We're still tracking government's performance under the Open Government Directive, and we're also asking for specific information to be released. Here's the data we'd like to see on food and drug safety, which we posted over at the Department of Health and Human Services "open" Web page. The agency set up this commenting system as part of President Barack Obama's open government directive. Please take a moment to visit and vote for our suggestions. (Unfortunately the HHS comment format made our paragraphs run together and slightly truncated our comment. This is fixed below.) We ...
Continue readingRecovery rail funds could benefit freight industry
USA Today reported yesterday
that an inspector general investigation and congressional critics say
that the Federal Railroad Administration, which awarded $8 billion in
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for high speed rail
projects around the country, lacked the technical expertise to choose
projects. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the ranking member of the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, described the process as
“amateur hour,” according to the paper, and complained that too much
money is dedicated to increasing speeds on existing Amtrak routes. The
Sunlight Reporting Group ran a piece highlighting that a few weeks ago.
While Amtrak
conceded that ...
Pfizer CEO Gets Raise for Behind Scenes Deals With White House
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Billy Tauzin was bounced from his perch as President and CEO of... View Article
Continue readingLobbyists and White House Visitors
Recently and continuously, the White House has been releasing the "White House Visitor Logs," showing America who is coming in to meet with the President and his staff. At the same time, the Center for Responsive Politics releases cleaned up data on lobbyist filings. We thought it'd be interesting to find the intersect between the names in both sets of data.
After the jump, you'll find our results along relevant information from both sets of data. Now-- this is important: just because the names match doesn't mean they're the same person. Because the White House doesn't release any other form of identity information besides the name, we're unable to tell whether or not the name in one dataset actually refers to the same person in the other. John Adams in one dataset may be a different John Adams in another.
Continue readingThe Blanche Lincoln Energy & Climate Complex
Sen. Blanche Lincoln has put herself front and center in opposing efforts by her party’s leadership to pass or implement... View Article
Continue readingSome links
1) Nancy Scola presents a very important view of lobbyist influence in Congress. She writes about lawmakers, “They’re not crooks,... View Article
Continue readingU.S. Sugar’s Sweet Deal
In the everything that's old is new again department, today The New York Times reports that Florida's ailing U.S. Sugar Corporation stands to profit mightily from a deal originally meant to preserve the Everglades:
The proposal was downsized only five months after it was announced. By April 2009, amid the deepening recession, the state said it could afford to purchase only 72,800 acres of United States Sugars land, for $536 million. The company would stay in business and the state would retain the option of buying the remaining 107,000 acres at a future date.Continue readingUnited ...
D.C. lobbyists drive Burr’s fundraising
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., formally announced his reelection bid on Feb. 22, 2010, with an open house at his Winston-Salem campaign headquarters, but the first term member has been raising money since he took office. Since January 2009 alone, he and his campaign have sent out at least 38 invitations to fundraisers, according to our Party Time database, the great majority of them in Washington, D.C. The events have helped him raise a total of $6.7 million, $4.3 million of which he still has in the bank.
Lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PACs), some of whom ...
Continue readingMorning Links
1) A trade group organized to lobby for the interests of foreign-owned subsidiaries hired a former counsel to the Democratic... View Article
Continue readingHeckuva Job, Ethics Committee!
Wondering why the House Ethics Committee exonerated every single lawmaker touched by the PMA Group campaign contributions-for-earmarks scandal? They didn’t... View Article
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