There are very few occasions in the Sunlight offices for us to use the fax machine, so we were somewhat out of practice when we learned that we had to use it to send Freedom of Information Act requests to the Department of Treasury. At least the fax is instantaneous: we received most of our responses from them via snail mail.
To do this story, which involved looking into various agencies in charge of the bailout of the financial sector, we had to file seven FOIA requests--all sent via fax to Treasury--then make several phone calls to follow up on ...
Continue readingIs FOIA any better under Obama? An anecdote today, data later
Newsweek's Michael Isikoff report on the Obama administration's mixed record on transparency got me to thinking about our own experience with FOIA requests. Isikoff notes,
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged ...Continue reading
Some stimulus recipients to report in Excel?
Just reading the new guidance from Office of Management and Budget for recipients funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to report information to the government: "This Recipient Reporting spreadsheet template is to be used for non-machine recipient reporting. It enables manual data entry and collection of recipient reporting information in a familiar excel format."
There's also some XML schemas for those submitting machine readable data.
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Campaign Software Makers All About Disclosure, Except their Own
NGP Software, a leading provider of software for electronically disclosing campaign contributions to the Federal Election Commission, is striving to keep its long-running legal battle with a competitor, Aristotle International, under wraps. In August 2005, plaintiff Aristotle filed suit against NGP alleging unfair business practices, claiming that the firm falsely advertised as serving only Democrats while selling an identical product at a heavy discount to political action committees that supported Republicans.
Aristotle International and NGP have nearly exclusive control of a market that appeared virtually overnight when the FEC introduced electronic filing requirements in 2001. The companies write and sell ...
Continue readingGrassley feted by alternative med lobbyist
A self-proclaimed lobbyist for an alternative health organization--who left a prominent conservative group more than a decade ago under a cloud of financial mismanagement--is hosting a fundraiser next week for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley, who recently earned fame for his tweets on health care, has a reputation as a strong crusader for drug safety. But he has also has championed policies favoring the alternative health industry, which some consumer critics charge is not adequately regulated by the federal government.
Continue readingNon-earmark disclosing lawmakers feted by transportation interests
At least a dozen lawmakers who didn't disclose their transportation earmarks are the beneficiaries of trasnportation fundraisers this year, according to Party Time. Click here to see who. We've also updated this online database to include party information.
Continue readingNRCC promos fundraiser for Dem
Over at Party Time we're reporting how the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) accidentally sent out a list of fundraising events that included a June 11 breakfast for Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) and featuring "special guest" Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).
Whoops! That may have been taking bipartisanship a bit far, especially since the NRCC is targeting Peters right now for going overboard with government spending.
Minutes after sending that list out, the NRCC sent out a new list: "Please disregard previous Calendar of Events. See attached." Mention of the Peters fundraiser had disappeared.
Continue readingAn Army of pharma trips?
The Center for Public Integrity has analyzed 22,000 Pentagon travel disclosures -- filed when an outside party pays for a trip taken by Department of Defense personnel. The finding that jumped out at both Anu and me:
The medical industry paid for more travel than any other single interest over $10 million for some 8,700 trips, or about 40 percent of all outside sponsored travel. Among the targets: military pharmacists, doctors, and others who administer the Pentagon's $6 billion-plus annual budget for prescription drugs
I would have expected Defense contractors to be number one. I hope CPI follows ...
Continue readingRep. Flake: Campaign contributions are a financial interest in an earmark
Rep. Jeff Flake has released a letter asking the Ethics Committee asking it to "specifically prohibit members from being able to certify having no financial interest in an earmark when they have received campaign contributions from the entity that would benefit from the earmark or those affiliated with it."
Essentially, Flake is asking the committee to hold that, for earmarks, campaign contributions create a conflict of interest in the same way that, say, being part owner of a company would create a conflict of interest: The more flush the company is with federal contracts gotten through earmarks, the better off ...
Continue readingPMA Group probe: What did the House vote for?
Roll Call's Tory Newmyer and Jennifer Yachnin are both good reporters, and their story is certainly easy to read, but I'm still sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out exactly what it is that the House just voted for in the matter of PMA Group, the lobbying firm at the heart of a series of federal investigations involving campaign contributions to members of Congress and earmarks to some of the firms clients:
The Democrats' resolution, offered by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) with the backing of leadership, would give the Committee on Standards of Official ...Continue reading
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