Friday, October 14, 2011

Government News Has Moved

Government News has moved to http://montanagovinfo.blogspot.com/ .
This page will no longer be updated

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Banking/ Jones Act


Banking

From the New York Times: “The number of banks on the government's list of institutions most at risk for failure fell in the second quarter, the first drop since before the financial crisis began.”

Quarterly Banking Profile- Second Quarter
The Quarterly Banking Profile is a quarterly publication that provides the earliest comprehensive summary of financial results for all FDIC-insured institutions”- FDIC

From the New York Times: “The Dodd-Frank Act requires that the Federal Reserve weigh the systemic risk of the combined company.”

Dodd-Frank Act

Jones Act

From the New York Times: “In its hurry to transport millions of barrels of oil from federal stockpiles to stabilize world oil prices earlier this summer, the Obama administration has repeatedly bypassed federal law by allowing nearly all the oil to move on foreign-owned vessels, drawing protests from domestic maritime operators.”

Congressional Research Service Report RS21566 The Jones Act: An Overview

U.S.C. TITLE 46, APPENDIX App. > CHAPTER 24 > § 883
Transportation of merchandise between points in United States in other than domestic built or rebuilt and documented vessels; incineration of hazardous waste at sea

Fire


From the Missoulian: "Pushed by heavy winds late Monday, the Saddle fire in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness grew by almost 10,000 acres in a day."

Montana Incident Information

NASA

NASA'S Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

FDA

From the New York Times: “The landmark food safety law passed by Congress last December is supposed to reduce the frequency and severity of food safety problems, but the roll call of recent cases underlines the magnitude of the task.”

FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

Monday, August 22, 2011

Cloud Computing

From the New York Times: “Before cost-cutting became fashionable in Washington, Vivek Kundra, the White House’s chief information officer, was working to shrink the federal government’s enormous budget for information technology.”

U.S. Chief Information Officer: Federal Cloud Computing Strategy

Friday, August 19, 2011

National Archives/ Security Exchange Commission

From the New York Times: “More than a year after a whistle-blower said that the Securities and Exchange Commission was illegally destroying records of preliminary investigations, the commission has yet to agree with government archivists on which records to keep and which to discard.”

National Archives SEC Statement

“In July 2010, the National Archives contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding an allegation that the SEC had been destroying files pertaining to Matters Under Inquiry (MUI) for the past 17 years.”

National Institutes of Health

NIH-commissioned study identifies gaps in NIH funding success rates for black researchers “Black applicants from 2000-2006 were 10 percentage points less likely than white applicants to be awarded research project grants from the National Institutes of Health after controlling for factors that influence the likelihood of a grant award, according to an NIH-commissioned study in the journal Science.”

Syria

Statement by President Obama on the Situation in Syria
“The United States opposes the use of violence against peaceful protesters in Syria, and we support the universal rights of the Syrian people. We have imposed sanctions on President Assad and his government."

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Taxes

From the New York Times: “Based on projections by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office and the Treasury, the tax increase on all three fronts would generate as much as $500 billion in new revenue over the next decade — about a third of what the Congressional committee is supposed to cut from the deficit.”

Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options
“Federal revenues come from taxes on individual and corporate income, payroll taxes for social insurance programs (such as Social Security and unemployment compensation), excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, remittances from the Federal Reserve System, customs duties, and miscellaneous fees and fines. The two largest sources are individual income taxes and social insurance taxes, which together produce more than 80 percent of the government's revenues.” - Congressional Budget Office