July 2017

House to vote on proposals to cut the Congressional Budget Office’s funding and eliminate its budget analysis division

Submitted by benton on Wed, 07/26/2017 - 06:47

Daniel Lyons -- Reauthorization: FCC process reform comes again before Congress

Submitted by benton on Wed, 07/26/2017 - 06:47

Louisville’s Award-Winning Redlining Map Helps Drive Digital Inclusion Efforts

Louisville (KY) has garnered much praise for an award-winning data map that visualizes the modern day effects of redlining — a practice that dates back to the 1930s, and involves racial and socioeconomic discrimination in certain neighborhoods through the systematic denial of services or refusal to grant loans and insurance. This map, dubbed Redlining Louisville: The History of Race, Class and Real Estate, takes historic data about redlining found in the national archives in Washington (DC) in 2013, and combines it with a timeline of historic events, data about current poverty levels, neighborhood boundaries and racial demographic info. With a host of tools including buttons and sliders, users can clearly see the correlation between the deliberate injustices of the past and the plight of struggling neighborhoods today. For Louisville CIO Grace Simrall, the map is proving an asset in the city’s ongoing work to improve digital equity. City officials have also looked at the map as lens through which to examine digital inclusion, the effort to provide all residents with equal access to technology, as well as the related skills to benefit.

Nonprofit group sues President Trump over infrastructure council

A nonprofit group is challenging President Donald Trump over his infrastructure council, claiming that the panel has been operating in secrecy and that its co-chairs have potential conflicts of interest. In a lawsuit filed July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Food & Water Watch claims that the administration violated federal public access requirements in establishing and running the new panel. In addition to President Trump, the lawsuit also lists the Transportation and Commerce departments as defendants. President Trump announced in January that he was putting billionaire real estate developers Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth in charge of the council, which is helping oversee his proposed $1 trillion rebuilding push and vetting transportation projects. But Trump only recently issued an executive order to formally establish the group. In its complaint, the nonprofit group alleges that the White House violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires advisory panels to publicly disclose meetings and members and requires membership to be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented.