Last month I looked at the report the Department of Transportation issued in response to President Obama's January 18, 2011, Regulatory Compliance Memo. I found that while their report was impressive, there were only three DOT datasets listed on Data.gov. In less than a week after my post DOT posted numerous data sets and Data.gov lead Jeanne Holm publicly thanked Sunlight for pointing out the error.

Only two other agencies have chosen to make their reports publicly available - the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Commerce. Neither of these two plans are as clear or as comprehensive as the DOT plan, and their approach to Data.gov is very different.

The EPA has 1,671 total datasets on Data.gov, and all but one of the seven resources they list in their regulatory compliance report as being either on Data.gov or in the process of being put there are easily findable on the platform. The datasets were put up between February and March of 2011, and each has had between 84 and 1,010 visitors. The resources are just links to EPA websites hosting the data, however, which means that the data cannot be downloaded in bulk or manipulated within Data.gov. Lastly the EPA's FY2011 goals are too broad to effectively measure at this time, unfortunately.

Although the EPA report is not as precise or as detailed as it could be, the Commerce report does not even mention Data.gov. The agency has just 48 datasets on the platform; none of which are even mentioned in the report.

Neither of these plans provide us with substantive ways to measure the amount of data agencies are posting on Data.gov. I'd like to have a look at all the other plans, but unfortunately those agencies have not decided to make them public.

Koch Industries, the closely held firm led by conservative and libertarian political donors Charles and David Koch, has a long record of entanglements with federal regulatory authorities; its foreign subsidiaries traded with Iran and some of its foreign employees violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by using bribes to get business deals, according to an exhaustive account by Bloomberg News. That record wasn't sufficient to prevent an executive from the company, Don Clay, from holding a position advising the government on some of the very issues the multi-billion dollar conglomerate has been in trouble for violating, according to official records available through the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer.

Clay, who before joining Koch Industries served as an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, sat on the agency's advisory committee for the the Clean Air Act and on some of its subcommittees that provided advice on various matters including regulation of toxic substances. Records show that Clay sat on multiple EPA federal advisory committees beginning in 1998 -- when he left his official post at the EPA and joined Koch Industries, through 2009.

Clay was in a position to advise the government on how to regulate a company he worked for, which is owned by people regularly fighting for less regulation in general. The EPA did not respond to questions about what issues Clay worked on exactly while he was on the advisory committee.

EPA enforcement data records presented on InfluenceExplorer.com, show details of some of the enforcement actions carried out against Koch Industries and its subsidiaries by the EPA, such as an incident in 2001 where Koch Pipeline dumped over 300,000 pounds of a toxic substance in Iowa, violating the Superfund. The company was fined $2.3 million dollars for that violation.

The table below is taken from InflunceExplorer.com and shows EPA violations by Koch Industries and its subsidiaries dating back to 2001. The data is new to the site and allows access to information that was once hard to obtain.

Case Name	Defendant	Locations	Amount
Invista S.A.R.L. (National Case)	Invista S.A.R.L.	La Porte, Tx and others	$170,099,600
Invista S.A.R.L. (National Case)	Invista S.a.r.l.	Athens, Ga; Calhoun and others	$48,978,944
Invista S.A.R.L (National Case)	Invista S.a.r.l.	Martinsville, Va; Seaford and others	$24,672,736
Allied Paper, Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River Admin Order On Consent (Cercla)	Georgia-Pacific, LLC	Kalamazoo, Mi	$14,000,000
Allied Paper, Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River Consent Decree Ou 2-Willow Boul	Georgia Pacific Corp	Kalamazoo, Mi	$11,725,509
Koch Pipeline Company	Koch Pipeline Company	Algona, Ia	$2,306,588
Allied Paper, Inc./Portage Creek/Kalamazoo River - Kalamazoo Mill And Hawthorne	Georgia-pacific Corporation	Kalamazoo, Mi	$2,029,207
Flint Hills Resources Alaska, Llc	Flint Hills Resources Alaska, LLC	North Pole, Ak	$2,000,000
Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products, Lp	Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP	Milford, Nj	$2,000,000
Colonial Pipeline Company	Colonial Pipeline Company	Winder, Ga	$1,582,600

During the span of years that Clay held his position on the federal advisory committee, Koch Industries reported spending close to $32 million to influence multiple issues including the environment in 1998 and between 2006-2009, according to information obtained from lobbyist disclosure forms and displayed on TransparencyData.

Clay’s position on the advisory committee, in combination with lobbying efforts, gave Koch Industries an additional avenue to influence government. Not only could the company use its lobbyists to influence lawmakers and administration officials, it also had an inside advisor who could recommend policies preferred by the company directly to the EPA.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln has put herself front and center in opposing efforts by her party's leadership to pass or implement comprehensive caps on carbon emissions in the United States. She opposes the proposed cap and trade legislation that passed the House of Representatives and has been touted by President Barack Obama and senators John Kerry, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. Similarly, she has signed on to legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing their own regulations to cap carbon emissions should cap and trade legislation fail to pass Congress. In this effort she is aided by a coterie of former staffers who currently lobby for a variety of interests seeking to weaken or derail carbon capping whether through legislation or the EPA's rule-making authority.

Six of Lincoln's former staffers currently lobby for interests invested in influencing carbon capping legislation. These interests include oil & gas trade groups, agriculutural companies, the airplane industry and biofuel and bioenergy firms. As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Lincoln holds a powerful position to influence carbon capping legislation and she has made no secret of her desire to block the legislation.

(For a full visualization of Sen. Blanche Lincoln's former staffers lobbying for the energy and climate industries click here or the image to the right.)

The most influential of Lincoln's former staffers is Kelly Bingel, a lobbyist for Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti. Bingel is a former chief of staff to Lincoln and has been called "Sen. Lincoln’s alter ego." Bingel's clients include two incredibly powerful organizations opposed to carbon capping: the American Petroleum Institute (API), the lead trade group for the oil industry, and Koch Industries, one of the largest oil manufacturing, trading and investment companies in the country. David Koch, one of the two owners of Koch Industries, is a big contributor to conservative movement organizations and is an outspoken opponent of cap and trade legislation. Koch has invested millions in various conservative organizations that have led lobbying and grassroots stimulation efforts to get people to advocate to their lawmakers to oppose cap and trade legislation. API spent $7.32 million on lobbying last year, almost double what it spent in 2008. API states that any carbon capping legislation or regulations will cost the industry jobs and increase taxes.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln is currently the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry from 2005 to 2010. She has received, through her campaign committee and her leadership political action committee (PAC),$309,500 from the industry.

Another former staffer to Lincoln, Ben Noble, lobbies for organizations opposed to carbon capping efforts including a variety of agricultural interests. Agricultural companies and trade groups have a major stake in cap and trade legislation as it moves through Congress. According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 6 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The industry is seeking to avoid carbon capping regulation in cap and trade legislation or through EPA regulation.

One of Noble's clients, the USA Rice Federation, opposes cap and trade legislation and recently praised Lincoln for her stance against the legislation, "We applaud Chairman Lincoln for putting the American economy and jobs first in this debate. While there are a number of questions surrounding the issue of climate change, there is absolutely no question about the severe impact that pending legislation and regulation would have on our economy and jobs."

Lincoln is the top recipient of campaign contributions from a variety of agricultural industries including agricultural services, crop producers, food processors and meat processors and plants. Since 2005, Lincoln has received $789,372 from the agribusiness sector.

Both Bingel and Noble also represent organizations generally supportive of cap and trade legislation, so long as it contains language that allows them to maximize their profits under the new system. Bingel represents the electrical utility trade group the Electric Edison Institute (EEI). EEI, which includes members who have received specific benefits in the House-passed cap and trade legislation, sees the legislation as an openning into new markets with high potential to increase their share of energy distribution.

Noble represents the massive bio-tech, agribusiness firm Monsanto. Monsanto seeks to gain profits from a cap and trade system by getting farms and agribusiness to switch to a "no-till" method of farming. The "no-till" method would require farmers to purchase herbicides and seeds made by Monsanto. The lobbying effort by Monsanto is detailed in Tom Philpott's explanation at Grist.

Last week, Lincoln released her first campaign advertisement in the uphill battle to retain her Senate seat. The ad touts her continued opposition to the passage of cap and trade legislation. This continues her statement from last year that cap and trade is a "complete non-starter."

(Revision: Todd Wooten no longer lobbies for Enerkem. He is currently employed by Duke University.)

The Right-To-Know Network (RTK Net) has completed their Web site redesign, and it looks totally awesome. RTK Net is a project of OMB Watch, and they provide the public easy access to environmental and public health information such as pollution releases, chemical spills, hazardous waste generation, data that we need to know in order to keep ourselves healthy and safe.

RTK Net’s new site includes interactive maps showing pollution data for each state, graphs that chart pollution trends and lists of the top polluting power plants, refineries and other facilities. And the site provides free public access to environmental information from a number of databases managed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on such things as toxic pollution, hazardous waste and spills and accidents. The site also allows users to identify specific factories and their environmental impacts, as well as what might happen if things go terribly wrong.

RTK Net is a great example of using technology to create government transparency. By giving the public easy access to this data, RTK Net is also making it possible for all of us to be involved in the government’s environmental decision making.

To follow up on a post from last week, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is following through on her promise to post her daily schedule as a way of increasing transparency at the Environmental Protection Agency. You can view her schedule here.

For more on her other promises on transparency and public collaboration, see my post from last week.

In an internal memorandum to all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson pronounced a commitment to transparency and issued a variety of orders to agency employees. Echoing President Obama's statement in support of transparency, calling "Information maintained by the Federal Government a national asset," Jackson lays out a policy that would increase engagement with the public, mandate a proactive disclosure policy for documents available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and stated that she would disclose her daily meeting schedule, encouraging other top EPA officials to do the same too.

One of the key priorities in the document is a statement that the EPA will use all means of communication possible to engage the public in the rule-making process.

"Public participation in Agency rulemaking proceedings may take a variety of forms, including public hearings and meetings, workshops, forums, focus groups, surveys, roundtables, Federal Register notice-and-comment procedures, advisory committee meetings, informal meetings with interested parties, internet-based dialogues, and other opportunities for informal dialogue, consistent with applicable legal requirements.  I encourage our staff to be creative and innovative in the tools we use to engage the public in our decision-making," Jackson states in the memorandum.

Employees are also urged to include all public comments in the rule-making docket and summaries of any oral communications that may impact the rule-making process.

The FOIA policy follows on the heels of the March 19 memo issued by Attorney General Eric Holder stating a policy of presumption of disclosure and, when possible, proactive release of documents. The policy puts the Holder memo's mandate into place.

Throughout this week and in conjunction with Earth Day, Congress is conducting a series of hearings meant to move legislation aimed at curbing global warming, Politico reports. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and its Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment will tag team hearings over four days Over 54 witnesses. will be heard The House Science and Technology Committee is holding its own hearing on greenhouse gas emissions, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will deal with global climate change agreements.

All this activity indicates Congress might actually be getting serious about taking action on climate change. And last Friday’s Environmental Protection Agency announcement that greenhouse gases endanger health and human welfare only adds momentum behind congressional efforts to take action.

OpenSecrets.org has pulled together a helpful listing of resources to help us “follow the political influence” of the corporations and industries most interested in what legislation comes out of the process. Here's their list:

* Overviews of federal campaign contributions by the energy sector over time. This breaks down into contributions from electric utilities, the mining industry and oil and gas companies. Automakers and the agriculture sector, among others, will also likely want to offer input as energy-related legislation moves forward. And, of course, we can't forget the environmentalists and alternative energy producers, who now appear to have a more prominent seat at the table. * These industries also try to peddle influence by lobbying the federal government. Take a look at how much the energy sector, electric utilities, the mining industry and oil and gas companies spent on lobbying in 2008. For automakers, go here; for the agriculture sector, go here; and for environmental groups, go here. * How much have individual members of Congress received from these industries? OpenSecrets.org can show you: energy sector, electric utilities, mining industry, oil and gas companies, automakers, agriculture, environmentalists and alternative energy producers. Play around with the dropdowns and slider menu to change the timeframe or see totals to specific members of the House and Senate. * Check out which industries gave the most to members of the various 110th energy-related committees (111th coming soon) by going here and selecting any of the following: House Energy and Commerce Committee; House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee; House Science Committee; Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. * House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.) penned the cap-and-trade global warming bill before their committee this week. Take a look at their individual profiles to see where these two are getting their money, here for Waxman and here for Markey. * For a look at how the various industries tried to influence energy-related legislation in the past, take a peek at Capital Eye's 2008 Power Struggle series and 2007 Power Play series.

Yesterday I wrote about how more and better downloadable data on toxics in our neighborhoods will be coming our way soon from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), thanks to the reinstatement of tougher standards for the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

But it's important to remember that even a tougher TRI program has an obvious severe limitation--it relies on facilities reporting on their own pollution. In other words, let's say the Sunlight Foundation staffers, in our furious blogging every day, produced a bunch of nasty formaldehyde as a byproduct. If we we produced a certain amount, we'd have to fill out paperwork and file it with the EPA, and that would go into the TRI database. Self-reporting has its limits, as anybody who has ever met a toddler knows.

Another treasure trove of information over at the EPA is the Air Quality Systems (AQS) database, which it creates from thousands of actual monitors placed all over the country that measure the amount of certain toxic chemicals in the air, required under the Clean Air Act. This is the way the agency monitors ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, and sulfur dioxide. There's also another database, the National Emissions Inventory, which contains estimates on pollutants and where they are coming from, compiled from a variety of sources, such as state and local governments and the Federal Highway Administration.

What can you do with all these data? Well, for years, the American Lung Association has issued an annual report grading counties and cities for how badly they are polluted. In fact, the group is poised to release the next version of this report on April 29. This version will include a website, www.stateoftheair.org, where visitors can look up how their own communities' score.

But in this era these data could go a lot further. The EPA is making efforts to make the information more user friendly. This web page allows users to view pollutants on Google Earth.  And over here, at www.airnow.gov, EPA is working with several other agencies to produce a nifty mashup map that lets you see what air quality is like for about 300 U.S. cities.

There's a lot that remains clunky, however, for those of us who don't have advanced degrees in pollutionology. It takes a long time and a lot of clicking around at the section of the EPA's website devoted to air quality data to figure out where to find what. And then the information provided is not always written in plain English.

Surely there are talented programmers out there who could mash up this information in new, even more accessible ways. And of course intrepid reporters and bloggers who can use this information to do detailed investigations about not just how polluted their neighborhoods are, but where it's coming from. The auto, utility, and chemical industries, some of those that contribute to air pollution, all spend copious amount so of cash on lobbying Congress and campaign contributions, often for weaker air quality standards.

Federal Computer Week has an encouraging article about how the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service are now providing useful information via mobile handheld devices. They have stripped down information from their Web sites, emphasizing text, so that cell phones and other mobile devices can easily upload it. The agencies are able to reach more people with “potentially life-saving content" in the case of an environmental alert or, in the case of the NWS, a storm warning. The technology managers orchestrating this hope they are taking the first step toward two-way communications between government agencies and cell phone users.

The designers of EPA's Mobile Web site realized that they would have to keep the content simple and basic because of the wide range of mobile devices out there, from the 3G devices like Apple’s iPhone, to the cell phones running on slower cellular networks. The article quotes the EPA’s designer, “With a typical cell phone, you’re basically back to the Gopher world,” the text-based Internet interface that preceded browsers using graphics. So they designed processes that strip graphics and other resource-hogging items from blogs, press releases and the like so that mobile users can upload basic text. The Weather Service’s forecast and other information tends to be quite time sensitive, so they to have build devices that transform their data so that it can be immediately displayed on mobile devices.

This is a great development.