The Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was released by the Department of Defense on November 30, 2010. The Report summarizes and interprets a pair of large-scale surveys of Service members and spouses hat was sponsored by DoD and conducted by WESTAT, a major consulting firm. Immediately thereafter, Congress took up the question whether to repeal the law on which the Department's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is based.
This post is about the Report's statistical back story, and why the conclusions given in the Report are unreliable as a guide for policy-making -- regardless of whether one prefers to repeal the law, retain the law, or replace it with a more stringent one. More...
The federal government's reported figures for jobs "created or saved" by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or "ARRA") are now known to be wrong. The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees these figures, apparently has decided not to correct them.
A scandal has erupted over the federal government's reporting of the number of jobs created or saved by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).
This scandal would have been avoided if the government had complied with the Information Quality Act.
The Washington Post reports today that the ranks of experts in nuclear weapons forensics is declining, and that the situation requires immediate action by government to avoid a crisis. More...
Harvard economics professor and former Bush administration chief economist Gregory Mankiw says in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that Congress should raise the gas tax.
With the midterm election around the corner, here's a wacky idea you won't often hear from our elected leaders: We should raise the tax on gasoline. Not quickly, but substantially. I would like to see Congress increase the gas tax by $1 per gallon, phased in gradually by 10 cents per year over the next decade.
He gives seven arguments for his proposed $1 per gallon increase in the gas tax: (1) carbon dioxide abatement, (2) reducing road congestion, (3) relief from counterproductive regulations, (4) balancing the federal budget, (5) burden-sharing with oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, (6) a preference for consumption over income taxes, and (7) enhanced national security.
Which of these arguments stands up to elementary economic scrutiny?
In June, the ad hoc National Academy of Sciences committee empaneled to review OMB's proposed risk assessment guidance asked several affected federal agencies to provide comments.
Neutral Source has copies of these comments in our Library.
On July 27, the National Research Council of the National Academies released a report concluding that while additional research should be performed, enough information exists for the Environmental Protection Agency to complete its risk assessment of trichloroethylene. EPA's 2001 draft risk assessment was highly controversial. Similar to what has happened after EPA published other controversial draft risk assessments, several other federal agencies joined with EPA to sponsor the NRC review (in this case, the Departments of Defense and Energy and NASA).
On June 28, staff of the National Academy of Sciences panel charged with reviewing
OMB's proposed risk assessment guidance sent OMB staff a letter "regarding
questions from the NRC Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin
for the federal agencies." The letter apparently included a list of questions
that committee members wanted affected agencies to address.
NAS posted a reference
to to this letter on the project web site but did not post a copy of the
letter iitself. Our request to OMB for a copy of the letter was denied, so today
we submitted a formal request for it under the Freedom of Information Act.
Neutral Source has obtained what we believe to be an accurate deception of
the attachment.
On July 19, the Senate
approved by roll call vote of 56-43 an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act of 2005 that would require peer review of water projects undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers.
More...
Sometimes, ex ante estimates seriously understate actual regulatory
compliance expenditures. This can occur because analysts are
overly
optimistic, because unforeseen complications arose, or because
unexpected political constraints intervened. All three
problems seem to apply in this case. But what's especially
interesting about it is that the regulated party that underestimated
compliance expenditures. More...
Two articles of interest appeared in the Washington Post Sunday "Opinion" section, one by reporter Michael
Grunwald and the second by freelance author John
Barry. Grunwald and Barry say the Army Corps of Engineers is
a failed civil works agency whose errors were responsible for the
flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Moreover,
they place the blame for the Corps' failure squarely on
Congress. More...
