Here are five areas where the federal government is making major strides in the realm of transparency.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Fracking chemicals, open data, and government transparency
As the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalizes a new rule to govern oil and gas drilling and fracking, the public is calling for complete and timely disclosure of the chemicals used at every fracking operation.
Continue readingHyperlinks and hope: Data.gov five years out
Five years into the Obama administration’s experiment with Data.gov marks a good time to ask — is the experiment a success?
Continue readingCongressional letter writing campaign helps torpedo voluntary food marketing guidelines for kids
Days after receiving several campaign checks from the food lobby last May, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is up for reelection this year, sent a letter raising concerns about the Federal Trade Commission's efforts to develop voluntary guidelines aimed at toning down the marketing of junk food to kids.
Continue readingSunlight Live to cover the hidden influence in Obama jobs address
This Thursday at 7 p.m. President Barack Obama is set to address Congress and the nation when he’ll unveil his latest plan to create jobs. Already, a preview of the speech shows proposals consistent with the positions of influential groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. Both groups have spent millions to influence elections and policies. With that in mind, the Sunlight Foundation will cover the speech with live video, data and commentary at sunlightlive.com.
Some of the glimpses into Obama's plan were provided by the president himself during a Labor Day ...
Continue readingNew White House Memo on Regulatory Compliance
The White House this morning released two new documents, and one has strong implications for how important data is disclosed.... View Article
Continue readingBauer, Obama’s new ethics point man, had double standards on 527s
At a May 3, 2000, press conference, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., announced that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had filed a lawsuit, prepared by its counsel, Robert F. Bauer, alleging that Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was using a series of nonprofits and political committees (called section 527s, after the section of the tax code under which they're created) to circumvent campaign finance laws, extort money from donors, and evade disclosure. Kennedy and Bauer presented the charges, based for the most part on media reports about DeLay's fundraising tactics, as an unprecedented assault on campaign finance law ...
Continue readingOil spill resources: Local reporting
We're pulling together resources for covering and following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Here's some coverage from local papers in the Gulf region--there's some fantastic local reporting going on. A sampling:
(Monroe) News-Star
The Obama administration's point man on the oil spill rejected the notion of removing BP and taking over the crisis Monday, saying the government has neither the company's expertise nor its deep-sea equipment. To push BP out of the way would raise a question, to replace them with what?" Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, who is heading the federal response to the spill ...
This Week in Transparency – July 24, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:... View Article
Continue readingA Stimulus Lobbying Loophole?
When President Obama issued a memorandum to “ensure the responsible spending of recovery act funds,” he required members of the... View Article
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