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July 10, 2007
Headlines - White House Claims Executive Privilege as Congressional Investigation into U.S. Attorney Firings Continues
- Government Oversight Committee Hearing on the Surgeon General's Vital Mission
- International Journal of Electronic Governance
- GAO Review of DHS Critical Infrastructure Plans Finds Continued Vulnerabilities
- FTC Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions
- Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Cuts Funds for VP's Office
- OMB Adds New Features to Earmarks Database
- New Version of OSCAR Improves Law Clerk Application Process
- Special IG for Iraq Reconstruction Audit - Logistics Civil Augmentation Program Task Order 130: Requirements Validation, Government Oversight, and Contractor Performance
- DOE Report: Short-Term Energy Outlook July 2007
- USGS Report Identifies Asbestos Localities in the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S.
 White House Claims Executive Privilege as Congressional Investigation into U.S. Attorney Firings Continues Press release: "The White House sent a letter [July 9, 2007] to Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) reiterating its assertion of executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas, but declining to provide a complete basis for its assertion. Chairman Leahy's comment on the letter." Attorney for former White House counsel Harriet Miers states in letter to House Judiciary Chair Rep. John Conyers that his client will "comply" with the "assertion of executive privilege" by President Bush. Remarks Of Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The U.S. Attorney Investigation, U.S. Senate Floor, July 9, 2007: "...From the outset of this scandal the President has spoken about the firing of U.S. attorneys as if it were a matter handled and decided by the Attorney General and something Mr. Gonzales would have to explain to Congress and the American people...When we had the Attorney General testify under oath, he did not know who added U.S. attorneys to the list of those to be fired or the reasons they were added. Indeed, the bottom line of the sworn testimony from the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Attorney General's former Chief of Staff, the White House liaison and other senior Justice Department officials was that, while the President was not involved in the decision-making that led to the unprecedented firings of several well-performing prosecutors, they were not responsible either..." Q&A About Contempt of Congress - AP: "Congress and the White House appear headed for a showdown over President Bush's decision to invoke executive privilege to deny documents to House and Senate committees and prevent former aides from testifying about the firing of U.S. attorneys." Government Oversight Committee Hearing on the Surgeon General's Vital Mission "On Tuesday, July 10, the Committee held a hearing focusing on the importance of the Surgeon General's Office, the need to preserve the Surgeon General's independence, and recent limitations on the Surgeon General's ability to carry out its public health education mission." The Surgeon General's Vital Mission: Challenges for the Future - Chairman Waxman's Opening Statement
Following is the testimony of three former Surgeons General: C. Everett Koop, M.D., Sc.D. David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. Richard Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S.
International Journal of Electronic Governance "International publisher Inderscience is pleased to announce the publication of the first issue of International Journal of Electronic Governance. The journal focuses on the use of electronic and information technologies in deliberation over democratic policy and decision making processes, community governance as well as governance in non-political domains such as corporate, open project, online community and social network contexts. It also explores the relations between electronic governance, digital communication and digital inclusion, novel technologies for electronic governance such as governance games and simulations, and the political, organisational, social, psychological and cognitive aspects of electronic governance. A free download of the papers from this first issue is available here." [thanks to Peggy Garvin] GAO Review of DHS Critical Infrastructure Plans Finds Continued Vulnerabilities Critical Infrastructure Protection: Sector Plans and Sector Councils Continue to Evolve, GAO-07-706R, July 10, 2007. "In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, damaging critical infrastructure, such as oil platforms, pipelines, and refineries; water mains; electric power lines; and cellular phone towers. The infrastructure damage and resulting chaos disrupted government and business functions alike, producing cascading effects far beyond the physical location of the storm. Our nation's critical infrastructures and key resources--including those cyber and physical assets essential to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety--continue to be vulnerable to a wide variety of threats." FTC Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions: "A two-day conference that will bring together experts from the business, government, and technology sectors, consumer advocates, and academics to explore consumer protection issues surrounding spam, phishing and malware. The agenda and a list of participants can be found here." Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Cuts Funds for VP's Office Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government today approved SGW 112, "A bill making appropriations for the Department of the Treasury, District of Columbia, The Judiciary, Executive Office of the President and related agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes..." AP: "A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president's budget until Cheney's office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information." OMB Adds New Features to Earmarks Database On July 10, 2007 the OMB Earmarks Database "Added earmarks contained in selected authorization bills resulting in expenditures in FY 2005...[and] estimates on the number and cost of earmarks in the individual FY 2008 Appropriations bills as they move through the legislative process." OMB press release with additional information on earmarks database. New Version of OSCAR Improves Law Clerk Application Process The Third Branch: "A new version of OSCAR, the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review, is now available to law schools, clerkship applicants, and judges nationwide. The upgrade incorporates several new features that promise to make the system even easier to use. Nationwide, over 750 federal appellate, district, bankruptcy, and magistrate judges use OSCAR to select their law clerks and approximately 200 law schools provide access to the system for their students and administrators ... Participating judges are posted on the Federal Law Clerk Information System at https://lawclerks.ao.uscourts.gov as well as on the OSCAR website." Special IG for Iraq Reconstruction Audit - Logistics Civil Augmentation Program Task Order 130: Requirements Validation, Government Oversight, and Contractor Performance Logistics Civil Augmentation Program Task Order 130: Requirements Validation, Government Oversight, and Contractor Performance, June 22, 2007 (71 pages, PDF) "The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) performed a review, at the request of the Management Counselor, U.S. Embassy-Iraq, to determine whether the U.S. government is receiving the services paid for under the U.S. Department of the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) Task Order 130 and whether the support provided is reasonable, efficient, and cost effective. The focus of this review is LOGCAP Task Order 130, awarded April 27, 2006, to Kellogg Brown and Root Services Inc., (KBR), to provide services necessary to support, operate, and maintain the Chief of Mission and Multi-National Force-Iraq staffs located at the U.S. Embassy-Iraq, and at other Chief of Mission sites within Iraq located in Baghdad, Basra, Hilla and Kirkuk." DOE Report: Short-Term Energy Outlook July 2007 Short-Term Energy Outlook July 2007 (07/10/2007) - "Quarterly short-term energy projections for supply, demand, and price for the major fuels through 2008 for the U.S. International oil forecasts are included." Annual Oil Market Chronology 2006 (07/09/2007) - "For information about the latest developments in world oil markets, please see the updated Annual Oil Market Chronology. The report contains details of events that occurred in 2006." Monthly Energy Chronology June 2007 (07/09/2007) - "For information about the latest developments in world energy markets, please see the updated Monthly Energy Chronology. The report contains details of events that occurred in June 2007." USGS Report Identifies Asbestos Localities in the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. "A report published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) contains a regional map and associated database that inventory 61 locations of reported natural asbestos and fibrous amphibole occurrences in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States, including the states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The map is based on a search of scientific literature and does not identify any new occurrences of asbestos. It is the third in a series which originated in 2005 with a similar report for the Eastern United States and was followed in 2006 by a product that encompasses the Central United States. USGS Open File Report 2007-1182, " Reported Historic Asbestos Mines, Historic Asbestos Prospects, and Natural Asbestos Occurrences in the Rocky Mountain States of the United States (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming)," corrects inaccurate locality information in previously published maps and data compilations at regional and national scales and includes additional published natural asbestos occurrences that appear in historic literature. This report is part of an ongoing effort to update existing national-scale databases on asbestos occurrences."
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