Weekly Round-up August 20, 2010

• Eye on FDA: A Look at FDA’s Transparency
• Bloomberg: SEC’s New Jersey Fraud Case Seen as Harbinger in Muni Crackdown

This week I seemed to find news about transparency (the good cop to accountability’s bad cop) in unlikely places. Or at least places I don’t normally look. The first is Mark Senak’s blog, Eye on FDA, which focuses, as you might guess, on the Food and Drug Administration. Mark has been following the FDA through his blog for four and half years, so his comments are usually spot-on. Bloomberg News provides the second story, which is as much about accountability as transparency. In a nutshell: the SEC is getting more active in the municipal bond market, so cities need to follow the rules more closely.

OMB Guidance to Agencies:

When OMB refreshed its website a couple weeks ago, the “agency information” link disappeared, possibly through an oversight of user needs, not an intentional aggravation for agencies. So, as a public service, here is the link. Bookmark it, since it is a current, and historical, gateway to all OMB guidance to agencies.

Peter H. Appel, Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA).

RITA’s mission is to promote transportation research, solid analysis, and education across the different operating agencies within the USDOT.

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