In This Issue

Connect with Lawmakers and the Media
Type your zip code in the box below
to locate your elected officials
or follow this link: http://capwiz.com/ombwatch

Online Survey

Take approximately one minute to help OMB Watch determine the best way to encourage increased public policy participation and civic engagement. Fill out our online survey and let us know what you think of the Watcher, what your interests are, and what motivated you -- or would motivate you -- to get involved in the democratic process.

Federal Budget Update

Congress has been gone for the past week, returning on Tuesday, June 6, so there is no news to report on the appropriations process for FY 2001. According to a tentative House schedule, the Labor-HHS, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, and Defense bills could reach the house floor from Wednesday through Friday.

GPO Approps Update

In the last issue of the OMB Watcher Online, we reported on drastic cuts to the Federal Deposit Library Program -- and the threat to the future of printed materials available through that program -- under the legislative branch appropriations bill adopted by the House Appropriations Committee. No action was taken by the full House or Senate before Congress' Memorial Day recess and no action is expected until after June 6th. Visit the American Library Association web site for more information.

Report on Public Benefits

The National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support used its May 6th founding meeting in Chicago to release a report on the denial of public benefits. "Access Denied" is based on testing projects to document practices -- some illegal -- that deny public supports such as child care, food stamps and Medicaid to eligible low-income families. The report is available on the National Campaign's web site.

Software Law Update

In January, we reported on attempts by the software industry to push through a uniform computer software licensing rule that would overwrite existing copyright, privacy, and computer protection laws by amending the Uniform Commercial Code. The amendment to the UCC was killed, so the software manufacturers have taken the proposal to the states. The law, known as UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act), legalizes "shrinkwrap" licenses -- a license a buyer agrees to by purchasing the software- without being able to read it. These licenses can prevent the buyer from speaking ill of the product or may allow the manufacturer to track the buyer's habits. So far, only Maryland and Virginia have adopted the law and a handful more are considering it. Visit the 4CITE coalition web site for more information and to find out about the law in your state.

Digital Divide Forum

The National Neighborhood Coalition is hosting its June forum on the role of information technology in community revitalization. The forum, "Beyond the Digital Divide: Building Community Capacity with Technology," will be held June 9th in Washington, DC. What role can information technology play in building stronger communities? Visit the National Neighborhood Coalition web site for more information.

International Conference on Technology

The "International Conference on Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication (CATaC'00): Cultural Collisions and Creative Interferences in the Global Village" will be held July 12th-15th in Fremantle, Australia. Part of a biennial conference series, the CATaC'00 focuses on the presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research on how diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of information and communication technologies. Visit CATac web site.

TRI on RTK Net Update

As was reported in the last issue of the OMB Watcher Online, for the first time in ten years, the EPA did not provide RTK Net, our 11 year old online service that provides free public access to environmental data, with the 1998 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data, which measures toxic releases by companies throughout the U.S., early enough for there to be simultaneous release of the different formats. We have received the data and expect it to be up on RTK Net within the week.

Links to
OMB Watch

Another Tax Cut Proposal for the Very Wealthy

The House will probably be taking up a bill this week introduced by House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer (R-TX) that would phase in repeal of the estate tax (also called the "death tax"). The bill is touted as primarily benefiting small business/farm owners by ending massive estate taxes that prevent children from carrying on a family business or farm after the death of parents. However, studies show that repeal of the estate tax will primarily benefit the very rich, since many small estates and family business are already exempt from or given special treatment under existing estate tax regulations. According to a Washington Post article today, 98% of Americans pay no estate tax. Rather, very wealthy families pay almost all of the estate taxes. Once again, this is a tax cut that benefits the rich and that will cost a great deal, estimated at up to $105 billion over the first ten years, then $50 billion a year after that (when fully phased in).

Read the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis.

Faith-Based Charities Could Receive Federal Funds

In campaign speeches last summer, both Governor Bush and Vice President Gore stated that they would remove barriers so that faith-based organizations are fully able to compete for federal funds to provide social services, and would allow religious organizations to use faith-based initiatives and programs in the provision of federally funded services. New legislation may beat them to the punch.

A provision in new community renewal legislation announced May 23rd by the White House and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) would allow faith-based organizations to receive federal funds for drug counseling and other social services. This is part of the New Markets legislation, which also includes tax credits for those who invest in high poverty areas, creates additional empowerment zones, and create venture capital firms to help small and first-time entrepreneurs.

The bill would allow faith-based organizations that provide drug treatment and prevention programs "to qualify on an equal basis with other nonprofits" for funding. Both the White House and the House leadership say that this bill is consistent with the separation clause of the constitution and the 1996 Welfare Reform Act (the charitable choice provision). In order to receive federal funds, the faith-based charities must have a three year success record, as a safeguard against unqualified charities getting money.

It is not entirely clear how the New Markets legislation will allow for faith-based treatment without violating the separation clause of the First Amendment.

The bill is expected to come to the House floor in mid-June.

Take a Deep Breath: Supreme Court to Rule on Clean Air

The Supreme Court recently agreed (on May 22) to review a deplorable and potentially devastating decision by a U.S. appeals court that struck down EPA's 1997 clean air standards. This was good news. But eight days later, on May 30, the Supreme Court also agreed to decide whether EPA must take costs into consideration in developing its standards.

Lower courts -- including the court that threw out EPA's clean air standards -- have previously interpreted the Clean Air Act to explicitly forbid EPA from basing its decisions on costs to business; instead, rules must be based on what is best for the public health -- EPA estimated the 1997 standards would prevent 15,000 premature deaths a year -- and costs are to be considered during the implementation phase. (In part, this is a result of the unreliable nature of cost-benefit analysis, as described in this article from the American Prospect.) The Supreme Court could turn this long-held and highly successful standard on its head.

This Washington Post editorial argues, as we do, that the Supreme Court should strike down the lower court's ruling and uphold the current standard for devising clean air rules.

How Things Change

The National Nutrition Summit took place in Washington, DC, on May 30 and 31 last week. The first Summit, in 1969, concentrated on alleviating hunger in the United States and led to formation of the School Breakfast Program, the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and expansion of the Food Stamp and School Lunch efforts. The 2000 Summit had quite a different perspective -- its agenda was largely about attacking the "obesity epidemic" among Americans, promoting such initiatives as research on weight-loss diets to determine their effectiveness and a "Behavioral Nutrition Initiative" to determine why we eat donuts instead of our vegetables. Despite a valiant effort on the part of anti-hunger advocates, this Nutrition Summit gave the idea that in a little over 10 years the problem of hunger has been solved and we now must turn our attention to helping those who live in plenty stop being such gluttons.

While obesity and being overweight are serious problems, the emphasis of the Summit, reinforced by the media, gave the mistaken impression that hunger is no longer a real issue in these prosperous economic boom times. Citing the expansion of the benefits of WIC, the School Lunch Program, Food Stamps and Head Start to more and more Americans, the Summit failed to talk about how many eligible people never receive benefits. Sometimes this is because of a lack of information. Sometimes it is because, in spite of budget surpluses and the increasing capacity to effectively address hunger in the U.S., Congress fails to allocate enough money to serve all eligible people.

High housing costs, restrictions on Food Stamp eligibility, welfare reform forcing people into low-wage, low-benefit jobs, and inadequate outreach to low-income people who are eligible for supplemental nutrition programs, even if no more welfare benefits, have all contributed to the existence of many hungry people in the United States today. Additionally, the burden on local community food banks and soup kitchens is increasing, with the devolution of federal responsibility for its people falling on state and community services.

The Census Bureau estimates that 31 million Americans daily confront hunger or other "food insecurity." This includes 12 million children, who are moderately or severely hungry or live in families so economically marginal that parents are taking such steps as skipping meals so children can eat. The rate of poverty among children under 18 REMAINS one-third higher than it was thirty years ago.

Meanwhile, the budget surplus estimates just keep on getting higher and higher, along with the scales of well-off, too-well-fed Americans. Isn’t it time we addressed hunger again at the Nutrition Summit?

Americans Give $190-Billion to Charity

According to a report by Giving USA, Americans gave $190-billion to charity in 1999, an increase of 6.7% from 1998, when adjusted for inflation. Donations, however, are not increasing quite as fast as in previous years (9% from 1997 to 1998). Individual donations were by far the largest category: $159.3 billion, or 83.3%, with foundations (corporate and private) accounting for 16.2%, or $30.8 billion, of all donations.

The report provided an opportunity for groups, such as National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and National Network of Grantmakers (NNG), to discuss the importance of increasing the annual payout rates foundations must use. Currently, foundations must spend 5% of net investment assets each year; mostly, this is on grants. The payout campaign calls for raising this rate to 6%.

According to Foundation Center figures, foundation assets grew from $74 billion in 1984 to $329.9 billion in 1997, but grants as a percentage of assets dropped from an average of 6.8% in 1984 to 4.8% in 1997. These figures bolster the argument for increasing foundation payment. NNG argues the 1% increase in payment should be directed to social change issues such as addressing poverty. Their campaign is called "1% More for Democracy."

Possible Amendment to Carve-Out FOIA

As reported in the May 8th issue of the OMB Watcher Online, the "Cyber Security Information Act," (H.R. 4246), introduced by Reps. Tom Davis (R-VA) and Jim Moran (D-VA), would create a carve-out of the Freedom of Information Act by exempting information industry shares with the government on vaguely defined "critical infrastructure." FOIA already provides exemptions for information vital to the national defense, trade secrets, proprietary information, and law enforcement action. Allowing industry to carve a broadly defined chunk out of FOIA, with no clear process or oversight, threatens the government's ability to share information with the public and the public's right to know about unsafe practices.

The public interest community opposed the bill on grounds and the Administration was rumored to also be unsupportive. Now the FOIA exemption may find a home in another cyber security bill to be marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The "Internet Integrity and Critical Infrastructure Act," (S. 2448), introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), would extend federal jurisdiction over computer security cases previously considered too small to warrant federal involvement. Under the bill, small-time hackers would become federal felons; forfeiture laws would be amended to allow the government to seize a home containing a computer used in hacking; wiretap authority would be expanded; and the monetary damage threshold required for federal intervention -- currently $5,000 -- would be eliminated. The bill also includes some "privacy protections", which focus on data collection and disclosure of personal information by satellite TV providers and on the Internet. The bill could become the vehicle for a variety of amendments affecting online security and public access to information. For more information, visit the Center for Democracy and Technology Cyber Security site.

International Right-to-Know

The United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) hopes that the second meeting of Aarhus Convention signatories -- taking place July 3rd-5th in Dubrovnik, Croatia -- will move the ratification process along so that the Convention has force by the end of this year. The Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters -- also called the Aarhus Convention -- was adopted at a conference in Aarhus, Denmark in June of 1998. The Convention has been signed by 39 countries and the European Community, and ratified by 6 of the 16 countries needed to become enforceable.

The Aarhus Convention seeks to improve implementation of environmental protections based on models of sustainable development and to support public awareness of the environment through improved access to information and inclusion in the decision-making process. The Convention aims to further transparency in environmental decision-making but also advocates the principle of increased transparency in all branches of government. It addresses the importance of providing information through a variety of media, including electronically.

The International Health Ecology Access Links (IHEAL), which features a variety of right-to-know databases from around the world, is an international network created by non-governmental organizations to support the implementation of the Convention.

Computer Recycling for the Environment

More than 315 million computers are expected to be retired by 2004. While the rapid pace of technology continues unabated, public and private organizations are confronting a lack of storage space for this old equipment and throwing it in the trash could mean serious problems for the environment.

According to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, these 315 million computers will contains 1.2 billion pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of cadmium, 1.2 million pounds of hexavalent chromium, and 400,000 pounds of mercury. Monitors, in particular, are considered highly hazardous because of the amount of lead they contain.

People have begun searching for solutions to this potential hazard. The Environmental Protection Agency has brought together government and industry at the Electronic Product Recover and Recycling Roundtable. At the state level, Massachusetts is the first state to have banned personal disposal of monitors. There has also been a tremendous growth in the number of recycling firms. Computers are broken apart for precious metals and other usable parts or used in a variety of innovative ways -- from pothole filler to art projects. IBM has begun marketing computers with plastic recycled from other computers.

Another solution that people are pursuing is donation. Private citizens and organizations are collecting, repairing, and donating computers to schools and nonprofits. Share the Technology, an all volunteer nonprofit dedicated to putting computers into the hands of schools, nonprofits, and people with disabilities, has a computer donation database and lists other computer recycling projects around the country.

Tech Help: E-Mail Advocacy

E-mail increasingly makes the world go around, but the volume generated can make one's head spin. How then can this most basic of Internet-related tools be tamed to organize stakeholders and make voices heard on the Hill in an effective and responsible manner? Click here for our take on it.

Subscribe to NPTalk

Your comments are always welcomed!