Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) filed an amendment that would prohibit all funding for the NSA domestic surveillance program unless and until the Bush Administration keeps Congress fully and currently informed of the program as required by law.
The Bush Administration welcomed the House version of the 2007 Intelligence Authorization Act for the most part, but also found several objectionable points. A White House statement (pdf) expressed opposition to one provision that required submission to Congress of an inventory of intelligence special access programs, and to another that would grant congressional access to portions of the intelligence community computer network.
The Justice Department has prepared detailed guidance for executive branch agencies to assist them in complying with President Bush’s Executive Order 13392 on “Improving Agency Disclosure of Information,” which was intended to enhance the operation of the Freedom of Information Act.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.