"Ten years ago next week, a terrifying hurricane stood perched atop the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina. It had rapidly intensified from a Category 3 into a deadly Category 5 monster and began its northward turn towards the Gulf coast—weakening, fortunately, but still driving a tremendous wall of water."
"The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said Monday it will begin investigation the Aug. 5 incident that sent 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into Colorado’s Animas River."
"Residents of Southside Syracuse put up a fierce, well-organized fight to stop construction of a sewage plant and still lost".
Federal agencies sometimes wait years to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, then ask if they are still interested in receiving the requested information. Now the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy has issued an official "guidance" that frowns slightly on overuse of the "still interested?" practice.
SEJ, which has complained about press-office restrictions for years, joined over 50 other journalism groups in signing an Aug 10, 2015 letter requesting government transparency — again. The groups had sent a letter to the White House in July 2014, a followup in Aug 2014, resulting in a non-response response from the WH later that month.
"Despite the agency’s attempts to account for bigger storms, its outdated rules leave communities unprepared for disaster".
"First, the National Park Service said it would cut back on selling its visitors bottled water to reduce the litter left behind. Now, Congress — under pressure from the powerful bottled water industry — is threatening to cut off the federal money the Park Service is using to replace the disposable plastic water bottles with refilling stations."
EPA's Plan, approved back on January 15, 2009, mandates giving "understandable, timely, accurate, and consistent information to the public." The plan laudably emphasizes coordination with other agencies — but it also leads to strong message control.
When a stealth legislative move to dismantle Wisconsin's open records law was revealed this month, a statewide uproar caused sponsors to back off. Appropro that the old lesson "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" would be taught once again around July 4, 2015.
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