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Majority of states prohibit access to gun records
By Ryan Sibley and Caitlin MacNeal Jan 18, 2013 2:35 p.m.(Updated 1/19 7:25 a.m.)
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CFPB launches public consumer complaint database
By Nancy Watzman Jun 19, 2012 1:24 p.m.Despite opposition from the financial industry, the newly minted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today launched a public database of consumer complaints about credit cards--including the name of the company issuing the card--received since June 1. The beta version of the database is available for viewing and downloading on the agency's website. The Bureau plans to add to and tweak it in the months ahead with complaints about other financial products, such as mortgages, student and other types of loans, and banking charges and fees.
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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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Obama asks Congress for real earmark disclosure
By Bill Allison Jan 28, 2010 4:52 p.m.Right now, three years after Congress began trying to make earmarks transparent, I still have to look in three different places if I want to know how much money Rep. James Moran, D-Va., secured for particular beneficiaries in the Defense appropriations act. I have to read a sideways-posted PDF looking for Moran's requests (like the $1 million for the Ground Combat System Knowledge Center and Technical Inspection Data Capture), and match that project name to one of two enormous PDF files (the bigger is 75 MB) containing earmark disclosure letters from members of Congress (right-side up, but not searchable). The project names in the sideways disclosure don't always match the project names in the unsearchable disclosure, but in this case they did: Portal Dynamics, an Alexandria, Va.-based contractor, was the beneficiary. To find out why Moran thinks this is a good use of taxpayer funds, I have to search on his Web site and hope that his appropriations requests are still online (they are, but lots of members have removed them), to read that "
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