The Open Government Act, a bipartisan bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, passed the Senate on August 3 after objections from a lone Senator were finally overcome.
Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) successfully shepherded the legislation, which is intended to expedite agency responsiveness to FOIA requests and improve the freedom of information regime in various other ways.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who had earlier placed a hold on the bill blocking its advance, explained his concerns in an August 3 floor statement and how they had been resolved. The measure passed on a voice vote.
About 86% of Colorado’s water is used for agriculture, but only about 30-60% of that water actually reaches crops. Conveyance efficiency through canal modernization is a powerful drought resilience and water saving strategy with proven technical feasibility.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”