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Latest Policy Publications
POGO’s experts push policymakers to enact commonsense reforms that tackle waste, corruption, and abuse of power; hold those who’ve violated the public trust accountable; protect our constitutional rights; and make the government work for all people.
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Policy Letter
POGO letter to Rep. Neil Abercrombie regarding appropriated funds to support defense industry lobby efforts to detract support from amendment to the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act
Today we received an email sent from a government computer showing that Department of Defense (DOD) officials appear to have used appropriated funds to support defense industry lobby efforts to detract support from your amendment to the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act.
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Testimony
Written Statement of Danielle Brian, Executive Director, before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services
For the past twenty years, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has worked with whistleblowers to expose waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. We always advise potential whistleblowers that the safest course in exposing wrongdoing is to make their evidence p...
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Public Comment
POGO Public Comment on NRC Proposal to Limit Public Oversight in Nuclear Reactor Licensing Hearings
The Project on Government Oversight supports the Nuclear Information and Resource Service campaign to defend current reactor licensing procedures over proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) changes to the adjudicatory process, and urges the NRC to reevaluate the need for...
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Testimony
Written Testimony of Danielle Brian, Royalty-in-Kind Provisions of the Energy Bill
Industry has claimed that royalty-in-kind programs will end disputes over the fees they owe for drilling oil and gas from federal and Indian lands. Under royalty-in-kind, companies pay in barrels of oil (or units of gas) rather than in dollars. The Department of Interior has c...
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Policy Letter
Taxpayer, Environmental and Union Groups Support Amendment to Ensure Oil Companies Pay Fair Share
In June, 2000 the Minerals Management Service (MMS) implemented a final oil valuation rule that collects $70 million more from oil companies for drilling on federal and Indian lands. As a result, the oil industry's decades-long practice of shortchanging the taxpayers was ended.
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Testimony
Written Testimony of POGO’s Danielle Brian before the House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management, and Intergovernmental Affairs
Today we are talking about waste, fraud, and abuse at the Department of Defense - the agency that can't account for one in four dollars it spends. I know defenders of DOD accounting procedures claim that this is an unfair criticism - that the missing $1.1 trillion is only a pa...
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Analysis
Hew Study Challenges Orthodoxy of Rumsfeld Defense Review
This study explores an alternative. Dr. Richards argues that by returning to the historical roots of strategy — people, ideas, and hardware, in that order — U.S. military leaders can break out of the "dollars equal defense" mindset, and create forces more effective f...
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Policy Letter
POGO Letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Recommending Cancellation of the Army’s Crusader Program
We applaud the decision of your advisory panel that recommended cancellation of the Army's Crusader program and the modernization of others. We hope you will accept the panel's recommendations and move to eliminate overpriced, under tested, cold-war weapons that are not consis...
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Report
At the Federal Election Commission Things Don’t Add Up
The building blocks for campaign finance disclosure–identifying who is getting money from whom, and how much–rely solely on the FEC's databases, yet this basic information is incorrect. The enormous discrepancies between the amount of money the PACs (Political Action Committee...
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Policy Letter
POGO’s Letter in Response to Raised Questions about Air Force/Boeing deal to make the C-17 Cargo Aircraft “Commercial”
For the past several months, we have been closely examining a proposal to commercialize the C-17 cargo aircraft. We believe that implementation of the plan, known as the "BC-17X Public/Private Acquisition Strategy," would be ill-advised and leave the taxpayers vulner...
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Policy Letter
Letter to Members of Congress on Defense Budget
We believe it is inappropriate to increase the defense budget when the Pentagon is unable to pass a financial audit or account for billions of taxpayer dollars. They should not be rewarded for this incompetence. Some voices sharing our concerns have said:
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Report
Heavy Lifting for Boeing: Sweetheart Deal Helps Defense Contractor and Hurts Taxpayers
A December 2000, the Air Force proposed a possibly illegal arrangement to declare Boeing's C-17 military cargo airlifter a "commercial item" -- even though the government is the only purchaser of this plane. The result would be reduced financial oversight of any futu...