“Now is not the time to play politics simply because an election is looming in a few weeks,” Sen. Susan... View Article
Continue readingRe-Named Offshore Energy Agency Urged to Publish Production Data
The scandal-wrecked Minerals Management Services changed its name to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) as part of a promised wave of reforms, but consumer advocacy groups say more transparency is what is really needed at the offshore energy agency.
The agency should provide online access to more data about crude oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico and other offshore areas, as well as energy companies’ royalty payments to the U.S. government.
“The kind of data we want to see is on production numbers, so we can have better calculations to ensure ...
Listening to the Supreme Court
Starting next week, the Supreme Court will release audio recordings of oral arguments on Fridays. Since 1955, the Supreme Court... View Article
Continue readingCoalition Releases Principles for Reforming Earmarks Process
A coalition of lobbyists and good government advocates today released 5 principles for reforming how Congress grants earmark requests. The... View Article
Continue readingOn DjangoCon 2010 and conferences in general
Sunlight Labs is a huge fan of Django. We use it in a majority of the projects we produce here and have released the source of numerous applications. So a few weeks ago a bunch of us eagerly packed our bags and flew out to Portland, OR for DjangoCon 2010.
Continue readingInstead of Dismantling the OCE, Congress Should Double Its Funding
Amidst some serious waffling by Members of Congress on whether the Office of Congressional Ethics would survive to actively pursue... View Article
Continue readingSuper PACs: Track (and read all about) them on the Reporting Group site
The Washington Post weighs in on the growth of “Super Pacs,” organizations that can take unlimited funds from any source... View Article
Continue readingSunlight tools helps connect the dots between independent expenditures and ads
Just over a month away from the midterm elections political ads are mustering strength and each advertisement is only one small piece of a larger network of money, power and influence. The Sunlight Foundation has two new tools to help track this political influence: Follow the Unlimited Money, a user friendly way to track advertising and other kinds of electioneering, and Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor that tracks the end result of some of the political spending powered by citizens reporting.
Using both these tools together, we've picked a few ads reported by citizens and looked up more details ...
Continue readingAbortion issues dominate independent expenditures in California Senate race
In the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina of California, 87 percent of the independent expenditures relates to abortion issues. Among these two candidates, pro-life groups so far have spent $186,000, while pro-choice spending amounts to $41,000, according to a review of our independent expenditures database.
Bill Closing SEC FOIA Exemption Goes to the President
Yesterday the House passed legislation to close a loophole that may have allowed the SEC to disregard certain FOIA requests.... View Article
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