In 2010, members, committees and other offices of the U.S. House of Representatives spent more than $1.36 billion on salaries, benefits, office equipment, travel, consultants and other expenses. Of that, the largest expense--about $1 billion--was for salaries and benefits, followed by spending on rent and communication costs, technology and related maintenance costs.
Nine of the ten biggest spenders were Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former members Dana Titus, D-Nev., Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., and Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio. Half of the top ten spenders were from California.
Lawmakers do not pay out of their member ...
Big business seeks exemption from derivatives rules
Some of Washington’s most powerful trade associations and big corporations are pushing to get an exemption from derivatives regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial law—and House Republicans are planning to introduce legislation to do just that.
Under the umbrella of an ad hoc coalition, known as the Coalition for Derivatives End-Users, which is run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business Roundtable, among others, the coalition first weighed in during the debate over the financial law.
Since the law’s passage, the coalition has also been presenting its case with ...
Continue readingSunlight Live covers gas price hearing
Tomorrow, when the Committee on Natural Resources will hold a full committee hearing on gas prices and U.S. jobs, the Sunlight Foundation will spin up another instance of its data and live-blogging Sunlight Live platform to cover it live.
- Richard G. Newell; Administrator, U.S. Energy Information Administration
- Brenda Pierce; Energy Resources Program Coordinator, U.S. Geological Survey
- Gene Whitney ...
Nuclear power plants live along fault lines
As recent events have shown in Japan, nuclear power plants are just as vulnerable to natural disasters as anything else. So here at Sunlight we were curious about the locations of domestic nuclear reactors. Using data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey, we generated the following map, which shows the location of the aforementioned reactors (there are 104 of them) vis-a-vis geological fault lines. We also included locations of significant historical earthquakes. Take a look and see if we might be vulnerable to a nuclear disaster if/when "the big one" hits, and click on ...
Continue readingData lacking on overdraft fees
More than six months after new federal rules went into effect that prohibit banks from charging consumers overdraft fees unless they “opt in” to such an arrangement, government data are lacking on how this has changed banks’ bottom lines.
“This is the most expensive form of credit, and consumers most likely to use it are the most vulnerable. You’d think regulators would want to know exactly how much revenue banks are taking in,” says Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services with the Consumer Federation of America.
The federal regulations came after years of controversy over banks’ practice of ...
Continue readingAs Renco lobbies and Peru deliberates, Doe Run Peru remains idle
Doe Run Peru, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Renco Group and the subject of an ongoing battle between that firm and the government of Peru, has a bumpy history in La Oroya since it acquired smelting operations from the government of Peru there in 1997. The firm directly provided 3,500 jobs in Peru, gained the support of many workers and local people, and claims to be a more responsible environmental caretaker than its state-owned predecessor.
Yet emissions of lead, sulfur dioxide, and other chemicals were far above the Peruvian air standard while the smelter was operating. In 2005 ...
Continue readingCurrent and former officials intervene on company’s behalf in battle with Peru
Battling the government of Peru over an inactive metal smelter in one of the most polluted places on earth, billionaire Ira Rennert’s Renco Group hired eight former government officials from five lobbying firms in a span of 82 days since November.
Renco signed up a former member of Congress, a former trade official, former congressional staffers and a campaign manager for a high-ranking Senate Republican to plead its case in Washington. In a little less than two months of lobbying, two of those firms have reported receiving $225,000 in fees while attempting to enlist Congress and the Obama ...
Continue readingGeithner meets with Obama campaign fundraiser
Penny Pritzker, who served as President Obama’s finance chair during his 2008 campaign and whose name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Commerce Secretary, met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and several other top government heavyweights to discuss Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), according to meeting logs released by the agency this week.
In 2008, Pritzker who has a stake in several real estate and hotel businesses across the country, came under scrutiny for her role in a failed bank that made subprime loans in the leadup to the financial crisis. Pritzker said at the time that the bank ...
Continue readingChamber of Commerce meets with CFTC chairman
Yesterday a lobbyist and executives representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has criticized the whistleblower provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial law, met with Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to discuss the issue.
Under the new law, the CFTC is given the authority to award whistleblowers 10 to 30 percent of the amount recovered when information they provide leads to an enforcement action yielding sanctions of $1 million or more. They can also file for relief if they face retaliation for their disclosures.
"Put simply, the proposed rule creates a set of ...
Continue readingBernanke is positive about economy, despite poor markets
The Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, said he believes the economy will continue to grow this year despite high unemployment rates, weak job growth and an “exceptionally weak housing sector”.
In the Fed's Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress, Bernanke highlighted the positive direction the economy has taken citing as evidence the real GDP's return to where it was before the financial crisis occurred.
In today’s hearing conducted by the Senate Banking Committee, the focus seemed to be on the Fed’s decision to buy securities issued by the Department of Treasury and the effectiveness of that ...
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