Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, a federal agency that supports the U.S. shipbuilding industry and merchant marine, made just one loan from its troubled Federal Ship Financing Program, also known as Title XI. The borrower was Hawaii Superferry Inc., a politically connected company that hired a former chief counsel and deputy administrator of MARAD, among others, to lobby the agency. In 2005, Hawaii Superferry got a taxpayer-guaranteed loan for $139 million to build and operate a pair of high-speed ferries in the fiftieth state. Just four years later, the company filed for bankruptcy ...
Continue readingOGD: Labor releases five enforcement datasets
"I now realize that I must have had my first glimmer of the need for
preventive journalism as a young West Virginian who would hear of a
mine disaster, then read heartbreaking stories of weeping widows and
indignant editorials demanding effective safety regulations. But in the
years that followed, no reporter went down into the mines to see if
they were safer. We only found out they were not after the next
disaster when a new round of heartbreaking articles and indignant
editorials would appear." -- Charles Peters, Understanding government.com
This week the Labor Department began releasing data that reporters ...
What you can do with TransparencyData.com Part II: Crist v. Rubio Edition
In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections there is no race drawing more attention than the Republican primary between... View Article
Continue readingFrontline: Obama’s Deal (April 13, 9PM)
PBS’ Frontline is running an investigation into the various negotiations and deals that led to the formation of the health... View Article
Continue readingWhite House Announces Leading Practices
CTO Aneesh Chopra blogged an announcement yesterday laying out the Administration’s next steps after the April 7th milestone. The Adminstration’s... View Article
Continue readingAn Oregon Story
Across the country people are going to government meetings asking for better government. In Oregon the Attorney General is asking... View Article
Continue readingOpen Government: idling in the driveway
Sigh. I feel like a disappointed parent. When the details of the Open Government Directive were announced early last December... View Article
Continue readingWhat you can do with TransparencyData.com
Sunlight Labs announced the release of TransparencyData.com earlier today. I spent some time playing around with the site yesterday and... View Article
Continue readingAgency Compliance with Data Requirement Mixed
I wrote yesterday that we’d be going through agencies’ new open government plans to evaluate their compliance with the data-related... View Article
Continue readingIntroducing TransparencyData.com
Today we're releasing TransparencyData.com, a new service from the Sunlight Foundation, and technically the most challenging thing we've ever done. TransparencyData lets you query and download bulk data about transparency. We're launching with two datasets that have never been merged before, and without an unprecedented amount of access.
We've merged all of OpenSecrets data with all the data from FollowTheMoney.org allowing you, for the first time, to get a clear picture of campaign contributions at both the state and federal level. Before now, there were two datasets: the OpenSecrets data focusing on federal data, and the FollowTheMoney data, focusing on state data. Now, finally, you can use TransparencyData.com to query, filter, and download this data.
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