Supreme Court says states can't require voters to provide proof of citizenship
The Supreme Court ruled June 17 that states cannot require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, but there could be a loophole that allows states to continue the fight. The 7 to 2 ruling (.pdf) rejected a 2004 Arizona law, known as Proposition 200.
The political appointee impulse for reorganizing
Political appointees tend easily to see their new agencies as nests of inefficiency only they can fix through reorganization.The fact of a new political appointee believing that only his or her unique box shuffling capabilities is capable of lifting the agency up to new heights of efficiency actually is such a shopworn cliché that it should have long ago been retired.
It isn't, because politicals insist on keeping it alive, injecting it with the sort of vigor they imagine they're bringing to their new agency. Read more...
House committee approves agriculture appropriations
The House Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal 2014 agriculture appropriations bill June 13 by a voice vote. The bill (.pdf) includes $19.5 billion in discretionary funding for programs related to food safety, nutrition, rural development and more. The committee said its funding was approximately equal to the current level after the sequestration cuts.
EEOC awards back pay and retroactive promotions to female DEA agents
The Drug Enforcement Administration must identify barriers to female agents moving up in the agency and lay out plans to eliminate them, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decision (.pdf) says in a decision for a class action complaint filed in 1993.
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New energy secretary offers vision for national labs
The national laboratories should emulate the Energy Department's innovation hubs, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said June 18 during a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. "This is the way the national labs, in my view, should do more of their business--with significant teams focused for an extended time on an important problem," Moniz said.
BLM may have lost $60 million in undervalued coal land leases, IG says
The Bureau of Land Management may have lost $60 million in undervalued leases of public lands to coal mining companies because it used its own land value assessors rather than the ones ordered by an Interior Department regulation, a June 11 Interior Department inspector general report (.pdf) says.
Tangherlini has easy confirmation hearing
Dan Tangherlini encountered no apparent opposition to his nomination to head the General Services Administration during his Senate confirmation hearing June 18. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he would vote to confirm Tangherlini, whom President Obama nominated for GSA administrator in May.
Violence against federal park employees rising, PEER says
Violance against federal employees who work in national parks and wildlife refuges rose dramatically in 2012 over 2011 levels, a statement by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says.
USPS halfway to greenhouse gas emissions goal
Greenhouse gas emissions by the Postal Service declined by 9.9 percent from fiscal 2008 to 2012, the letter annual sustainability report says. Transportation accounted for more than half of the agency's emissions in 2012. Facility energy consumed about a quarter, and the agency attributed another 17 percent to its employees' commutes.
From Our Sister Sites
The National Security Agency doesn't collect information directly from Verizon and T-Mobile USA due to their foreign ownership ties, a June 14 Wall Street Journal report says. But that doesn't mean the NSA fails to intercept that information , the report says, as officials believe they can still capture the metadata on 99 percent of U.S. phone traffic because most calls eventually travel through networks owned by U.S. companies that have been cooperating with the NSA.
The Obama administration is seeking to promote more sharing of wireless spectrum in a series of actions outlined in a June 14 presidential memo. Agencies will be required to consider spectrum efficiency when procuring spectrum-dependent systems and hardware, the memo says.
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