Robert's US Government Info Blog December 2007 Archive

When a Siberian tiger escaped from its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day, killing a teenager before being itself killed by police, many people incorrectly assumed that ... Read More

Joint Russian and U.S. efforts to dispose of a dangerous remnant of the Cold War, excess nuclear weapons-grade plutonium, are proceeding rapidly, according to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear ... Read More

Are too many of the billions of your taxpayer dollars being spent by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on technology to prevent another 9/11 terrorist attack being spent on ... Read More

Lt. Gen. James B. Peake (Ret.), M.D. has taken over command as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, replacing former secretary Jim Nicholson. Nicholson stepped down after acknowledging that ... Read More

There was a time when the federal government was not only happy to allow a state to exceed its minimum requirements for improving air quality, it sometimes required it. Those ... Read More

With 284 miles of anti-illegal immigrant fencing already in place along the southwest border, the Department of Homeland Security plans to finish another 670 miles of fencing by the end ... Read More

Congress has passed a bill extending funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) program until March 31, 2009, without providing expanded funds necessary to provide health insurance coverage ... Read More

About 80,000 (five percent) of the 1.5 million victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita who received disaster assistance owe a combined total of over $700 million in unpaid federal taxes, ... Read More

On December 15, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent at the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso, Texas, seized 789 pounds of marijuana hidden in, of all places, ... Read More

On the 243rd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, citizens of the District of Columbia recreated the American Colonists' protest against taxation without representation. If anybody has a right to ... Read More

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will, on Dec. 21, 2007, begin testing formaldehyde levels in trailers and mobile homes used since August ... Read More

In the U.S. federal judicial system, one court alone operates in almost total secrecy, its deliberations and decisions closed to the public. Created in 1978, the eleven judges of the ... Read More

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) has voted unanimously to make retroactive its new crack cocaine offense guidelines, allowing judges to hand down reduced sentences in crack cocaine cases. Under the ... Read More

A lucky group of Texas inmates will get to care for puppies destined to serve as bomb-sniffing dogs for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). The inmates, currently serving time in the ... Read More

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has started collecting the prints from all 10 fingers, rather than just two, of international visitors to the U.S. arriving Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International ... Read More

One in 31 U.S. adults was either in jail, or on probation or parole at the end of 2006, reports the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The 7.2 million men ... Read More

A sharply divided Senate Judiciary Committee has given its approval to a bill requiring public sessions of the U.S. Supreme Court to be televised. In an 11-7 vote the Judiciary Committee ... Read More

On December 4, the Department of Transportation (DOT) reported that its recent enforcement actions had succeeded in prompting U.S. airlines to begin correcting chronically delayed flights. But on the same ... Read More

The Pentagon has backed up a White House estimate that as many as 200,000 civilian military workers may be laid off without pay before Christmas, unless Congress passes a bill ... Read More

Thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina will continue to have their rent paid by the federal government through at least March 1, 2009, according to the Department of Housing and ... Read More

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just published its first ever nationwide list of poor-performing nursing homes (.pdf). Identified as special focus facilities (SFFs), the nursing homes on ... Read More

The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has announced the development of a material so good at repelling water, it displays what its inventor calls the "Moses effect." According ... Read More

American Indian tribal communities are eligible for a wide range of federal assistance IF, and only if, they can attain official recognition as a historically established Indian tribe. To qualify, ... Read More