The Interior Department announced today that more than 190 million acres of federal land are now open for geothermal energy projects. Last month, you’ll remember, Congress declined to renew the ban on oil shale development before it adjourned. And the lapsed ban on offshore drilling means a huge swath of land is now open for leasing. All this adds up to a massive expansion of responsibilities at a few federal agencies — including one that doesn’t have a stellar track record: the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, lambasted by the department’s IG last month for a “pervasive culture of exclusivity”…
Monthly Archives: October, 2008
Another day, another drop in the Dow. The Dow had another heart-stopping day today, losing more than 500 points as of 4 p.m. And if you’ve looked at your TSP account lately, you might be having panic attacks and be contemplating drastic changes to your fund allocations. That’s exactly what Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board members and staff are hoping you won’t do. “This is not the time to sell low when you bought high,” said member Alejandro Sanchez at Monday’s board meeting. The board urged participants to hang in there, saying market history proves short-term losses are just a…
The Washington Post reported today that three federal agencies — the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the New York branch of the Fed — are “vying for control” of the $53 trillion market in “credit-default swaps,” contracts that insure financial institutions who make risky investments. It’s an interesting look inside the infighting that plagues financial regulators. A horde of agencies oversees the financial world: the SEC, CFTC, two agencies to regulate banks, the Fed, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Treasury Department… In the era of deregulation (now ending), that was fine. But our fragmented regulators…
Bet your bottom dollar that the Small Business Administration’s second annual report card on the government’s use of small businesses in procurement will come out tomorrow. We say this because we’ve been told there is a press conference on that very topic, so it’s a pretty safe bet. The report cards grade agencies on how well they’ve met their individual goals for contracting with small businesses. These goals are often above and beyond the governmentwide goal of 23 percent, which is set by statute. Last year, SBA reported 12 agencies got red scores indicating they failed to reach their goals…
FedLine is attending the INPUT FedFocus today getting an outlook on Federal IT spending for 2009. GEIA Group of the Information Technology Association of America will give a similar briefing later this week. There’s lots of talk at INPUT’s event today about the economy and how that’s going to change the environment of the federal marketplace. The government’s Wall Street bailout could be a boon for contractors in the coming years if the government makes money off the deal, said Kevin Plexico, INPUT’s senior vice president. The bailout creates a rare scenario where the government will get a monetary return…
As we’re reporting on the Federal Times Web site, Special Counsel Scott Bloch announced his resignation — he’s leaving office on Jan. 5, the scheduled end of his five-year term. He made the announcement in a letter to the president (pdf) earlier today. Bloch had the option to stay for one more year (or until the Senate confirms the next special counsel, whichever comes first), but he declined to stick around. Bloch’s announcement is true to his word from an interview two months ago, when I asked Bloch about the increasingly vocal calls for his resignation: But when asked about…
Election Day is still two weeks away, but the next president already has good-government groups lining up to offer advice. The latest is the Project on Government Oversight, which today issued a set of recommendations for the next president. Many of them are obvious good-government suggestions, but many also come at opportune times. POGO points out, for example, that the government’s oversight and regulatory role has been “decimated” in recent years. Given the recent scandals at the Minerals Management Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, that’s not an overstatement. There’s also a call for inspectors…
Struggling to figure out which charities to support this year through the Combined Federal Campaign? Who could blame you. There are literally thousands of local, national and international charities making pitches to get your dollar. Nearly all of them sound worthwhile, but how do you know that the charities you select are making the most of your contributions? One way is by reviewing how much of each charity’s collections goes to covering administrative and fund raising costs – i.e., how much is not going to the people the charity is supposed to be helping. The general rule of thumb is,…
As far as federal advertising goes, you have to admit the Federal Communications Commission’s announcement that it is sponsoring a race car to advertise the mandatory conversion to digital television is pretty creative. FCC spent $350,000 on the sponsorship that will debut on car No. 38, which will be driven by David Gilliland at the Oct. 19 NASCAR race at the Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. The transition message will also appear on car No. 38 during races on Nov. 9 and Nov. 16. Given the current economic crisis, which many say  hurts NASCAR’s bottom line, some cynics might view this as a new kind of government bailout. But…
The FDA announced this week that it will start opening foreign offices – first in China and India, and eventually in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. It’s a promising step for the agency, which is simply terrible at inspecting foreign plants: Less than 30 percent of foreign drug plants, for example, are checked on schedule. So the FDA deserves a lot of credit for starting the program and investing $30 million to open those offices. But the announcement leaves some unanswered questions. In the United States, FDA inspectors can walk into any food or drug plant, unannounced, and…