Enron Corp.'s manipulation of the California energy market in 2000 and 2001 is notorious. Electricity bills soared and blackouts affected hundreds of thousands of people as contemptuous traders with Enron, a power wholesaler, delighted in their scheme. Tapes of traders released in 2004 contained infuriating nuggets like this: "Just cut 'em off... They should just bring back f------ horses and carriages, f------ lamps, f------ kerosene lamps."
After investigating the scandal, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) concluded that "supply-demand imbalance, flawed market design and inconsistent rules made possible significant market manipulation," and that many of Enron's trading strategies ...
Continue readingCivil rights groups want details on immigrant fingerprint program
As Arizona turns up the heat on illegal immigrants, civil rights groups are demanding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release details about a rapidly expanding federal program that helps local police identify illegal immigrants for potential deportation. The Center for Constitutional Rights and two other groups filed a lawsuit on April 27 attempting to force ICE to turn over data about its “Secure Communities” program after failing to get the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“This program has very little public scrutiny. There’s very little known about the way it operates,” said Sunita ...
Local officials say they’re in the dark on dangerous freight rail traffic
Sixty-two cities in the United States have been deemed "high threat urban areas" by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning they’re susceptible to attack by terrorists targeting railroad tank cars loaded with chlorine gas or other deadly poisons. Under a 2007 law, freight rail companies were ordered to analyze their operations in these and other areas and select the "safest and most secure practicable" routes for hazardous cargo.
The analysis is complete, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. But some elected officials and emergency responders say they’re being kept in the dark. "Regulations issued last year give the ...
Treasury department holding back on details of mortgage modification program
Just how effective is the Obama Administration’s effort to help homeowners stave off foreclosure? It’s hard to know, in part because detailed data that could provide part of the answer is not available to the public.
The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) started in February 2009. To date, the $75 billion program has helped about 170,000 homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, but the nuts and bolts of how loan modifications are structured, the criteria used to deny and approve modifications, and the documentation used to evaluate the original loans are unknown. The special inspector general ...
Continue readingNew Gov’t Contractor Integrity Database Will Be Off-Limits to Public
For the first time, the government will centralize information detailing whether a contractor was terminated, disbarred or suspended from a federal contract or grant, in addition to any civil or criminal convictions linked to contracting work. The FAPIIS database will track any administrative agreements that a vendor signed to avoid getting suspended or disbarred, and will show “determinations of non-responsibility,” when a contractor showed a lack of integrity or poor performance.
The database information is off-limits to the public. Contractors, federal officials and Congress members are the only ones who can access it.
“There’s certain information that should be ...
Gov’t Database of Bad Doctors Blocks Public From Seeing Names
In the mid-1980s, incompetent and negligent doctors were moving freely between states, with state licensing boards and hospitals largely oblivious to lawsuits or disciplinary actions in other locations that might have flagged bad providers.
In response, Congress passed the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986, which created the National Practitioner Data Bank, a repository of information that includes malpractice payments, license revocations and loss of clinical privileges for physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and other professionals. “The NPDB is primarily an alert or flagging system intended to facilitate a comprehensive review of health care practitioners' professional credentials,” says ...
Let the Sun Shine In
This Sunshine Week was a particularly successful (and busy!) time for Sunlight. We helped usher in new transparency legislation, launched... View Article
Continue readingDescription of Citizenship Database Available – If You’re Willing to Pay Nearly $112,000
After taking nearly four years to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request, the U.S. immigration agency is demanding $111,930 for records that describe what is in a government database of claims for U.S. citizenship – not the actual database itself.
Balking at the agency’s request, the non-profit group that filed the FOIA says the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is acting contrary to President Barack Obama’s openness directive, creating “arbitrary cost barriers” to what should be public information, and may be illegal.
The Transactional Records and Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based research ...
Public Blocked From Key Parts of U.S. Dam Inspection Data
In the middle of the night on Nov. 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam near Toccoa Falls, Georgia, gave way, unleashing a wall of water that killed 39 people. In a report, federal investigators blamed the failure on a combination of factors, including heavy rains and a breach in the 38-year-old earthen dam’s crest that had been followed by progressive erosion.
The disaster prompted President Jimmy Carter to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin inspecting the nation’s “non-federal high-hazard dams,” according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. The findings of this inspection ...
Continue readingFarm Subsidies Still Missing from USDAs Data-Rich Website
Farm subsidies have a way of inciting people. Here, in the words of the Environmental Working Group, is why:
Just ten percent of America's largest and richest farms collect almost three-fourths of federal farm subsidies cash payments that too often promote harmful environmental practices.
For the past five years, EWG has undertaken the arduous task of acquiring subsidy-payment data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Freedom of Information Act, cleaning up millions of records and assembling them into a database that can be searched by name, county, city, farm program, crop and congressional district. The database ...
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