An assessment of 128 executive branch failures since 2000

Rank the top 10 Failures

Rank the 10 failures you consider most damaging, by order of importance. Click a category, on the left, to view failures. Add each failure on the right by dragging and dropping it or by clicking on the add icon. Once you have made your selections, you can rank them by dragging an item up or down. When you've finished ranking the failures, click to submit them.

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Failures by category

• Consumers & Workers

  • Limited Ability To Block Dangerous ImportsThe Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) is stretched to the breaking point in its effort to keep up with the flood of products coming into the United States from overseas.…
  • FDA Enforcement Actions Way DownEnforcement actions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees food and pharmaceutical products, markedly declined under the Bush administration. The number of warning letters issued for various violations…
  • USDA Challenged Over Meat SafetyA series of recent high-profile meat recalls involving E. coli infections, mad cow disease, and listeria, among other maladies, has left Americans wondering about the safety of their food and…
  • Lack of Adequate Foreign Drug OversightAlthough record amounts of drug ingredients and drugs are being imported to the United States, government oversight of these products has failed to keep pace. The number of foreign firms…
  • Problems in Oversight of Food SafetyA number of high-profile public health scares involving unsafe food have highlighted the failure of the 15 agencies that administer more than 30 laws related to food safety. Critics have…
  • OSHA’s Laissez-Faire AttitudeDuring the course of the Bush administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has emphasized voluntary compliance over enforcement and inspections; by 2007, the situation had grown so bad…
  • FDA Failure To Ensure Drug SafetyThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to adequately safeguard the nation’s drug supply, according to various studies and watchdog groups. The agency’s most glaring failure: its lack…
  • Failure To Protect Consumers From Unsafe ProductsThe mission of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is a noble one: “to protect the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types…
  • Oversight Collapse Leads To Mine Safety IssuesA series of fatal mine disasters and subsequent investigations revealed a stunning and systematic failure in the government’s oversight of mining safety, with much of the blame falling on the…
  • Agricultural Quarantine Inspection StumblesWhen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created, responsibility for the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program was largely transferred to the sprawling new agency from the U.S. Department of Agriculture…
  • Eroding Budget Erodes Consumer SafetyThe Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) oversees more than 15,000 consumer goods and is charged with protecting Americans from product-related deaths, injuries, and property damage. Yet for years the agency…
  • Lack of Quorum at the CPSCWhen Chairman Hal Stratton stepped down from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in July 2006, he left the agency with just two commissioners. Without a three-member quorum, the agency…

• Contracting & Workforce

  • A Failure of Whistleblower ProtectionDespite the passage of new laws designed to protect them, whistleblowers have found themselves largely unprotected during the Bush administration. Six years ago, the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor…
  • Labor Relations Authority: Low Morale, Backlogged CasesThe Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), the agency responsible for ruling in federal employee labor disputes, has been swamped by a backlog of cases arising from low morale and lack…
  • Contractors Failing Troops in Iraq and AfghanistanSince the invasion of Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s escalating use of outside contractors has coincided with a decrease in oversight, endangering the well-being of American troops serving there and in Iraq.…
  • Human Capital Issues Plague GovernmentLike any large business, the U.S. government suffers from personnel problems and employs human assets who are not fully utilized; unlike a business, however, the government’s human capital problem impacts…
  • Surge in Outsourcing Creates Problems in Performance, OversightA dramatic increase in the contracting of government services has resulted in a litany of problems, ranging from cost overruns and missed deadlines to a lack of oversight, according to…
  • Chronic Understaffing at the EEOCA backlog in cases and increasing delays in processing investigations have plagued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as a result of funding challenges and organizational issues during the Bush…

• Education

  • No Child Left Behind: A Few Bumps in the RoadWhen the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was enacted in 2002, it was hailed as a bipartisan victory for education reform, promising student proficiency in math and science by…
  • Reading First: Scandalous and IneffectiveReading First was established under the No Child Left Behind Act as a six-year, $1 billion initiative to help students achieve reading proficiency by the end of third grade, but…
  • Student Loan Scandal Costs StudentsWithout proper oversight or enforcement by the Department of Education, the $85 billion student loan industry became tainted in scandal. In 2007, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed widespread…

• Elections

  • Paralysis at the Federal Election CommissionWith 3-3 deadlocks common on key issues, often along party lines, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) — made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — has sometimes seemed like…
  • “McCain-Feingold” Fails To Solve Campaign Finance ProblemOn March 27, 2002, President George W. Bush quietly signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly known as “McCain-Feingold” or “Shays-Meehan,” but a major loophole in the legislation…
  • Election Assistance Commission Has Not Met MandatesEstablished in response to the chaos of the 2000 election, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), by many accounts, has been ineffective thus far in smoothing out the nation’s voting…

• Emergency Management

  • Hurricanes Expose FEMA WoesThe Bush administration demoted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from a cabinet-level agency to a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), led by appointees who proved unprepared…
  • FEMA Trailers Filled With FormaldehydeWhen victims of Hurricane Katrina said goodbye to their homes in 2005, they didn’t realize their health might be next. A 2008 examination by the House Committee on Oversight and…
  • We Can’t Afford Another FloodNext time a disaster sends water flooding into the homes of Americans, the insurance system that protects some of them, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), might not have the…
  • SBA Emergency Assistance Failed for KatrinaThe disastrous hurricane season of 2005 caught the Small Business Administration (SBA) napping. The SBA’s disaster loan program is the primary way homeowners and small-business owners receive federal funding to…
  • Flood “Protection” in New OrleansAs far back as the 1980s, studies warned that the collection of levees, walls, and floodgates that surrounded New Orleans might not withstand a storm as strong as Hurricane Katrina.…

• Energy

  • No Robust, Sustained Alternative Energy PolicyThe United States meets less than 3 percent of its electricity needs with wind, solar, and other forms of alternative energy. In contrast, Denmark meets 20 percent of its electricity…
  • Foreign Oil Dependence Has GrownIn 1973, when President Richard Nixon said, “Our independence will depend on maintaining and achieving self-sufficiency in energy,” the United States imported 34.8 percent of its oil from foreign countries.…
  • Refinery Bottleneck Puts Squeeze on Gasoline SupplyIn the 1970s, when the federal government tightly regulated the oil market, federal policies encouraged construction of gasoline refineries. But deregulation in the first year of the Reagan administration allowed…
  • Move to a 21st Century Electricity Grid Is StalledFive years after the worst blackout in North American history, in which one Ohio utility’s mistakes darkened homes and businesses for 50 million people in eight states and Canada, the…

• Entitlements

  • Unsustainable Medicare Spending“Medicare shouldn't be a political issue," said then-Governor George W. Bush at a presidential campaign rally in 2000. "It's time to reform Medicare." But as president, Bush was unable to…
  • Failure To Reform Social SecurityDuring the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush referred to Social Security reform as the “test of presidential candidates” — a test he planned to pass by aggressively pushing his…
  • Social Security Disability BacklogsThe number of backlogged disability claims at the Social Security Administration (SSA) more than doubled over the past decade, with those pending at the hearing level reaching 760,800 as of…

• Environment

  • Climate Change: Hide the AssessmentDuring an administration in which all three branches of government debated greenhouse gas regulation, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was busy suppressing references to a landmark 2000 national…
  • Failure To Advance Climate Change PolicyAs the most industrialized nation, the United States has been the largest historical contributor to the fossil fuel emissions that have placed the planet in peril of dangerous warming. Yet…
  • EPA Deprives Public of Information on ToxicsIn a tag-team move that shortchanged the public’s knowledge of environmental hazards, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) loosened reporting requirements…
  • Science Policy PoliticizedThe Bush administration has consistently drawn ire from the scientific community for its propensity to ignore, manipulate, and suppress science. From its earliest days, the administration demonstrated a lack of…
  • Politicization at Department of InteriorOver the course of the Bush administration, the Department of the Interior (DOI) has been hit with troubling — and repeated — reports of politically inappropriate activity at the agency.…
  • EPA Stalls on Perchlorate RegulationThe Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) own science advisory board has joined a host of critics questioning the agency’s decision not to set a drinking water standard for perchlorate, a rocket…
  • Mountaintop Coal Mining Alters AppalachiaIn 2002, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers cleared the way for a resurgence of environmentally damaging mountaintop coal mining, using a rule change that legalized filling valleys…
  • EPA and OMB Slow Toxic Chemical Risk StudiesThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) lengthened and complicated the government’s process for assessing the potential dangers of toxic chemicals, according…
  • Scandal, Incompetence at Minerals Management ServiceAn eye-opening series of reports in fall 2008 by the Department of the Interior’s inspector general disclosed a stunning level of corruption at the Minerals Management Service (MMS), and a…
  • EPA Misleads on Air Quality After 9/11 AttacksDays after terrorists brought down the World Trade Center towers, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the air was safe to breathe, but that proved to be a dangerously…
  • EPA Ignores Advisers on Particulate Matter StandardsThe fine particle pollution that blasts into the air from diesel vehicles and power plants is a health threat well-understood by scientists — causing an estimated 20,000 deaths a year…
  • Everglade Restoration a Man-Made DisasterEight years after the creation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), a long-term initiative to save the Everglades region, the effort has failed to make significant progress in rescuing…
  • Superfund Program Loses Funding, MomentumA 2007 Center for Public Integrity investigation found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund program had lost critical momentum and massive amounts…
  • Toxic Mercury From Coal Plants UnregulatedThe Bush Administration’s regulatory approach to toxic mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants was struck down by a federal court that concluded the government flouted health law in a manner…
  • Nuclear Waste Problem UnsolvedA cascading series of problems — quality control, litigation, and cost overruns among them — has delayed the opening of a viable repository for high-level nuclear waste until at least…
  • EPA Fails To Put Children FirstMore than a decade after the creation of its Office of Children’s Health Protection, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has marginalized the agency’s only center for assessing risks to children,…
  • Failure To Launch: Satellite DelaysA Clinton-era initiative to combine civil and military meteorological programs into one massive new satellite system has been complicated by structural failures, delays, and cost overruns that could potentially hinder…
  • EPA’s Free Pass for Aging Power Plant EmissionsEver since Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force took up the issue in 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has looked for ways to loosen the New Source Review (NSR)…

• Finance

  • Shaky Start for Troubled Asset Relief ProgramThe government’s $700 billion financial rescue plan may itself be in need of rescue, if early assessments are any indication. The credit markets are still floundering, and questions are arising…
  • Skyrocketing DeficitThe Clinton administration departed with an unprecedented $127 billion budget surplus, but two prolonged wars and a plummeting economy under President Bush have left the country reeling with a record-setting…
  • Oversight Fails To Keep Pace With a Changed MarketAs credit-default swaps and derivatives took off in recent years, lack of authorization to oversee such transactions has forced the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sit largely on the…
  • Lax Oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie MacAfter years of calls for Congress to create stronger regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, time ran out in 2008 when the two mortgage giants collapsed, forcing a…
  • SEC Allows Investment Banks To Go UnregulatedThe Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) laissez-faire attitude toward regulation of investment banks is widely believed to have contributed to the depth of the current economic crisis. That the SEC…
  • More Corporations Pay Less in TaxesTax avoidance is an old trick, but under the Bush administration, weak enforcement and a spate of new tax credits and loopholes have led to an extended tax holiday for…
  • Audit Rates of Rich Fall, Audits of Poor SpikeA generous tax cut was not the only boon wealthy individuals and large corporations received from the Bush administration’s time in office: In recent years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)…
  • Lack of Regs Fueled Accounting ScandalCritics believe a lack of government regulation helped fuel questionable accounting practices — practices that allowed the huge energy trading firm Enron to report profits of hundreds of millions of…
  • U.S. Companies Hiding Revenue OffshoreWith the growth of global capital, rising numbers of U.S. corporations are offshoring their revenue to hide from the taxman, and for the past eight years, the Bush administration has…
  • Mismanagement and Cronyism at HUDIn spite of allegations of cronyism, easing terms on subprime mortgages, and federal investigations into possible partisan awarding of contracts, Alphonso Jackson — a longtime friend of President Bush and…

• Health

  • Medicare Fraud Out of ControlEvery year as much as $60 billion in taxpayer money is stolen from Medicare, which pays for the health care of seniors and the disabled. This massive rip-off is done…
  • 45 Million Americans Without Health InsurancePoliticians of all stripes have repeatedly pledged to reduce the number of Americans lacking health insurance, but since 2000, the number of uninsured people under age 65 has increased from…

• Information Protection

  • Failures in CybersecurityOn the Bush administration’s watch, China — and other nations — have succeeded in penetrating countless sensitive and “secure” U.S. facilities, ranging from Congress to military sites, intelligence programs to…
  • Millions in Equipment Missing From Indian Health ServiceThe numbers and details are staggering: Over the course of four fiscal years, at least 5,000 pieces of property, including computers, all-terrain vehicles, and digital cameras worth about $15.8 million,…
  • An Epidemic of Missing LaptopsA series of audits by the Department of Justice (DOJ) has documented stunningly lax security for laptop computers owned by federal law enforcement agencies. A 2007 report by DOJ’s Inspector…

• Justice & Security

  • Too Close to the Edge on TortureThe White House sanctioned the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees, such as simulated drowning, based on legal reasoning it later rescinded; even many within the administration felt the…
  • CIA Renditions Draw ControversySince 9/11, Central Intelligence Agency officers have grabbed more than 100 suspected terrorists from foreign countries and, after flying them around the globe to mask their destination, deposited them in…
  • Politicization of Department of JusticeThe Department of Justice (DOJ), under the Bush Administration, made an array of inappropriate, politically based decisions, some apparently illegal, which included choosing candidates for career appointments on political grounds.…
  • Failure To Protect Sensitive TechnologyThe government’s ability to protect critical technology in the hands of the private sector has been repeatedly called into question, most prominently by the Government Accountability Office (GAO); in fact,…
  • Arbitrary Detention at GuantanamoThe U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has held hundreds of detainees without charging them with a crime. The White House conceived of Guantanamo as an extralegal zone…
  • Osama bin Laden Still at LargeNine years after Osama bin Laden was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “ten most wanted” list, seven years after President George W. Bush said the Al Qaeda leader…
  • Lack of Progress on Immigration ReformAs a former border-state governor, President George W. Bush sought a systematic answer to America’s immigration problems, but found himself repeatedly stymied by the fallout from 9/11 and rifts within…
  • WMD Nonproliferation Needs More AttentionKeeping weapons of mass destruction (WMD) out of the hands of terrorists is cited as the top priority for America’s national security, but efforts to prevent WMD proliferation have not…
  • National Security Agency Mismanages Info TechnologyThe National Security Agency (NSA), the government agency responsible for collecting electronic data on threats to the United States, encountered major problems in managing its information systems and providing timely…
  • $30 Billion Virtual Border Fence Faces ProblemsIn 2006, U.S. Customs and Border Protection decided to outdo the border walls of the past and build a great barrier of data — a system of ground sensors, remote-control…
  • First Responders Still Can’t CommunicateDuring emergencies, many local, state, and federal responders who need to talk to each other are still operating on different wavelengths, despite billions of dollars in grants and seven years…
  • FBI Abuses Power To Request Personal InformationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) made expansive and inappropriate use of new authority to issue “national security letters,” compulsory requests for companies to supply consumer and financial information. The…
  • Agencies Failed To Share Intelligence on 9/11 TerroristsThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies had pieces of information before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks…
  • Pakistan Remains an Al Qaeda HavenIn the months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States embraced an unlikely ally: Pakistan’s dictator and longtime Taliban backer, Pervez Musharraf. After Musharraf reversed his…
  • FBI Failure To Create a Modern Computer Network“Prior to 9/11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not have an adequate ability to know what it knew,” said a statement from the staff of the 9/11 Commission.…
  • Nuclear Sites Lack Adequate SecurityAlthough U.S. intelligence agencies for years have been concerned that terrorists might target nuclear facilities for sabotage or theft, many facilities remain vulnerable. At a planning meeting in Spain in…
  • Losing the Battle for Hearts and MindsWhile pouring billions of dollars into military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration underplayed perhaps the most important battle against Islamic extremists: the struggle to win over hearts…
  • DHS Still Getting Up to SpeedMore than five years after its creation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) still suffers from a host of growing pains — growing pains that have attracted scrutiny from a…
  • Terrorist Watch List MismanagedTerrorist watch lists, launched by government agencies following the 9/11 attacks to help track terrorism suspects, have been plagued by miscommunication, inaccuracy, and inefficiency. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),…
  • Poor Retention of Counterterrorism StaffSenior federal employees are leaving their jobs at abnormally high rates at agencies charged with fighting terrorism. At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), senior-level employees left their jobs in…
  • Inability To Track Foreign Visitors to U.S.Seven years after the attacks of September 11, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a better idea of who’s coming into the United States, but it cannot say if…
  • Lack of Due Process for Terrorism SuspectsPresident Bush's military commissions for trying suspected terrorists have fought legal challenges for years, and they have only produced three convictions so far. Before 9/11, terrorists such as Ramzi Yousef,…
  • FBI Struggles To Confront Multiple ThreatsThe Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) new counterterrorism assignments have bled resources from its other missions. Traditionally the FBI has fought domestic bad guys — bank robbers, white-collar criminals, mobsters,…
  • NORAD, FAA Unprepared for Aerial AttackIn the confusion that reigned on September 11, 2001, the U.S. military was never positioned to shoot down any of the hijacked planes and even sent fighters after one of…
  • U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug CartelsHigh-powered weapons smuggled into Mexico from the United States are arming drug cartels in a bloody war with Mexican authorities that has killed more than 4,000 in 2008 alone, including…

• Military

  • False Premise for Going to WarOn September 28, 2002, President Bush proclaimed: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons . . . The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there…
  • Abu Ghraib Prison ScandalFew incidents have done more damage to America’s image in the world than the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. In late April 2004, Americans got their first glimpse of the…
  • Mismanagement at National Reconnaissance OfficeThe highly-secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) — responsible for U.S. surveillance satellites — saw its high-tech image tarnished in a series of management and technology failures. Most of the failures…
  • Poor Health Care for VeteransVeterans enrolled in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care programs have long complained of receiving inadequate treatment at poorly funded facilities. According to a 2003 Government Accountability…
  • Failure To Regulate Security ContractorsIn a busy Baghdad square, a disturbance between a group of Americans and Iraqis on September 16, 2007 resulted in the shooting death of 17 Iraqi civilians. The Americans involved…
  • Pentagon Office’s Misleading IntelligenceAn under-the-radar Department of Defense (DOD) office produced highly politicized intelligence assessments and promulgated one of the most inaccurate justifications for U.S. invasion of Iraq: that the Iraqi government under…
  • Military Failure To Secure Iraq After InvasionCalling them “wildly off mark,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz dismissed the assessments of his own Army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, and a 1999 Department of Defense…
  • Lack of Armored Protection for TroopsThe U.S. military failed to provide adequate body armor and armored vehicles to soldiers and Marines fighting the Iraq war. Key assumptions made before the invasion and early in the…
  • Pentagon’s Slow Adaptation to a War-footingThe Department of Defense (DOD) has often been unresponsive or slow to react to the needs of soldiers and Marines on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as…
  • Inadequate Planning for Post-Invasion IraqThe United States planned poorly for the post-invasion administration of Iraq, contributing to the rise of a broad insurgency and the loss of thousands of lives and billions of dollars.…
  • Failure To Secure Weapons in IraqIn the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, U.S. troops failed to secure weapons depots across the country, allowing Iraqis to loot vast amounts of explosives, ammunition, and weapons that…
  • Mismanagement of Major Weapons AcquisitionsThe Department of Defense (DOD) has long been plagued with cost increases and delays in buying new weapons, but an already bad situation became worse over the course of the…
  • Veteran Disability Claims LanguishFor many injured veterans — aging former soldiers as well as younger ones recently back from Iraq and Afghanistan — disability claims are a vital and necessary source of income.…
  • Delay in Opening U.S. Embassy in IraqThe plan was to open the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad — America’s largest embassy — in July 2007 at a cost of $592 million. But like so many other U.S.…
  • Air Force Failure To Maintain Nuclear Weapons AccountabilityThe Air Force failed to maintain accountability over nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons components in two incidents in 2006 and 2007. In August 2007, six nuclear weapons were mistakenly flown…
  • Taliban Resurgence in AfghanistanIn October 2008, a draft intelligence assessment found that, despite the seven-year presence of U.S. troops, Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” as the Taliban renews its influence over the…
  • 190,000 Missing Weapons in IraqAmerican weaponry intended for Iraqi security forces may have ended up in the hands of insurgents attacking U.S. troops in Iraq, due largely to oversights at the Department of Defense…

• Other

  • NASA Inspector General Lack of OversightBy almost any measure, the Bush administration’s watchdog at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been far less active than either his predecessor or inspectors general at agencies…
  • NASA’s Failure To Ensure Safety in Human Space FlightIn February 2003, seven astronauts died as the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry over Texas. The cause of the disaster was a briefcase-size chunk of foam that broke…
  • Massive Backlog at Patent OfficeA massive backlog of patent applications persists at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a problem that experts warn can dampen innovation, discourage investors, and make inventors vulnerable to…
  • Census 2010 Stumbles at the Starting LineThe Bureau of the Census envisioned a high-tech effort for 2010, with hundreds of thousands of census-takers inventorying America’s population with the aid of new hand-held computers. Instead, crucial parts…
  • FCC Chairman Martin Under FireKevin J. Martin has drawn bipartisan criticism for his leadership of the five-member Federal Communications Commission, the independent agency charged with “regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire,…

• Transportation

  • Failing To Modernize Air Traffic ControlAmerica’s air traffic control system has essentially not changed much since the 1960s — and that’s more than a little alarming. Numerous attempts to upgrade the system have failed, so…
  • Human Fatigue in Transport Accidents Still UnaddressedWhen the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its original “Most Wanted” list of proposed safety improvements in September 1990, combating the role of human fatigue in transportation mishaps was…
  • Close Calls on the RunwayThe nation’s airports have been plagued by an alarming rise in dangerous runway incidents, but the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) response has been criticized as inadequate by a host of…
  • FAA in the Dark on MaintenanceCritical airline maintenance is being performed by private companies without proper oversight and frequently without certification by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), according to a series of government reports. A…
  • Record Delays in Air TravelAfter flight delays soared to record-breaking heights in the summer of 2007, inconveniencing millions of travelers and costing the U.S. economy as much as $41 billion, the Department of Transportation…
  • FAA Inspectors Cozy Up to AirlinesRevelations that Southwest Airlines flew thousands of flights in violation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directives brought to light a “relaxed culture” of oversight that investigators later termed “symptomatic of…
  • Highway Funding WoesThe Highway Trust Fund — the funding source that pays for most of the nation’s highway improvements — received an emergency infusion of $8 billion from Congress in fall 2008,…

• White House

  • Controversial Assertion of Executive PowerThe Executive Office of the President and the Bush administration in general have drawn widespread criticism for their push toward a “unitary executive,” a presidency with vastly increased power to…
  • Excessive Executive SecrecyDespite early promises of openness, the Bush administration has drawn widespread criticism for its stark lack of transparency. Rates of declassification under the Bush White House nosedived to a fraction…
  • Signing Statements Thwart Congressional IntentIn elementary school, American children learn that the U.S. Constitution dictates a precise and cumbersome process through which a bill becomes law. When a bill is passed by both the…
  • Vice President’s Office Exempts Itself From Information SafeguardsArticle II of the United States Constitution, which covers the executive branch, makes six references to the vice president. And the Office of the Vice President received $5 million in…
  • Executive Office of the President “Loses” E-mailsThough federal records laws make clear that the official records of the president and vice president are public and must, in general, be preserved, the Bush administration has not always…

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