Last Wednesday, June 19, the House Resources Committee held a hearing on the dumping of 200,000 tons of toxic sludge into the Potomac River by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Estate Tax Repeal Proponents Launch New Round of Misleading Attack Ads (06/24/2002)
Repeal proponents may have failed to secure enough Senate support to make estate tax repeal permanent (see this OMB Watch article) in their June 12 vote, but that vote seems to have only strengthened their resolve. They have launched attack ads against a number of Senators who voted to for reform over repeal of the estate tax instead of repeal it.

A Resounding "No" to Estate Tax Repeal (06/24/2002)
On June 12, the Senate rejected a proposal by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) to make repeal of the estate tax, which under current law only expires for only one year, in 2010, permanent. Repeal advocates needed 60 votes to send the House-passed estate tax repeal bill on to the President for his signature, but only received 54 votes -- 44 Senators, including 2 Republicans, voted against repeal. This is even fewer votes than repeal proponents received in February on a non-binding .

Budget Process, October 1, And Tax Cuts (06/24/2002)
With the expiration of key Senate budget rules on October 1, tax cuts will get easier to pass.

Bumping Our Heads Against the Debt Ceiling (06/24/2002)
On June 28, the day Congress is planning to leave for the July 4 recess, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has warned that the government will run out of money to pay its bills unless Congress increases the limit on how much the Treasury can borrow. This means parts of government, if not all of it, will no longer properly function, and government will default on its bills. This has been publicly described as a showdown between the Bush administration and Congress, but in fact it is really a showdown between Bush and the Republicans in the House.


Congressman Tauzin Supports Information Restriction (06/24/2002)
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) and senior Committee Republicans announced their support for increasing government secrecy in the name of national security. In a July 19 letter, the Republicans wrote the Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, to indicate their "continued concern that sensitive information regarding potential vulnerabilities… are fully protected from improper public disclosure." The Republicans also encouraged Ridge to "coordinate a comprehensive and consistent approach for assessing threats and vulnerabilities posed by potential terrorist actions to America's critical infrastructure and manufacturing facilities."

2001 Giving USA Study Released (06/24/2002)
Some $212 billion in charitable giving was generated in 2001, a 0.5% rate of growth significantly lower than the 6% rate of growth in 2000, according to the 2002 edition of Giving USA, a publication of the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy, researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, released June 20. Arguably the most surprising news is that charitable giving centered around September 11th activities constituted less than 1% of all giving for the year.



Senate Finance Committee Passes Amended CARE Act (06/24/2002)
The Senate Finance Committee passed the Chair's amended version of the CARE Act (S. 1924, the Lieberman-Santorum compromise on the President's faith-based initiative) on June 18 by a voice vote.

No ICANN Fix It (06/24/2002)
The nonprofit organization responsible for the management of the Internet's domain name space has recently drawn renewed criticism from Congress, international governments, nonprofits, and the broader online public, most recently for a series of reorganization proposals developed to address earlier concerns about transparency, accountability, and fairness around its deliberations and overall operations.

Race to Transfer .org Intensifies (06/24/2002)
On June 18, 2002, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) closed the bidding to both nonprofit and collaborative applicants that represent the future management of the .org Internet namespace.

Administration to Relax Clean Air Protections for Aging Power Plants (06/24/2002)
The Bush administration recently announced its decision to roll back clean air protections for older, coal-fired power plants, allowing them to modernize without installing the latest technology to cut down on emissions, as reported in the Washington Post.

Battle of the Bills (06/24/2002)
The Senate is currently considering two chemical security bills that seem just about as diametrically opposed to each other as two bills could be.