Here in Thursday’s look at transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events.

News Roundup:

• Lobbying regarding Wall Street reform has shifted from lawmakers to regulators, with a total of 488 entities reporting lobbying on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law in the first quarter of 2011. (The Hill)(Open Secrets)
• Lobbyists for the defense industry are fighting for Pentagon programs that are at risk of being cut. (Project on Government Oversight)
• Lobbyists for major retailers are switching their focus in the fight over debit card transaction fees from the federal government to state legislatures. (Roll Call $)
• ONE has released an iPhone app that facilitates advocacy by allowing users to easily call their lawmakers. (Roll Call $)
• Recent reports from the SEC Inspector General suggest that the SEC may not be adequately ensuring that former employees are in full compliance with post-employment and conflict-of-interest rules. (Project on Government Oversight)
• The FY2011 budget does not provide funding for important components of the Obama Administration’s push to increase government transparency. (OMB Watch)
• Last year the Department of State received over $1 billion for international counter-narcotics programs, but does not have a central database to track these programs. (iWatch News)
• The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is continuing to try to improve data quality in the system by requiring agencies to certify the accuracy of contracting data. (Federal News Radio)
• The new Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) is subject to FOIA requests under the Dodd-Frank financial reform, but proposed changes to the rules may give FSOC the ability to reject or delay responding to requests. (Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group)
• Lawyers from the Federal Reserve argued to the House of Representatives that the year-old financial regulatory law, which forces the Fed to release emergency lending data but with a delay time, is an acceptable compromise. (Wall Street Journal)
• Alaska is releasing over 24,000 emails from when Sarah Palin was governor. (National Journal)
• When the Library of Congress first created its Twitter archive in April 2010, users were tweeting 50 million tweets per day. Now the number of daily tweets has increased to 140 million, necessitating the development of a robust technological infrastructure to archive them. (O’Reilly Radar)
• A federal judge is planning to keep certain unclassified information about the National Security Agency secret from jurors and the public during the upcoming trial. (Politico)
• Associate administrator of GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies discusses the role of his office in the open government movement and evaluates what more needs to be done to achieve government transparency. (Federal Computer Week)
• House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is asking White House advisor Elizabeth Warren to return to the Hill to continue discussing the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Wall Street Journal)
• Despite tightened ethics rules, Massachusetts continues to use outdated financial disclosure forms that allow lawmakers to avoid providing the full details of their finances and potential conflicts of interest. (Boston Globe)
• According to a new AMD survey, 42 percent of private-sector organizations are operating in the cloud compared to 23 percent of public-sector organizations. (GovTech)
• A Maryland county government has released a mapping program that allows the public to review and comment on land use changes. (techPresident)
• Last week the General Services Administration (GSA) published an updated 26-page Social Media Guide instructing federal agencies on what to consider when establishing a presence on various social media platforms. (Federal Computer Week)
• Lisa Schlosser is set to become the next deputy administrator in the Office of Management and Budget’s E-Government and Information Technology Office. (Federal News Radio)

Relevant committee hearings scheduled for 6/2:

House

• Legislative Branch Appropriations. Appropriations. Legislative Branch Subcommittee markup. HT-2 Capitol. 9:00am.
• IRS E-File and Identify Theft. Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management. 2247 RHOB. 12:30pm.
• Pathway to FDA Medical Device Approval: Is There a Better Way? Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on Health Care, District of Columbia, Census and the National Archives. 2154 RHOB. 1:30pm.

Senate

• None.

Relevant bills introduced:

• None.

Transparency events scheduled for 6/2:

• No Freedom Without Media Freedom. SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, Embassy of the Czech Republic and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 4:30-7:30pm. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building. Washington, DC.