sentences fuel explosive growth of federal criminal system

    By Luke Rosiak Feb 18, 2010 2:42 p.m. 2 comments

    On Monday, Presidents' Day, Hamedah Hasan petitioned President Barack Obama to commute her 27-year sentence for the first-time, nonviolent offender's tangential role in a crack distribution conspiracy. She has already served 17 years of the sentence imposed under then-mandatory federal sentencing guidelines.

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  11. Earmark seeking DC lobbyist fetes Coloradans

    By Elham Khatami Feb 15, 2010 12:20 p.m.

    Louis Dupart, a lobbyist who has successfully sought earmarks from  Colorado politicians, will host a fundraising breakfast on Feb. 24 for Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., the second event for a Colorado lawmaker he's scheduled this month.

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  12. Recovery.gov: Completely Tracking One-Fifth of the Recovery Act

    By Lisa Chiu Feb 15, 2010 11:27 a.m. 1 comment

    In his State of the Union Address late last month, President Barack Obama declared - to great applause - that there were two million Americans working now who would otherwise be unemployed if not for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus.

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  13. OSHA Workplace Samples: Millions of Records Out of Reach

    By Jim Morris Feb 12, 2010 12:16 p.m.

    An estimated 49,000 Americans die prematurely of work-related exposures to toxic substances every year. Mindful of this sad fact, and having served as director of health standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Dr. Adam Finkel filed a Freedom of Information Act request with OSHA in 2005, seeking the results of millions of air and wipe samples taken at workplaces around the country. Finkel planned to analyze the data and eventually post it on the Web in a format that would allow users to learn the types and quantities of compounds to which they or others may have been exposed at specific businesses during specific periods. He and other researchers, he reasoned, might spot trends that could lead to better enforcement.

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  14. Amtrak: Winner by default in high speed rail contest

    By Ryan Sibley Feb 11, 2010 12:22 p.m.

    Last month the Obama Administration announced which high speed rail projects across the country will receive portions of the $8 billion in Recovery act funds dedicated to advancing high speed technology in the country. However, the largest single beneficiary of the spending did not directly receive a dime. Amtrak, the federally funded rail company, will benefit from $4.5 billion worth of improvements to the infrastructure that its trains run on. That's in addition to the $1.3 billion in stimulus money the company received last year for capital improvements. The nearly $6 billion will supplement the annual appropriation it receives from Congress which is scheduled to exceed $1 billion through 2013.

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