The bill (S 372) would beef up the weakened protections for federal whistleblowers against retaliation for revealing fraud, waste, and abuse.
In the case of Milner v. Navy, a Puget Sound resident and activist sought information that would identify the locations and potential blast ranges of explosive ordnance stored at Washington’s Naval Magazine Indian Island.
The environmental groups' request for GPS information about where the introduced, protected Mexican grays had killed livestock was denied on grounds that data collected by Wildlife Service personnel visiting private ranch property is exempt from FOIA requests.
The downloadable, Zipped Excel spreadsheet, produced by Taxpayers for Common Sense, WashingtonWatch.com, and Taxpayers Against Earmarks, contains 39,294 requested earmarks, worth $130 billion.
"The president's deficit commission proposed slashing energy tax breaks yesterday, a move that could make renewable power more competitive and help chisel down greenhouse gas emissions. But the plan is brimming with political pitfalls and vagueness around whether clean power subsidies might also be axed to curb the nation's rising debt."
Despite promises of transparency, the US Environmental Protection Agency has denied a Freedom-of-Information request by Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward Jr. for the contractor study, which apparently outlines less harmful options for this West Virginia mountaintop-removal project.
The open-government agenda made only a little progress in the session of Congress now waddling to a lame-duck close. Hope still remains for a few measures that would increase public access to government information — but it dwindles with every day that passes.
The Senate's Nov. 30 vote not to impose a moratorium on "earmarks" practically ensures that pork-barrel spending will live on as a subject for journalists — at least in fiscal 2011.
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal government is shoveling more than $32 billion to the states to develop what it considers less-polluting energy and to train, certify, recruit, and retain workers.
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