AUTHOR ARCHIVES
OMB moves ahead with unloading excess real estate
October 20, 2011 This story has been updated from the original version. The Obama administration has stepped up its effort to unload unneeded federal real estate, releasing on Wednesday an updated interactive map of some 12,000 properties either for sale or recently sold, as well as a new dashboard on the website Performance.gov ...
Lawsuit renews debate over product safety database
October 20, 2011 A legal complaint against the Consumer Product Safety Commission's six-month-old product safety database has refocused attention on an online tool that may risk unfairly tarnishing manufacturers' reputations. The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that an unnamed "Company Doe" filed a motion in a district court in Maryland to block CPSC ...
Who Said Agencies Always Agree?
October 19, 2011 Among the many disputatious provisions in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law is the "Volcker Rule," the clampdown recommended by the former Fed chair that will narrow the ability of an investment bank to place bets on financial products for the benefit of the bank itself rather than for investors. This ...
Individual contractors sue over right to make campaign gifts
October 19, 2011 Three individual awardees of federal contacts filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of a 1972 law that makes it a crime for such contractors to give campaign donations to candidates in any federal election. The plaintiffs -- two contractors for the U.S. Agency for International Development and one for ...
HHS announces contribution to Obama regulatory reform
October 19, 2011 The Health and Human Services Department on Tuesday unveiled three Medicare and Medicaid rules in answer to President Obama's call to eliminate regulations seen as unnecessary, obsolete or burdensome. The proposals are designed to free up hospital managers from certain requirements and could save the government as much as $10 ...
IG council honors star performers
October 18, 2011 Inspectors general from across government were honored Tuesday in Washington, where Attorney General Eric Holder praised them for their sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars in times of "unprecedented budget restraints and in the face of once-in-a-generation economic challenges." They have responded "not with frustration, but with resolve," he said. At ...
Canceled benefit renews political fight over health care law
October 17, 2011 The Health and Human Services Department's Oct. 14 announcement that it is abandoning health care reform's ambitious long-term care benefit is being interpreted by critics and supporters of the 2010 law along predictable lines. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, known as CLASS and a legacy of the ...
Backing a Whistleblower at SEC
October 11, 2011 The internal whistleblower who reported a questionable policy on document destruction at the Securities and Exchange Commission will be vindicated by the SEC inspector general, according to inside sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal in the paper's weekend edition. Longtime SEC enforcement division employee Darcy Flynn had gone public ...
White House council backs regulatory streamlining
October 11, 2011 The Obama administration's team of private-sector advisers on job creation recommended new infrastructure spending and streamlining of regulations in a report released on Tuesday at a meeting with President Obama in Pittsburgh. The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, launched last January and made up of 27 executives mostly from ...
Consumer bureau nomination remains divisive
October 7, 2011 A Senate panel's Oct. 6 approval of Richard Cordray's nomination for promotion to full-time director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has energized consumer activist organizations, but minority Republicans who for months have vowed to block any nominee show no signs of letting up. By a 12-10 party-line vote, Democrats ...
TSP's G Fund Helps Delay Debt Ceiling
CBP Could Escape Furloughs
Feds Flock to TSP's L Funds
EIG 2013 as Told by Your Tweets
Boldly Go Where No Fed's Gone Before
The Big Squeeze: Defense Under Sequester
