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Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been outed as the senator who placed a heretofore anonymous hold on proposed legislation (S. 2590) to require the creation of a single, comprehensive, searchable, Web-based database of federal spending information. The revelation comes after a swarm of bloggers (including those at TPMmuckraker and Porkbusters) deluged senators' offices with calls in an effort to uncover who was holding up the bill. Stevens, a spokesman says, wants to make sure that the bill doesn't create an "unnecessary layer of bureaucracy." That may or may not be the only reason he opposes the measure (since Stevens has a track record of supporting controversial spending measures, he may simply want to avoid exposing them to the light of day) but it is a valid concern.

After all, the federal government already publishes several publicly accessible databases of information on federal spending, including the Census Bureau’s Federal Assistance Award Data System the General Services Administration’s Federal Procurement Data System, and the Health and Human Services Department's Grants.gov site. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that S. 2590 would cost $15 million by 2007. Does anyone think for that amount of money we're actually going to get a simple, useable database of all the money the government spends? I have my doubts. But we can all be certain that what we'll get is yet another large reporting burden for federal agencies.

As many as one in five military service members are making use of loan centers that charge 400 percent or more in interest on short-term loans, USA Today reports. "Payday loan" centers have sprung up near military bases in recent years, and some service members who have used them have fallen deeply into debt. When that happens, they can lose their security clearances, meaning they can't deploy to war zones. The Senate has already voted to limit the amount of interest lenders can charge members of the armed forces.

The Los Angeles Times reports that multimillionaire Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune with the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, "is part of a new breed of entrepreneurs out to break the government monopoly on space exploration." How does he think he can do it? By launching a series of inflatable space modules to serve as hotels, conference centers, and sporting complexes.

The National Treasury Employees Union has some suggestions for how to spend your Labor Day holiday:

• Visit a labor exhibit at a local museum or tour the Labor Hall of Fame at the U.S. Department of Labor.


• Listen to labor songs on the Smithsonian Folkways web site.


• Check the labels the next time you shop and buy a union-made product.


• Watch a pro-union movie, like Norma Rae.


• Relax. Having time off from work to spend with family and friends was an early goal of the labor movement.

OPM seems to be having some trouble making up its mind on whether it's going to propose new legislation that would enable agencies to require employees to telework under certain circumstances. GovExec's Daniel Pulliam reported that on July 18, at a House Government Reform subcommittee hearing, Daniel Green, deputy associate director of OPM for employee and family support, said that the agency was considering proposing a bill that essentially would allow agencies to force employees to telework during a pandemic health crisis.

But Government Computer News reported this week that Green was backtracking from that statement, saying that the agency has "no plan to pursue additional legislation on telework" and that the comments he made before the subcommittee had been "mischaracterized." An OPM spokesman told GCN that the "bottom line is, there never was legislation [planned] and there will never be any."

Now, Daniel reports, a quick call over to OPM finds the agency returning to Green's original position. A spokesman said OPM is working on legislation to revise teleworking rules for government agencies and that Green's statement before the subcommittee still stands.

Isn't it about time for the buzz phrase "human capital" to be replaced by some other term? It's certainly starting to wear a little thin--and when you really think about it, is as absurd as it's ever been. Witness the title of a Government Accountability Office report issued today: "Special Operations Forces: Several Human Capital Challenges Must Be Addressed to Meet Expanded Role." These forces, as the report notes, are "specially organized, trained, and equipped to conduct operations in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments." In other words, they are a pretty special and critically important group of real, actual, living, breathing people--not "human capital."

OMB's Clay Johnson is busy keeping it real. The deputy director for management has updated the "Potomac Fever" section of the White House Web site on the President's Management Agenda. The new section expands on the list of symptoms of the malady, which, in general, involve an inflated sense of self-importance. Sufferers "may get upset at related industry gatherings when other people don't immediately know who he/she is," Johnson wrote in the original section, and "may be continually focused on his or her next position/appointment." But another symptom is apparently failing to utterly subordinate oneself to the president and his agenda. For example, Johnson says, one should never refer to himself as "the assistant secretary" of a department, but rather as "President Bush's assistant secretary." And his symptoms of Potomac Fever include forgetting who appointed you to your position and that you serve at the pleasure of the president. The cure? "Frequently listen to or reading the president's vision for America." (Studying the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush works, too, Johnson says.)

In the updated list of symptoms, Johnson also admonishes Bush team members against excessive concerns about office space and the tendency to send assistants to meetings. And he cautions them not to attack the career civil service, noting that Bush team members have said that Potomac Fever also is characterized by holding an attitude of " 'Them' as in career staff versus 'Us' as in political appointees." (Thanks to K.P. for the tip on this item.)

The Federal Aviation Administration has added a second controller to the overnight shift at Lexington, Ky., Blue Grass Airport following a deadly plane crash over the weekend. An FAA spokesperson "declined to give a reason for the decision," AP reports. I can think of one: To help keep other planes from trying to take off on a runway that's too short.

The Army has had its share of troubles paying National Guard members in a timely fashion, but some reservists who never even bothered to answer the call to active duty have had no problem receiving their pay. The Government Accountability Office has confirmed that at least seven Army Reserve soldiers assigned to the 1004th Quartermaster Company in Greensburg, Pennsylvania received improper payments totaling $195,000 after they failed to report for duty. Another 68 soldiers -- 38 with the Army Guard and 30 with the Army Reserve -- continued to receive military pay totaling $684,000 even after they were charged with desertion.

I guess the words "best" and "final" don't mean what I thought they did.

You've got to hand it to ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown: he's not giving an inch in his long-running campaign to rehabilitate his image. Rather than hiding on the Katrina anniversary, he's out there on TV, guns blazing, arguing that if he'd only been given the money, everything would've been fine in the Katrina response. Sure, that's a stretch, but it's hard to blame somebody who was made the fall guy for a whole series of shortcomings in disaster planning.

The Federal Executive Board Web site is back online. Well, sort of. The Office of Personnel Management launched a “Federal Executive Board web portal” Friday night in an attempt to replace the old Web site that was defaced by hackers earlier this month. In the meantime, several regional FEB sites remain offline, including Boston, Chicago and New York City. FEB sites not hosted by OPM, such as Los Angeles, remain online.

No word from OPM on how hackers were able to deface the site, why it's taking so long to repair the damage, and or whether a criminal investigation is being conducted.--Daniel Pulliam

President Bush sent happy 90th birthday greetings to the National Park Service Friday, along with a call for Americans to help fix up the parks in time for the 100th anniversary celebration. The agency certainly can use all the help it can get.

Levy Miller, a firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management in Salmon, Idaho, is accused of being a little too entrepreneurial in drumming up work for his agency. He's been charged with convincing a friend to start a brush fire on the city's outskirts, possibly to create work for federal fire crews, AP reports.

Fedblog is off to the mountains of Colorado for the remainder of the week. We'll be back on Monday.

If you're going to take on a big-name blogger like Instapundit, the least you can do is get the name of the place where he works right. (I'm referring to my Outlook column Monday. Look for the correction in the right column to see what I'm talking about.) Otherwise, you just give him ammunition to get you back. Jeez.

Congress has already approved $122 billion in Katrina-related spending, USA Today reports, and there's no end in sight. Rebuilding infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region will cost billions of dollars a year for several years. But New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says the city hasn't seen much of the money yet. "People think New Orleans is wallowing in dough, and we have money coming out of our ears," Nagin told AP. But he says bureaucratic tangles have held up the funds.

You can't say that TSA isn't being specific about their new restrictions on what can be carried aboard airplanes. The latest list of permitted and prohibited items is exhaustive. Some examples: Gel bras are OK, but gel deodorant has to go in the checked baggage. Lip gloss is out, but solid lipstick is in. Corkscrews, razors and scissors all are no problem--as is my personal favorite on the list: "toy Transformer robots."

Every day, I get messages from companies asking us to write about their products. Usually, I can understand why they think our readers might be interested in what they do, but sometimes I just end up scratching my head. Witness the message reproduced below that appeared in my in-box this morning:

Hi:

I'm not sure if you're the right person to send this information to, but our company has recently had a very successful commercial trial of our Ozone odor control technology at a mushroom composting operation in Ontario. We originally developed this system to combat hog barn odors, poultry barns and other agricultural operations and we felt the system performed remarkably well. Then the University of British Columbia in conjunction with the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture did some testing with an odor panel on a scaled-down system. They concluded that we had killed the odors from a mushroom composting operation. The full-scale commercial trial in Ontario was a result of partnering with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Mushroom Growers Association and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. This test proved that we had killed odors from the composting.

If you are interested, please have a look at the link at:
http://www.envronozone.com/Odor%20Control/odor_control.htm.

In an Outlook column today, I come to the defense of bureaucracy. The responses are already starting to come in. Here's an intriguing counterpoint from someone who, unlike me, has a lot of experience within the bureaucracy itself (and who asked to remain nameless):

As someone with twenty-one years in federal government...I think you greatly underestimate how ineffective the big government bureaucracies have become. Two traits - looking at the narrow interest of one's turf rather than the larger pictures and making rules so voluminous no speed reader could keep up with them - alone help account for the Katrina response, the failure to share information before 9/11, and the general inability of government to be cost effective these day. For starters, one could look at federal procurement rules, which seem intent to prevent anyone from buying goods and service that are high quality and low cost. Then, one could turn to appointing political managers on political connections and rarely taking into account management competence. And on and on. These are problems that have been most apparent at FEMA, but are very widespread.

If you go back to the 90's, I had the opportunity to observe that the Coast Guard engaged in serious strategic planning and rethought how they were delivering customer service. It paid off. I am delighted to see them get the kudos they richly deserved. Unfortunately, they are not typical. Their effectiveness doesn't blunt the lack of performance elsewhere. It just shows what would be possible if other agencies were as innovative.

A travel industry trade group is urging the federal government to delay putting into effect new rules requiring Americans traveling from Canada, Mexico, Panama and the Caribbean to present passports to return to the United States, the New York Times reports. The group says the government hasn't done enough to publicize the new requirements, which are scheduled to begin go into effect in January. The State Department says hundreds of public meetings have been held on the issue and that passport applications have surged as a result. Besides, State and Homeland Security officials argue, it's Congress that mandated the change. But some senators already have voiced second thoughts.

Before this year's Oscars, the IRS reminded stars that if they wanted to pick up the traditional gift bag at the ceremony -- reportedly worth more than $100,000 -- that they should be prepared to pay taxes on the swag. Now the agency has launched an outreach campaign to the motion picture industry to make the point again. Under an agreement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, next year recipients of the Oscar bags will receive, in addition to the usual trinkets, a bunch of tax forms. “There’s no special red-carpet tax loophole for the stars,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" Everson. “Whether you’re popping the popcorn, sitting in the audience or starring on the big screen, you need to respect the law and pay your taxes.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service has a solution for those fed up with problem geese and the huge amounts of droppings they leave behind: Kill 'em.

The United States government has slipped a spot in the world-wide rankings for electronic government compiled by Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy. Researchers analyzed nearly 200 countries to come up with the rankings. The Republic of Korea jumped into first place from 86th last year, while United States dropped from third to fourth. Following Korea are Taiwan and Singapore.

Within the United States, the General Services Administration’s FirstGov.gov’s portal received the top ranking, followed by the Web sites of the Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development departments. --Daniel Pulliam

Veteran Border Patrol agents tell the Washington Times they have been assigned to stay within five minutes of the very National Guard troops who have been sent to the border to relieve them. The border agents refer to the duty as the "nanny patrol."

The Los Angeles Times has a very interesting story today on Francis Collins, who happens to be both a born-again Christian and the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, where he oversees 550 employees and a $480 million annual budget. Collins explores the relationship between science and religion in his new book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

The federal government shouldn't let Apple Computer, maker of the ubiquitous iPod devices, get full trademark rights over the word "pod," argues Paul Alan Levy, an attorney at the interest group Public Citizen. Among his reasons is this delightfully geeky one: "Star Wars fans would have to stop talking about podracing or All Terrain Attack Pods."

Marta Brito Pérez, associate director of the Human Capital Leadership and Merit System Accountability Division at the Office of Personnel Management, is up for a promotion. Yesterday, President Bush announced he would appoint her to be chief human capital officer at the Homeland Security Department. Prior to joining OPM, Pérez was director of the Office of Human Resources of the Montgomery County, Md., government.

The DEA has uncovered the latest in heroin trafficking: two-for-one sales and home delivery.

I received the following e-mail early this morning, which I feel compelled to post in its entirety, unedited:

Your recent article involving a meeting in Nashville Tennessee found me
agast, while upper management discusses ways to communicate with other
interagencies in reference to terrorism, they failed to notice the large
influx of Iraqies that have invaded Nashville, taking over such employment
in the Cab Businesses and other public transportation areas, they are able
to monitor from all sectors of the city and like the ones I observed could
call each other on several cell phones in thier possesion, speaking in thier
native tongues they are brief and to the point. I live in Northern Georgia
and required transportation to Nashville, The VA sent a cab service to pick
me up just south of Chattanooga and for 3 hours I listened as my driver
talked to many different people via his many cell phones, I also had to
listen to him explain the Koran and his religious beliefs. This only raised
my level of awareness of his and many others involved in his group. I
reported this to the VA upon my arrival, nothing was done other than the
transportation personal calling the dispatcher of the cab company and
complain of the cab driver pushing his religion on me. When it was time to
return home I recieved yet another arab speaking driver who like the first
had many cell phones, and for 3 hours the driver spoke to 30 different
people on 12 different phones. I really don't think these people are family
and he's not calling to ask whats for dinner.
You have too many people talking about it and doing little to improve our
security. Start taking a look right under your noses and see whats going on.

The sad saga of the FEMA trailers on the Gulf Coast continues. Now the agency says it will replace locks on up to 118,000 trailers after finding out that the same key could open many of them.

These kind of polls are done all the time, but they're always entertaining. The Washington Times reports that pollster John Zogby has found that 77 percent of Americans can identify two of the Seven Dwarfs, but only 24 percent can name two Supreme Court justices. Clarence Thomas was the most oft-cited justice, followed by Antonin Scalia. Sleepy was the most frequently named Dwarf, followed by Dopey, Grumpy and Sneezy.

"We're never going to stop them, never. This was happening before I was born, and it will be happening long after I am gone. There is no way to shut the river down."

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute is making quite a cottage industry these days out of flogging data on federal vs. private sector compensation. He started in the spring by noting that if you factor both pay and benefits into the equation, average federal compensation is a lot better than that of the private sector as a whole. Then he got more recent data and came up with the great news hook that federal pay and benefits are now twice as lucrative as the private-sector average. That story sold far and wide.

Now, this weekend, Edwards turned up with an op-ed of his own on the subject in the Washington Post

So far, in challenging the Edwards thesis, federal employees and their supporters have focused on two things:

• The argument that matching the mostly white-collar federal workforce against the entire private economy amounts to an apples-to-oranges comparison.


• An attack on the underlying Edwards contention that the American government shouldn't bother trying to recruit and retain the best and brightest with an attractive compensation package.

When it comes to kicking gays out of the military, the Army's Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri is leading the way, AP reports. Sixty soldiers at the base were discharged for violations of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy last year, up from 40 the year before. The second-highest number of discharges was at at Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee line, where 49 people were dismissed.

The Census Bureau is looking ahead to Unmarried and Single Americans Week in September. The bureau helpfully provides some facts and figures about the single life:

• 89.8 million Number of unmarried and single Americans in 2005.


• 54% Percentage of unmarried and single Americans who are women.


• 60% Percentage of unmarried and single Americans who have never been married. Another 25 percent are divorced and 15 percent are widowed.


• 86 Number of unmarried men age 18 and older for every 100 unmarried women in the United States.


• 904 Number of dating services nationwide as of 2002. These establishments, which include Internet dating services, employed nearly 4,300 people and pulled in $489 million in revenues.
  

Congratulations to John Gage, who has won a second term as president of the American Federation of Government Employees. In other union election news, J. David Cox, formerly the first vice president of AFGE's National Veterans Affairs Council, was elected national secretary-treasurer and
Andrea Brooks won another term as vice president for women’s and fair practices.

After the anouncement yesterday that British officials had broken up an alleged plot to attack aircraft traveling from Britain to the United States, President Bush denounced the "Islamic fascists" who have masterminded such attacks. But he also had his mind on another geopolitical enemy: kleptocracy--that is, high-level corruption by senior government officials. In a separate statement, Bush said the practice "is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values." To do someting about it, the administration has unveiled a new National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts against Kleptocracy.

Hip-hop star Jay-Z is into music, fashion and, now, water. But government's just not his area of interest. Yesterday, Jay-Z appeared with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan talk about the problem of access to clean water in the developing world. But when asked by a reporter from Inner City Press about the pros and cons of privatization of water systems, he responded, "I don't want to disrespect anybody, but what you're talking about is bureaucracy. I don't have any expertise in that field. That's not my thing."

How much space does a captive elephant need? USDA wants to know.

On the scale of reprehensible behavior, where would you rank shooting at dolphins?

In today's laptop theft news, the Transportation Department inspector general's office reports that a computer containing "personally identifiable information of some Florida residents" was taken from a government vehicle in Miami.

By the way, VA Secretary James Nicholson's job appears to be safe for now, despite yesterday's call from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for Nicholson to quit in the wake of revelations of yet another VA data theft. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho, issued a statement today saying that unless Nicholson walks off with a VA laptop himself, he shouldn't be forced out. "A computer was stolen from a private contractor's highly secured office building," Craig said. "I am fairly confident that Jim Nicholson did not break in and steal that computer. A criminal did."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called on Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson to resign Tuesday amid reports of the latest VA data breach. Reid isn't the first Democrat to demand Nicholson's resignation, but he's certainly the most prominent. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., called for Nicholson's head in the wake of the first VA data theft, but at the urging of House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., he ratcheted down his rhetoric, particularly after Nicholson promised to make the VA the "gold standard" for information security.--Daniel Pulliam

Here's what biophysicist Carlos Bustamante of the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory does for a living: twists and stretches DNA molecules with magnetic tweezers. He and other researchers figured that doing so would cause the DNA's famed double helix to unwind. But it turns out that's not true -- even if you take a DNA molecule from inside the nucleus of a cell, where it measures about a millionth of an inch across, and stretch it out to three feet in length.

David C. Faison, of Largo, Md., worked at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for more than 30 years, and it may have taken just that long for temptation to get the better of him. AP reports that Faison appeared in court yesterday on charges that he stole ten sheets of $100 bills earlier this year and used them to gamble at casinos in three states.

In 1986, at least 24 U.S. senators and representatives were closely related to governors or other members of Congress, USA Today reports. Today, more than 50 are -- including four sets of siblings, four widows, dozens of offspring, and the wives of a former Senate majority leader and a former president. "If you're a baker, you leave a bakery" to your children, says Stephen Hess, author of America's Political Dynasties. "If you're a politician, you give them a nice gerrymandered district."

Sometimes, it's no fun to be in the majority. Most Americans, it turns out, are like me: They don't have any idea of when or how often they should start getting routine cancer screening tests, the National Cancer Institute reports.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced today that Chairwoman Cari M. Dominguez will step down on Aug. 31, at the end of her five-year term. Vice Chair Naomi Earp will take the helm of the agency as acting chair.