An economic stimulus plan will be on the table early in the next Congress. Following is the tentative schedule. Given the sudden change in Senate leadership with Sen. Trent Lott’s (R-MS) resignation as Senate Majority Leader, there is a great deal of uncertainty about how the budget process will proceed next year, including issues of timing, number of reconciliation bills, and content. The next Watcher may contain a very different timetable.

On November 22, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) published a report entitled “Electronic Government: Selection and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's 24 Initiatives.” Expanding electronic government (e-government), using technology, particularly the Internet, to enhance the public’s access to government information and services, is a key element of the President’s Management Agenda to reform the federal government. The report reviews the completeness of information used by the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) task force to choose and oversee these initiatives.

On October 29, 2002 the Chemical Products Corporation (CPC) submitted a data quality petition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging a barium risk assessment. CPC believes that the oral reference dose for barium disseminated in the agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) does not comply with the data quality requirements of objectivity or reproducibility.

A special three-judge district court, which heard arguments earlier this month, is expected to rule sometime in January on the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The court ordered that all documents in this controversial case be made public, unless there were specific objections. Since then, the court has heard from more than two-dozen organizations and individuals asking that their information be kept secret. Among those groups objecting to disclosure have been units of the Democratic and Republican parties, the National Rifle Association, and the National Right to Life Committee. The most recent to ask that the information be kept secret is the federal government.

President Bush signed legislation on December 17 that pushes the federal government to provide greater Internet access to information and services, authorizing $345 million over the next four years for an e-government fund.

Answering a court-imposed deadline, the Bush administration issued a weak final rule to limit runoff from livestock waste at large factory farms, which produce 220 billion gallons of liquefied manure each year.

On December 12, a federal appeals court in California reinstated a Clinton-era rule that protects nearly 60 million acres of national forests from logging and road construction. The decision lifts an injunction issued by a federal judge in Idaho, who in May of 2001, found the rule would cause “irreparable harm” to the timber industry.

The National Highway and Transportation Administration (NHTSA) recently proposed a new -- but unfortunately, weak -- fuel efficiency standard for light trucks and sports utility vehicles that will achieve minimal pollution reductions.

OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is instructing federal agencies to evaluate hundreds of regulatory recommendations submitted by outside parties as part of its new annual report on the costs and benefits of regulation.

A study released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on December 17, Effects of Allowing Nonitemizers to Deduct Charitable Deductions found that allowing nonitemizers to claim a deduction for charitable contributions would be unlikely to increase the level of giving by more than 4 percent. The findings are similar to a Congressional Researech Service report earlier this year.

After two years of trying and failing to win congressional approval of its plan to increase the number of faith-based organizations receiving government grants for social services programs, the Bush Administration took matters into its own hands and implemented several of the most controversial provisions in Executive Order: Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-based and Community Organizations. Another Executive Order creates faith-based centers in the Department of Agriculture and Agency for International Development, similar to those established (also by executive order) in five other cabinet agencies in January 2001. It also requires religious organizations to be eligible for federal aid when they are damaged in a disaster. Two agencies announced new guidance for grantees on the same day.

For your convenience, the OMB Watcher is now also available in full as a PDF document -- this will allow for viewing and printing of the entire issue in one document.

The December 19 Washington Post reported that the District of Columbia police plan on deploying temporary surveillance camera during two large demonstrations in January. The cameras will be in several locations and along the march route for an anti-war protest and around the US Supreme Court for an antiabortion demonstration. These are in addition to 14 permanent cameras that DC police already operate in the downtown area, as well as their helicopter mounted camera which is ubiquitous at demonstrations.

The Watcher wishes you a happy and healthy new year. Because of the upcoming New Year holiday, the Watcher will return on January 13, 2003.