Welcome to another edition of "Influence Analytics," a recurring series on trends in lobbying and regulations — on and off Capitol Hill — that Sunlight's Reporting Group spots using our data analysis tools.
Continue readingPrivate memo reveals winding tale involving John McCain, the NRA and … condors
On July 30, 2013, John McCain called the ATF to speak with Director B. Todd Jones. McCain wanted to talk about condors. What happened next is a labyrinthine adventure highlighting the sometimes bizarre nature of American politics.
Continue readingInfluence Analytics: Politicians weighing in against expanded wetlands protection
Hundreds of members of Congress are blasting an Obama administration plan to expand the definition of wetlands, an analysis of public comments by Sunlight's Docket Wrench shows.
Continue readingInfluence Analytics : Greenhouse gases, part II
A look at Sunlight's influence trackers shows that, on the controversial issue of global warming, the courts and the agencies are not the only place where the action is.
Continue readingInfluence Analytics: follow EPA’s greenhouse gas proposals
Sunlight put together a guide to the EPA's major greenhouse gas proposals, with links to our Docket Wrench tool where curious minds can examine some of the 5.6 million comments to date.
Continue reading12 Days of Open Data to Get You Through the New Year
Agencies are still inventorying their data holdings but it's already clear that President Barack Obama’s open data executive order is cluing the public into lots of information that wasn’t previously available or easily accessible. In the holiday spirit, Sunlight has put together 12 days of data sets. When you're not skiiing, try (data) diving!
Continue readingWhy are efforts to regulate potentially hazardous plastics stalled?
In late 2009, when Lisa Jackson, at the time President Barack Obama's new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), invoked a long-existing but never-before-used power to to create a list of "chemicals of concern," the administration appeared to be putting chemical companies on notice that it planned to be aggressive about regulating risks from exposure to the industry's product. Jackson's list included eight of the common plasticizers known as "phthalates" that have been shown to cause to reproductive abnormalities in animal studies and that have also been linked to health problems in humans. They are used ...
A Look at EPA & Commerce on Data.gov
Last month I looked at the report the Department of Transportation issued in response to President Obama’s January 18, 2011,... View Article
Continue readingKoch Industries had inside man at the EPA
Koch Industries, the closely held firm led by conservative and libertarian political donors Charles and David Koch, has a long... View Article
Continue readingOGD: Reviewing EPA’s interactive datasets
The Environmental Protection Agency has been ahead of several other cabinet level agencies when it comes to putting data online. For several years now some of their main datasets are available with interactive features such as maps and in a downloadable format. Now according to EPA’s open government plan, the agency is planning on releasing several new data driven projects by the end of 2010, some of which are already public.
The first, managed by Horizon Systems is a suite geospatial data that compiles the features of several databases related to watershed management. This project part of which which ...
59063
