Sneaky, sneaky ...

With less than a year to go, the Bush administration is still trying to sneak through some last-minute changes to federal regulations under the radar and out of the public’s eye.

Luckily, The Washington Post caught wind of the latest sneak attack. In stories July 23 and 24, the newspaper exposes the Labor Department’s attempt to ram through a rule that would make it more difficult to set limits on workplace toxins.

The proposal would call for another look at the methods used to measure the risks posed by workplace toxin exposure. It also would address industry complaints that the government “overestimates the risk posed by job exposure to chemicals,” according to the Post.

Oh, and the icing on this chemical-infused cake? The proposal would require the agency to allow an additional round of challenges to the Labor Department’s risk assessments – an extra step sure to make the process more difficult.

“This is a guarantee to keep any more worker safety regulation from ever coming out of [the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration],” said David Michaels, epidemiologist and workplace safety professor at George Washington University. “This is being done in secrecy, to be sprung before President Bush leaves office, to cripple the next administration.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) – chairmen of the Senate and House labor committees, respectively – are demanding that the agency withdraw the proposal.

“For nearly eight years, this administration has consistently failed to respond in a meaningful way to the real health and safety threats workers face while on the job,” Miller said in the Post. “But now they will stop at nothing to rush through a secret rule that will tie the hands of health and safety experts.”

Posted 07-24-2008 12:58 PM EDT

Lawsuit: Disclose Agencies That Bypass Clearance Process

The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) generally requires other federal agencies to run budgetary materials, proposed legislation, reports and even testimony by it before the agencies submit those materials to Congress. Public Citizen is trying to discover the full list of agencies that can bypass this requirement. Check out the story here.

Posted 07-17-2008 12:43 PM EDT

Congress Attempts to Cut the White House Secrecy Habit

Good for Congress: The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a bill requiring the National Archives to issue stronger standards for preserving administration e-mails and to "aggressively inspect" whether an administration is complying with those standards, according to a July 13 New York Times editorial.

Bad for the public: The Bush administration is threatening a veto. This is the same administration that has allowed key e-mails to go missing - including ones from the lead-up to the Iraq war and relating to the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes.

"We fear we may never find out all that has gone missing in this administration, although we urge [c]ongressional investigators to keep trying," the Times said. "What we do know is that the Bush gaps of missing e-mails run into hundreds of thousands during some of the most sensitive political moments."

Posted 07-14-2008 12:05 PM EDT

White House Censors Government Official

Administration Invokes Executive Privilege

New security policy may slow FOIA process even more

more...