The Paper Trail: August 9, 2024

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The Paper Trail

Announcements

During the August district work period, the Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds encourages House staff to become certified in the office’s Working With Whistleblowers Curriculum. Accessible through the Congressional Staff Academy, the curriculum teaches the fundamentals of working with whistleblowers from the public and private sectors.

Top stories for August 9, 2024

Whistleblower hearing spotlights Coast Guard handling of sexual misconduct: The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report with personal accounts from more than 80 individuals who shared their experiences with sexual assault and harassment in the Coast Guard. It found that a culture of shaming deterred victims from reporting, investigations failed to produce meaningful accountability, and victims were retaliated against for reporting. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

Nonprofit urges the White House to fill vacant watchdog roles: There are currently no nominees for inspectors general at NASA, GSA, and the Social Security Administration. Five agencies have yet to appoint their own IGs; five others have nominees that have yet to be confirmed. (Carten Cordell, Government Executive)

Agencies have only completed about half of GAO’s COVID-19 recommendations: Federal agencies haven’t implemented roughly half of GAO’s 428 recommendations for improving emergency response plans. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

How a U.S. health agency became a shield for polluters: Companies and others responsible for some of America’s most toxic waste sites are using faulty reports by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to save money on cleanups, defend against lawsuits, and deny victims compensation. In over two-thirds of its findings issued from 2012 to 2023, ATSDR declared communities safe from hazards or made no determination. (Jaimi Dowdell et al., Reuters)

Kids drink contaminated water at schools, but testing for lead isn’t required: Many schools have aging infrastructure that is more likely to leach lead into the water. Despite an increased awareness of the danger posed by lead in water, there is no national mandate that requires testing drinking water in schools and child-care facilities. (Silvia Foster-Frau, Washington Post)

Opinion: We don’t know where federal dollars go. It’s time for that to change: USAspending.gov, the government's official public source for federal spending data, has serious problems with accuracy and quality control. The fact that the public isn’t privy to rudimentary information about where their tax dollars go erodes trust in the administration’s attempts to advance equitable policies. (Janice Luong, FEDweek)

A new report finds Boeing’s rockets are built with an unqualified work force: An inspector general review found that NASA’s program to develop a new upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket is seven years behind schedule and significantly over budget, and that Boeing, the program’s prime contractor, has “quality control issues ... caused by its workforce having insufficient aerospace production experience.” (Eric Berger, Ars Technica)

🔎 See Also: Boeing says it’s changing type of panel that blew off Alaska Airlines jet (Minho Kim and Mark Walker, New York Times)

Dobbs Aftermath

U.S. abortion numbers have risen slightly since Roe was overturned, study finds: The number of abortions in the U.S. went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. The number declined by about half in states that ban it after six weeks of pregnancy. (Geoff Mulvihill and Kimberlee Kruesi, Associated Press)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Army helicopter crashes in Alabama, killing one: The fatal crash of an AH-64 Apache helicopter at Fort Novosel, Alabama, on Wednesday is part of what Army officials acknowledge is a troubling trend: In the last several years, the Apache has been involved in 16 serious mishaps. (Annie Correal, New York Times)

The U.S. has dozens of secret bases across the Middle East. They keep getting attacked: U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have come under repeated attack in recent weeks, raising renewed concern about the vulnerability of the more than 60 U.S. bases in the region. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

U.S. housing officials to scrap a rule that denies housing to the most disabled veterans: Responding to pressure from veterans advocates and elected officials, HUD announced that it will change a rule that excludes many disabled veterans from subsidized housing. (Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times)

Analysis: America’s nuclear weapons quagmire: The U.S. is on track to spend the equivalent of more than two Manhattan projects per year in one of the most expensive nuclear arms races in history. Yet all of the systems being developed are significantly over budget and behind schedule, and several might even undermine our national security. (Geoff Wilson, Stimson Center)

Business and Finance

Regulators probing big banks’ handling of Zelle scams: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is investigating the major U.S. banks for their handling of customer funds on the peer-to-peer payments platform Zelle, which is facing scrutiny over scams and fraudulent transactions. (AnnaMaria Andriotis, Alexander Saeedy, and Andrew Ackerman, Wall Street Journal)

Tech

Foreign TikTok networks are pushing political lies to Americans: Intelligence officials have warned that the 2024 election could face an unprecedented flood of AI-generated fake news from foreign actors. An analysis of videos on TikTok has found it’s already happening: Nearly 100 accounts with foreign ties have pushed thousands of videos containing political lies. (Georgia Wells et al., Wall Street Journal)

It’s Elon Musk's X and governments are having to live with it: Musk’s latest online flurry of innuendo and lies and his hands-off approach to other content on X are making it increasingly clear that it’s the tech mogul himself—and not just his platform—who poses the greatest challenge to governments struggling to rein in content that can incite extremist violence. (John Sakellariadis, Christine Mui, and Brittany Gibson, Politico)

🔎 See Also: Elon Musk’s misleading election claims have accrued 1.2 billion views on X, new analysis says (David Ingram, NBC News)

Texas’ $1.4B settlement with Meta highlights the need for data privacy protections, experts say: Advocacy groups praised the settlement with Meta for alleged misuse of facial recognition tech but argue that states need to go further and put more teeth in consumer privacy laws. (Chris Teale, Route Fifty)

Infrastructure

A year after the Maui wildfires, are new housing policies keeping locals housed?: It’s becoming more common for wildfires to spread into suburban and even urban neighborhoods where flames can easily leap between buildings, underscoring the need for communities to adopt modern fire codes to mitigate future loss and rebuild with fire resistance in mind. (Molly Bolan, Route Fifty)

Health Care

EPA takes emergency action to stop use of dangerous pesticide: For the first time in 40 years, the EPA took emergency action to stop the use of a pesticide linked to serious health risks for unborn babies. Tuesday’s emergency order applies to dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA or Dacthal, an herbicide used on crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and onions. (Maxine Joselow, Washington Post)

Home medical devices pose risks for Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers: Home medical devices such as infusion pumps, nebulizers, CPAP machines, and home dialysis machines come with potential problems for users and caregivers. (Richard Eisenberg, Fortune)

COVID-19

IRS will resume processing new pandemic tax credit claims from employers: The IRS announced in June that it would deny the vast majority of claims for the Employee Retention Credit after officials detected “red flags” in at least 70% of the applications. In recent weeks, the IRS denied 28,000 claims and initiated 460 criminal fraud cases. (Hannah Ziegler, Washington Post)

About 400 million people worldwide have had long COVID, researchers say: A new study estimates 400 million people worldwide have had long COVID and estimates the global economic cost is $1 trillion a year. There is still little known about treating the condition. (Pam Belluck, New York Times)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ 15 states sue to block Biden’s effort to help migrants in U.S. get health coverage

→ No boundaries: The Border Patrol has grown far bigger—and crueler—since its founding

→ A growing number of homeless migrants are sleeping on New York’s streets

Other News:

→ Videos show police at Trump rally airing frustration with Secret Service

→ NASA says Boeing Starliner astronauts may fly home on SpaceX in 2025

→ Arizona grand jurors discussed indicting Trump, but prosecutors urged them not to

→ Why a growing mpox outbreak has the world worried again

→ Return-to-office mandates hurt employee retention, productivity, survey says

→ New bans on panhandling in medians spark debate over free speech rights

Upcoming Events

📌 Zoom Webinar: U.S. Supreme Court: Judicial Ethics & Recusal Forum. Ohio Fair Courts Alliance and Common Cause Ohio. Thursday, August 15, 7:00 p.m. ET

Hot Docs

🔥📃 VA OIG: OIG Determination of Veterans Health Administration’s Severe Occupational Staffing Shortages Fiscal Year 2024. 24-00803-222 (PDF)

🔥📃 Majority Staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations: A Pervasive Problem: Voices of Coast Guard Sexual Assault and Harassment Survivors. August 7, 2024 (PDF)