The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Comedian Lewis Black Gives a #$&@ Shout Out to POGO

By Joe Newman

Yes, that's comedian and social critic Lewis Black above with Project On Government Oversight Executive Director Danielle Brian (and filmmaker Harry Hanbury). Black, a frequent commentator on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, was performing in Charlottesville, Va. this week but took time out to tape a special message in honor of POGO's 30th anniversary.

You can help us celebrate our 30th anniversary and see what Black had to say by getting your ticket to our May 12 gala at the House of Sweden in Washington, D.C.

Capping off the evening will be a panel discussion "Wikileaks, Wall Street and Whistleblowers: The Role of Government Oversight" moderated by Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post. Panelists include Rolling Stone reporter and author Matt Taibbi, U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards, former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays and noted hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

More photos after the jump.

A Good Month for Transparency at Federal Advisory Committees

By Michael Smallberg

We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of two agencies that are striving to provide more information to the public on advisory panels governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (let’s call it a FACA Friday).

The first is the General Services Administration (GSA), which recently announced the launch of a new website called eFACA that will hopefully make it easier to monitor the activities of the thousands of federal advisory committees that provide recommendations to agencies on critical policy issues. 

Under existing laws and regulations, agencies are already required to disclose certain information about advisory committees such as their membership and costs. Up until now, however, that information was mostly trapped in an online database that was exceedingly difficult to navigate.

GSA’s new webpage, eFACA, allows you to view aggregated trends—such as total annual spending on federal advisory committees ($387 million in 2010) and spending within individual agencies over the last ten years ($1.6 billion at the Department of Health Human Services)—and also makes it easier to track down information on individual committees and their members. Steven Croley, Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, described these new features in a post on the White House blog:

FAPIIS: An Inauspicious Debut, But Starting to Show Signs of Life

By Neil Gordon

It’s been two weeks since the federal government’s contractor and grantee responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) went live on a public website. As you might recall from our initial review, we were not very impressed. This is how we summed up our feelings to Bloomberg Government:

The public version of FAPIIS certainly looks like and feels like a database that the government doesn’t want the public to see or use.

Other users were even less impressed—and more blunt. The Sunlight Foundation said FAPIIS “may be the worst government website we’ve ever seen.” OMB Watch called it a “steaming pile.” And here’s a quick rundown of the initial reactions from POGO’s blog readers:

• “an insult to the American public”

• “a waste of time and money”

• “This database sucks.”

Knowing this overwhelmingly negative public response would spur immediate corrective action from the General Services Administration, POGO decided to pay FAPIIS another visit. The site still looks the same—the same drab design, broken security certificates, and clunky search engine—but contractor and grantee responsibility data is starting to appear.

For example, on the search page I set the “Name” pulldown menu to “contains”, typed a letter or number in the name field, clicked the “All Government-entered FAPIIS Records” button, and the following information popped up (click to enlarge):

 

FOIA Friday: Database of Thousands of Medical Malpractice Claims Against the Veterans Health Administration

By Nick Schwellenbach

This week’s document: A spreadsheet of claims filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs, many of which relate to medical malpractice.

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) of 1946 allowed private citizens to sue the federal government for certain kinds of torts, including “personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the government while acting within the scope of his office or employment.” With roots also in 1946, the Veterans Health Administration, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs, is “the nation’s largest integrated health care system,” according to the Congressional Research Service. For fiscal year 2011, the VA estimates it will treat some 6.1 million patients.

What do you get when there’s a massive healthcare system with a law allowing claims and lawsuits for wrongful injury or death? Lots of claims of malpractice. (Important note: A recent and well-respected book makes a compelling case that the VA healthcare system is better than most of the rest of the U.S. healthcare system—but even the best healthcare systems will still have instances of malpractice.)

The VA has a process for filing claims. It begins with an administrative process—the Excel spreadsheet represents these administrative claims. Complainants can choose to go to federal court with a lawsuit if the administrative process doesn’t yield a satisfactory result in their view.

The data provided has details on over 12,000 claims against the VA from 1989 to November 2008, although the data appears largely incomplete for the first several years. Not all of the claims are medical malpractice-related, but several thousand are. There are fields for the VA facility involved, the date the claim was received, the date of the last tort status (where the claim is in the administrative process), the date of that status, alleged negligence descriptions (none exist for non-medical malpractice tort cases), and amount paid out, if any. The spreadsheet is over two years old, so the latest tort status field may be out-of-date for many of these claims.

Nick Schwellenbach is POGO's Director of Investigations.

Morning Smoke: Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Prepared for Long Power Outages?

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor.

Nuclear Safety and Security

Nuclear regulator casts doubt on U.S. reactors' blackout plans
Dina Cappiello, The Associated Press

Defense

DoD Moves Toward 'Should-Cost' Programs
Marcus Weisgerber, Defense News

Blurring the Lines Between Soldiers and Spies?
Room for Debate, The New York Times

Petraeus, a Threat to CIA Analysis
Ray McGovern, consortiumnews.com

Government Contracting

Contracting reform: It comes down to Congress
Matthew Weigelt, Federal Computer Week

New Proposal for Contractor Organizational Conflict of Interest Rules
IEC Journal

Financial Sector Oversight

Swiped: Banks, Merchants And Why Washington Doesn't Work For You
Zach Carter and Ryan Grim, The Huffington Post

Scott Bloch

G.W. Bush's Special Counsel Airs Dirty Laundry in RICO Complaint
Ryan Abbott, Courthouse News Service

New Video: Conflicts of Interest at DARPA?

By Bryan Rahija

Danger Room's intrepid senior reporter Spencer Ackerman recently joined our podcast crew to talk about conflicts of interest at DARPA, the Pentagon research agency that has awarded lucrative contracts to a company run by its director’s father. Watch a snippet of the conversation below, or download the whole shebang right here.

 

 

Watch more POGO videos on our YouTube channel.

Bryan Rahija edits POGO's blog.

DoD Identifies 14 "Should-Cost" and "Will-Cost" Demonstration Programs

The Air Force, Army, and Navy have identified fourteen weapons programs where they will employ two management techniques to prevent massive cost overruns, according to an April 22 Department of Defense (DoD) memo obtained by Inside Defense.com.

Both the Air Force and the Navy picked the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program as one of their five example programs. The Air Force has plans to use the F-35A conventional take-off model; the Navy has plans to use the F-35C carrier version; and the Marine Corps (which is part of the Department of the Navy) is planning on using both the F-35C and the F-35B short take-off and vertical landing model (STOVL). We’ve reproduced the DoD’s table of the fourteen programs here:

 

Morning Smoke: Nuclear Regulators Ignoring Risks, Bowing to Industry

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor.

Nuclear Power

America’s Nuclear Nightmare
Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone

Defense

Drones Rejoice! Petraeus to Head CIA, Panetta to Pentagon
Spencer Ackerman, Danger Room

The end of the Gates era
Philip Ewing, DoD Buzz

A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man
Luke Mogelson, The New York Times Magazine 

Government Contracting

Reducing Influence Peddling in Government Contracting
OMB Watch's Gary Therkildsen and Gary D. Bass, Truthout

DoD green lights retaining acquisition savings
Jared Serbu, Federal News Radio

Financial Sector Oversight

US Watchdog Expects More Criminal Charges Related To Wall Street Bailout
Jeffrey Sparshott, DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Whistleblower Rules May Not Be Ready Until Summer
Joe Palazzolo, Corruption Currents

Offshore Drilling

Chief Offshore Drilling Regulator Criticizes Lack of Oversight for Contractors
Sasha Chavkin, ProPublica

Health and Human Services

Former Glaxo Lawyer ‘Went Too Far,’ Feds Say
Ed Silverman, Pharmalot

Morning Smoke: Justice Department Drops Investigation Into Thomas Tamm

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor.

Whistleblower Issues

Wiretap Leak Case Ends With No Charge
Devlin Barrett and Brent Kendall, The Wall Street Journal

Classification

More information being classified, report says
Sean Reilly, Federal Times

Detainees’ Lawyers Can’t Click on Leaked Documents
Scott Shane, The New York Times

Money in Politics

Lobbyist Fires Warning Shot Over Donation Disclosure Plan
Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times

Government Contracting

One Nation Under Contract–Six Questions for Allison Stanger
Scott Horton, Harper's

The times they are a changin' - independent research and development may not be so "independent" any more
David S. Gallacher, Lexology

Defense

Cuts Stall Defense Earnings
Nathan Hodge, The Wall Street Journal

A Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military
Douglas MacGregor, Foreign Policy

Financial Sector Oversight

Largest Banks Likely Profited By Borrowing From Federal Reserve, Lending To Federal Government
Shahien Nasiripour, The Huffington Post

Enforcement

Does Forest Labs Case Signal New Era in White-Collar Prosecution?
Ashby Jones, The Wall Street Journal

Waste

$163 million spent on oil pollution research — with no coordination
Laurel Adams, iWatch News

Health and Human Services

The FDA, Conflicts Of Interest & Provenge E-mails
Ed Silverman, Pharmalot

New Podcast: Family Matters: The Ties between DARPA Director Regina Dugan and DARPA Contractor RedXDefense

By Bryan Rahija

Most people know DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—as the folks behind projects like mind-controlled prosthetics, cheetah-bots, and insta-vaccines. But back in March, the Pentagon agency caught our attention after it awarded a contract to a company founded by its director.

Once news of the contract first broke, the plot began to thicken. Come to find out, DARPA Director Regina Dugan owns at least $15,000 worth of stock in the company and even provided the company with a $250,000 "note/loan."

We decided to invite Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman into the POGO podcast studio to get the full scoop. Happily, he obliged. You can download our conversation here.

Other links for listeners:

• Subscribe to POGO podcasts on iTunes (don't forget to leave us a rating)
• Subscribe to POGO podcasts via RSS
• Previous podcasts

Bryan Rahija edits POGO's blog.

Image: ssoosay

BOEMRE Chief Discusses Bane of His Existence and How MMS Erred

By Mandy Smithberger

Institutional conflicts of interest, a lack of conflict of interest or recusal policies for offshore inspectors, and a strong orientation towards production and revenue were all real obstacles to meeting safety goals at the now-defunct Minerals Management Service (MMS), said Michael Bromwich, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE), at an event held by Public Citizen yesterday.

The royalty and revenue collections function has been successfully separated from the other BOEMRE missions, he said, but fixing other institutional conflicts of interest between resource development and regulation hasn't been an easy task. Untangling the functions means untangling a joint computer system, and making what some may perceive to be arbitrary decisions about duties like planning reviews (which BOEMRE gave to the development side) and permitting (a job for the regulators).

Morning Smoke: Leadership Vacancy at Key State Dept. Watchdog Attracts Criticism

Watching the Watchdogs

Vacant State Department inspector general position draws criticism
R. Jeffrey Smith, The Washington Post

Related:

• POGO Questions the Independence of the State Department's Inspector General
• House Committee Tackles Issues of IG Independence

Transportation

Rivet Manufacturing Flaw Suspected in Jet’s Roof
Matthew L. Wald and Jad Mouawad, The New York Times

Related:

• Internal Boeing Documents Support Whistleblower's Allegations: Aircraft Quality Control Problems Cited
• Leaked Audit: Manufacturers and FAA Allowing Defective Parts on Planes Insufficient Oversight of Foreign and Domestic Outsourcing

Afghanistan Reconstruction

Kabul's Police Tab Fails a U.S. Audit
Nathan Hodge, The Wall Street Journal

Defense

Linking the Readiness of the Armed Forces to DoD’s Operation and Maintenance Spending
Congressional Budget Office Director's Blog

Pentagon ends F-35 engine program
Theo Emery, The Boston Globe

U.S. Air Force to Launch Competition for 93 New Helicopters
Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg

Health and Human Services

U.S. Effort to Remove Drug CEO Jolts Firms
Alicia Mundy, The Wall Street Journal

Oil Spill

New Containment Technologies Jump-Start Offshore Drilling but Fail to Quell Oil Spill Concerns
Katie Howell, Greenwire

Offshore Drilling Oversight

US Agency Looking At Applying 'All' Regulations to Drilling Contractors
Ryan Tracy, FoxBusiness

Financial Sector Oversight

A Regulator Moves Postcrisis to Expand Power Over Wall St.
Ben Protess, DealBook

Government Documents

Contingency Contracting: Observations on Actions Needed to Address Systemic Challenges
Government Accountability Office

Linking the Readiness of the Armed Forces to DoD's Operation and Maintenance Spending
Congressional Budget Office

One Year Ago Today

Ex-SEC Official's Pitch To Prospective Client: I Promoted The Guys Who Filed Complaint Against You
Justin Elliott, TPMMuckraker