"U.S. Department of Agriculture experts found growing sanitary problems including bugs and overflowing trash earlier this year on the Iowa farm at the center of the national egg recall, but didn't notify health authorities, according to government documents and officials."
Open-government advocacy groups like Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists say DOI's proposal seems designed to perpetuate some of the worst science abuses of the Bush administration.
With the floodgates for corporate spending in U.S. politics wide open, the job of investigative journalism has never been more crucial. The National Institute on Money in State Politics' searchable database can help you find and build stories.
OpenTheGovernment.org's report notes a steady decrease in secrecy but finds poor marks in other areas, such as declassification backlogs, continued invocation of the "state secrets" privilege, and a high percentage of federal advisory committee meetings closed to the public.
The FBI's effort to inspire confidence by trying to hide the 300-ton, five-story-high, object of national interest might have backfired.
The report includes many lists and maps that allow you to zoom in on specific topical and geographic areas of interest to your audience. Here are some angles to explore, evaluated by watershed.
A leaked "internal draft, not for release" discussion paper contains thoughts on a possible shift toward more conservation — and moving away from BLM's historic pattern of generally emphasizing extraction of natural resources and de-emphasizing conservation of those resources.
Topics of interest to your audience could include agriculture, construction, sewage plant discharges, urban stormwater runoff, industrial sources, concentrated animal feeding operations, hydraulic fracturing used in natural gas extraction, power plant cooling water use, and pesticide infiltration.
"Last night, Michael Bromwich, the new director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (formerly known as the Minerals Management Service), circulated an email to staffers outlining new ethics policies for employees who deal with offshore drilling, an attempt to reform his run amuck division's rep for being too cozy with oil and gas interests."
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