Monday’s explosion that killed 25 miners at Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia came at a mine that had been flagged by inspectors for a series of violations – 3000 since 1995 and more than 500 in 2009 alone.
How does that compare to other mines? Because of the way the federal government releases the data, we can't say.
Data on safety inspections is published in the Department of Labor’s Mine
Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Web site, where users can find information
on mine safety, inspections and violations. But getting to it is the hard part ...
Introducing Recovery Explorer
More than a year has passed since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Federal agencies have been distributing some $787 billion appropriated by the act to jump start the economy. According to Recovery.gov, the Web site that tracks spending under the act, about 40 percent of that money has been spent, sent around the country in the form of contracts, grants, loans, tax benefits and entitlements.
The huge spending bill included funds for a mechanism to track spending under the bill, but getting a sense of which agencies have awarded the most money, or which ...
Stimulus Spotlight: What we’re finding in Recovery.gov data
A research group that played a key role in the Manhattan Project is one of the biggest recipients of contracts from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit based in Columbus, Ohio, co-manages research and innovative technologies for the Department of Energy. Four separate arms of the organization have received more than $844 million. Two of them, UT Battelle and Brookhaven Science Associates, were set up with universities as 50-50 partnerships for research purposes.
According to recent Recovery.gov data, the organization used stimulus funds to support 142 jobs in the last quarter of 2009.
The ...
After health care vote, members turn to earmark requests
[Note: this post has been corrected and revised]A
day after Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and ten other House members
compromised on their pro-life objections to the bill to deliver the
necessary yes-votes to pass health care reform, [Begin
new:]On Monday, March 22, House members turned from the contentious
vote on the trillion dollar national health insurance reform to focus
on more mundane matters--like requesting $84,400 for local geriatric
health care education programs.
That was one of more than 170 earmarks requested by Rep. Bart Stupak,
D-Mich., one of 11 lawmakers who were closely targeted by the
Democratic ...
New Ways and Means head courted by tax lobbyists
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.
Later this month, the law and lobbying firm William & Jensen will host donors to Levin at their townhouse in Washington, D.C. The firm was founded "with
the primary mission of advancing the tax policy interests of clients,"
its Web site states, and it adds that "Our consistent involvement in
Federal tax legislation has given
Williams & Jensen a reputation as one ...
How are House members spending taxpayer money?
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.
Here are some snippets from the data:
-- Appropriations was the highest spenders among committees, totaling more than $4.6 million in the last quarter of 2009, followed by the Oversight & Reform and Energy & Commerce committees with just over $3 million each.
-- In addition to technology-related companies and suppliers such as Dell and Microsoft, the House also ...
Few members at the summit own healthcare stock
A quick analysis of personal financial disclosures of Members of Congress shows that very few of them present at the healthcare summit own stock in the healthcare industry.
Here's a spreadsheet with data from opensecrets.org.
White House visitor logs are short on descriptions
The White House released their most recent visitor logs yesterday but except for public events or group tours, it sheds little light on why the President or White House officials met with particular individuals. Though the logs include a column for descriptions of the meetings, for most entries it was left blank.
For instance, about three-quarters of the meetings held by the President include no details about what was discussed or why the meeting was called. The only way to find out is by perusing the names of the visitors and trying to infer, from the identity of the visitor ...
OGD: Labor releases open government page
Database used to track contractor fraud poorly managed, filled with inaccuracies
Congressional watchdogs have often criticized the online tool maintained by the General Services Administration to prevent the award of federal funds to banned individuals and companies. A Sunlight Reporting Group review of the sites data finds that it continues to be badly maintained, with rampant problems including omissions, inaccuracies and other data quality issues.
The Government Accountability Office examined the Excluded Party List System, which lists individuals and entities that are ineligible to receive federal contracts, some subcontracts and grants. The site allows procurement officers to check whether a potential contractor has been debarred, which can result from a contractor ...
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