Publication Items

It remains to be seen how successful the House will be in timely posting of electronic versions of bills — especially when they are thousand-page appropriations bills being rammed through at the last minute. The WatchDog will be watching to see if bills are published electronically well before subcommittee markups begin.

According to the Los Angeles Times, recent directives from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force suggest that merely filming commercial acts of cruelty to animals could be a terrorist offense — something that now can lead to indefinite military detention without trial.

The searchable database is finally being published online for the first time after Congress mandated it in a rider to the 2008 omnibus appropriations bill. EPA compromised after protests from industry, limiting it to only the largest emitters. Pick only emitters in certain states. Focus on emissions of each of the six greenhouse gases it includes — or to customize views according to size of emission or emitting industry.