by Carrie Tian, policy intern NEWS: Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue recently launched an online portal that allows citizens to... View Article
Continue readingNew EPA gasoline standards draw heated comments
As Americans gas up for the long holiday weekend, the Environmental Protection Agency is sifting through tens of thousands of comments on a proposed new rule that would set tough new standards for vehicle emissions and fuel quality.
Continue readingGoodies for big givers in immigration bill
Four defense contractors that would benefit from the immigration bill are getting a big return on their lobbying and campaign finance investment.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/2/2013
by Carrie Tian, policy intern NEWS:
- The government unveiled its first-ever inventory of federal programs across 24 departments, each one with a link to the program's strategic goals. Politicians hailed the project for its possible aid in cutting down on duplication. (Government Executive)
- Marco Rubio may be drawing fire from Republicans of all stripes for his support of the immigration bill, but well-financed GOP groups are moving to cover for him, airing complimentary ads and urging party members to stop attacking one of their own. (New York Times)
- Paul Ryan is shoring up fundraising efforts for the Republican party, with 20 events left in 2013 alone. His exposure to top donors during his vice presidential bid gives him fundraising clout and could bolster a possible bid as speaker of the House. (POLITICO)
- Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes declared her candidacy for replacing Mitch McConnell in 2014. McConnell's supporters have already aired ads attacking Grimes as a cheerleader for Obama. (Washington Post)
- Guardian journalist Gleen Greenwald says there's another big NSA scoop coming shortly and that "the world will be shocked". The world wearily prepares for its shocking. (POLITICO) Continue reading
The $1 million dinner: When big donor Bill Dore meets Rick Santorum
Who told Rick Santorum's angel investor about the super PAC supporting the former (and perhaps future) presidential candidate?
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/1/2013
by Carrie Tian, policy intern NEWS:
- In order to combat the growing power of super PACs and nonprofits, states across the nation seek to raise campaign limits for individuals. 6 states have passed such legislation this year, with another eight considering similar bills. Proponents claim that individual contributions are more transparent, though critics fear the increased limits will further tilt the balance of power in favor of the moneyed. (Public Integrity)
- European allies are furious over revelations that the NSA has bugged EU offices and is collecting information on telephone and Internet connections, warning that the intrusions may throw a proposed trans-Atlantic trade treaty into jeopardy. (Spiegel)
- Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, gave an interview about his receipt of a national-security letter and how he successfully sued the government, with the aid of the ACLU and EFF. (New Yorker)
- A law protecting whistleblowing defense contractors goes into effect today. The National Defense Authorization Act allows contractors to report waste or fraud directly to the office of the Defense Department’s inspector general, instead of their bosses. (Government Executive)
- Months before 2014 elections, senators are racking in money to supplement their war chests - and spending it, launching back and forth ad attacks early. (Roll Call)
Oil and environment groups buy ads after climate change speech
Environmental groups and the oil industry are buying TV ad time in the wake of Pres. Obama's speech this week outlining a plan to fight climate change, according to new federal documents.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Hack the Budget! (or try to)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
This is a guest post from Anthony Holley, a member of the intrepid Hack for Western Mass team that spent the weekend of June 1 trying to track money reported in USASpending.gov back to the federal budget. Anthony is a writer living and working in Amherst, MA. He is interested in helping good non-profits grow so that they can do their best work.
Advocacy groups like the Sunlight Foundation and National Priorities Project have long lamented the state of data gathered on USAspending.gov, which remains the key, searchable data repository for those interested in learning about and educating others on our federal spending. Individual federal agencies are responsible for reporting their expenditures to USAspending.gov in the interest of contributing to an open, transparent government. A working group at the Western Massachusetts Civic Day of Hacking sought to reconcile the information on USAspending.gov with the information in the budget appendix, published by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), keeping in mind that true transparency means being able to track expenditures from the budget to USAspending.gov. A group of computer programmers, data managers, and political activists got together to work on this problem over the weekend of June 1 and 2. What we found was that this goal was at least very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to achieve.
We started by looking at the data on the OMB website to see if we could parse it for useful identifiers that we could then match up with the data on USAspending.gov. The data on the OMB website turns out to be particularly user unfriendly for these purposes, presented in XML and PDF formats that are not easy to search by category. Each section of the budget has a Treasury ID, so we took that as our starting point for trying to match expenditures listed on the budget with USASpending.gov.
Hack for Western Mass team. Photo credit: Molly McLeod
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 6/28/2013
by Carrie Tian, policy intern NEWS:
- Sen. John Cornyn came under fire a week ago for collecting three separate pensions and drawing a salary - but it seems he's not alone. Nearly 20% of members of Congress are collecting pensions on top of their salaries, most from their service at the local and state levels. (National Journal)
- The Army has blocked online access to the Guardian across all of its forces after the British-based newspaper broke the PRISM story. Military employees report being unable to click through to any of the newspaper's articles. A spokesperson said that this was a routine "network hygiene" practice for the DoD. (Monterey Bay Herald)
- Spurred by the conversation the Chinese government allowed its public to have about US cybermonitoring, a Chinese lawyer filed a public information request with the police to ask about China's surveillance programs. Cybersecurity experts doubt he will receive any meaningful answers to his questions. (New York Times) Continue reading
Mysterious Rick Santorum super PAC donor speaks out
In the 2012 election 28 percent of all disclosed political contributions came from just 31,385 people. In a nation of 313.85 million, these donors represent the 1% of the 1%, an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.
William J. Doré, Sr., who rose from humble beginnings to make hundreds of millions in the energy industry, ended up as the biggest donor to the super PAC that kept Rick Santorum’s presidential bid afloat in 2012. Unlike another, Foster Friess, the well-heeled donor to the Red, White and Blue Fund whose comments occasionally led to embarrassing headlines, Doré kept a low profile. He gave no interviews to the press about his $2.25 million in donations. Continue reading
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