The Congressional Budget Office, working with the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), has run the numbers on HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. While acknowledging “substantial uncertainty” in its projections of the bill’s budgetary impact, CBO said in its preliminary analysis that the bill would cost just under $900 billion over 10 years, reduce the federal budget deficit by $104 billion over that period, and raise the percentage of nonelderly legal residents with insurance coverage from 83 percent to 96 percent.

Excerpts from CBO’s blog post:

“According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3962 would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $104 billion over the 2010–2019 period…

The estimate includes a projected net cost of $894 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage…

Over the 2010–2019 period, the net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes, which CBO estimates would save $426 billion, and receipts resulting from the income tax surcharge on high-income individuals and other provisions, which JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $572 billion over that period.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 36 million, leaving about 18 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under H.R. 3962, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 96 percent.”

CBO said it expected the bill would continue to reduce budget deficits “slightly” over the second decade after enactment, but cautioned that those long-term projections “assume that the provisions of HR 3962 are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the ‘sustainable growth rate’ mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified to avoid reductions in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration in the Congress.”

…well, according to the OIGs. But a recent report on behalf of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) makes a persuasive case for the argument that resources invested in the 69 federal Offices of Inspector General earn a solid return for taxpayers.

The Inspector General community’s annual report (pdf, 3.3mb), prepared for the CIGIE by the OIGs of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Federal Communications Commission, provided this summary of the work of the OIGs in fiscal year 2008:

$14.2 billion in potential savings from audit recommendations;
$4.4 billion in potential savings from investigative receivables and recoveries;
6,647 indictments and criminal informations;
6,866 successful prosecutions;
1,206 successful civil actions;
4,986 suspensions or debarments;
5,712 personnel actions;
337,916 hotline complaints processed;
6,935 audit, inspection, and evaluation reports issued; and
32,143 investigations closed

The CIGIE was established by the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008, which also strengthened the independence of the OIGs and set rules on compensation and transparency. The Global Legal Information Network, provided by the Law Library of Congress, has posted a summary of the law’s provisions.

Gross domestic product rose 3.5 percent in the third quarter, according to data reported today by the Commerce Department. The figures marked the first return to growth in the US economy after four consecutive quarters of contraction. Today’s “advance” estimate is the first release of data on third quarter growth, and will be revised based on more comprehensive data in subsequent estimates on November 24 and December 22.

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on October 22 to begin a rulemaking process to codify principles that would require Internet Service Providers to treat all Internet traffic equally. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (pdf, 694kb) sets out an extensive background on the issue and includes statements by each of the five commissioners. See Appendix A on page 65 for the draft rules.

An FCC press release (pdf, 70kb) summarized the effect of the proposed rules:

Under the draft proposed rules, subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service:
1. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet;
2. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice;
3. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user’s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;
4. would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers, and content providers;
5. would be required to treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner; and
6. would be required to disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in this rulemaking.

In his statement, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski defined the problem facing the Commission:

“The heart of the problem is that, taken together, we face the dangerous combination of an uncertain legal framework with ongoing as well as emerging challenges to a free and open Internet. Given the potentially huge consequences of having the open Internet diminished through inaction, the time is now to move forward with consideration of fair and reasonable rules of the road, rules that would be enforceable and implemented on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, it would be a serious failure of responsibility not to consider such rules, for that would be gambling with the most important technological innovation of our time.”

The two Republican members of the commission, Meredith Attwell Baker and Robert McDowell, voted to move forward with the rulemaking process but issued statements dissenting in part from the Notice. Commissioner Baker wrote,

“I dissent in part today because, as a threshold matter, I am not convinced that there is a sufficient record to establish that a problem exists that should be addressed by Commission rules. As I have said previously, we should not adopt regulations to address anecdotes where there is no fact-based evidence that persuasively demonstrates the presence of a problem… I also think that important questions are outstanding about our legal authority to regulate broadband Internet access services that we need to explore. We need to better understand the law, engineering, and economics. Before imposing new rules, we need to carefully think through all potential unintended consequences that could harm consumers by increasing prices, impeding innovation, eliminating choices, and/or reducing quality of service.”

The FCC will take public comments on the proposed rules until January 14, 2010, and reply comments will be due March 5, 2010 (see “Comment Filing Procedures,” p. 62). Those wishing to file comments are instructed to refer to GN Docket No. 09-191 and WC Docket No. 07-52. Ars Technica has provided news about the recent upgrade of the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System that will be helpful whether you wish to file comments or peruse the comments of others.

The FCC said public comments on this Notice will also be taken on the OpenInternet Blog and at http://openinternet.ideascale.com/. The Notice explains that while the OpenInternet blog permits persons to comment anonymously, “anonymous comments will not be part of the record in this proceeding and accordingly will not be relied on by the Commission in reaching its conclusions in this rulemaking… Should posters provide identifying information, they should be aware that although such information will not be posted on the blog, it will be publicly available for inspection upon request.”

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) has set a November 7 runoff to settle the disputed August 20 presidential election. The order came at the direction of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) after that body invalidated first round ballots from 210 polling stations (pdf, 64kb), one day after reaching its ballot audit decisions. The ballot recount, ordered by the ECC in September, dropped President Hamid Karzai’s vote tally below 50 percent, triggering an automatic runoff under Afghanistan’s electoral law (pdf, 78kb).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the IEC and the ECC “have worked closely to ensure strict adherence to the Constitution and the Electoral Law of Afghanistan. The United Nations has supported the work of these institutions in their efforts to ensure that all valid votes cast in the elections of 20 August 2009 were taken into account and that the voice of the Afghan people was clearly heard.” He pledged that the UN “will do its utmost for the conduct of the second round of elections scheduled for 7 November 2009 in a free, fair, transparent and secure environment.”

A Congressional Research Service report, updated on October 1, summarized the August 20 vote and some of the implications for Afghan politics and US policy. The report said that allegations of fraud in the August 20 polling “have reportedly been a major factor in a high level US strategy reevaluation because of the centrality of a credible, legitimate partner Afghan government to US strategy.”

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board issued its first release of data from recipients of stimulus bill funds on October 15. About a third of the stimulus spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enacted in February comes in the form of contracts, grants, and loans. The bill requires recipients of these funds to file reports on how the funds were used. The data indicated that a total of about 30,000 jobs were created or saved by the contracts reported in the release.

The Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR) praised the transparency steps taken under the Recovery Act but said the reporting tools employed in the first data release need to be improved. Gary Bass, executive director of coalition partner OMB Watch, said in a press release that the Recovery Act “is proving to be the most transparent federal spending law ever enacted… It is a watershed because the Obama administration has successfully created a new reporting system that requires recipients of Recovery Act funds to report in a timely manner how they are using federal resources. Unfortunately, the Recovery.gov website is an ineffective and inadequate tool for understanding the very small share of Recovery Act dollars reported today.”

The CAR release cited a raft of problems in the first data release, including inadequate search and download functionality, data quality problems, troublesome navigation, and poor explanation. “While acknowledging the significant precedent set by today’s data release, the Coalition expects significant improvements will be made to the Recovery.gov website before the recipient data about grants and loans are released on Oct. 30.”

In a preview (pdf, 60kb) of the October 15 release posted earlier in the week, CAR explained that the first release of data “equals only a tiny sliver of the total funds expended during the first quarter of the Act. So whatever jobs figures come out will also undoubtedly be a tiny sliver of the Recovery Act’s total jobs impact. The recipient reporting data that will be published on Recovery.gov will only cover spending on grants, contracts and loans. Recipient reports for the other spending categories – entitlements and tax breaks – are not required.” The preview said the scope of data reported on October 30 “will be far broader and more representative.”

A new House bill would open Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports to the public. The measure, H.R. 3762, closely mirrors a Senate bill introduced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) in the spring.

In a joint statement, the House bill’s two sponsors, Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) said that “CRS is governed by requirements for accuracy, objectivity, balance, and nonpartisanship – the very sort of analysis sought and valued by engaged constituents. As a dedicated congressional support agency, CRS is joined by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in providing Congress with information and analysis that is unequaled by any other national legislature. While GAO and CBO reports are already available to the public, CRS reports are not.”

Like its Senate counterpart, the House bill would provide public access to the reports through congressional member and committee websites, and would grant congressional officers leeway to withhold information that would pose copyright or confidentiality problems. One key difference is that the House bill provides for the production of an index only to the CRS Issue Briefs, but not to the reports or appropriations products, while the Senate bill provides for an index that would cover each of them. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) credited that provision in the Senate bill as a way to aid discovery and to “to let the public know what their lawmakers are reading.”

As I discussed here twice in March and again in May, public access to CRS reports has been a longstanding concern of librarians and open government groups, as indicated in March when CRS reports topped the list of “most wanted government documents” in a joint report (pdf, 426kb) by CDT and OpenTheGovernment.org.

The Treasury Department announced that it had reached “a new milestone of more than 500,000 trial loan modifications in progress under the Making Home Affordable program.” The October 8 announcement included a report (pdf, 103kb) on mortgage lender performance data through September 30.

The figures provided a breakdown by lender of the percentage of potentially eligible delinquent borrowers who had been given a loan modification. Figures for lenders with more than 70,000 potentially eligible borrowers:

Saxon Mortgage Services 41%
CitiMortgage 33%
Aurora Loan Services 33%
JP Morgan Chase 27%
GMAC Mortgage 26%
Wells Fargo 20%
Bank of America 11%
OneWest Bank 5%
Wachovia Mortgage 3%
Litton Loan Servicing 2%
American Home Mortgage Servicing < 1%

Background on the Making Home Affordable program, including monthly lender data from July and August, is available on the Treasury Department website.

The global economic downturn has contributed to a decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2009, providing a window of opportunity to reach a global agreement that would stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, according to the International Energy Agency.

The findings were delivered in a “special early excerpt” of the IEA’s forthcoming World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2009 report, due in November. The release of the early excerpt, How the Energy Sector Can Deliver on a Climate Agreement in Copenhagen, was timed “to coincide with key climate discussions this autumn, such as the UNFCCC meeting in Bangkok between 28 September and 9 October 2009 which is a fundamental session in the run-up to Copenhagen,” the IEA said.

In a press release, the IEA said CO2 emissions “could fall in 2009 by as much as 3% – steeper than at any time in the last 40 years… This would lead to emissions in 2020 being 5% lower – even in the absence of additional policies – than the IEA estimated just twelve months ago.”

“The impact of the economic crisis and lower growth account for three quarters of this improvement, while government stimulus spending to promote low-carbon investments and other new climate policies account for the remainder,” the early excerpt said.

The press release said the economic downturn “has thereby created an opportunity to put the global energy system on a trajectory to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at 450 parts per million (ppm) of CO2-equivalent, in line with an increase in global temperature of around 2 degrees Celsius,” a trajectory referred to in the report as the “450 Scenario.”

China seen in ‘leading role’

“The IEA 450 ppm Scenario sees the use of fossil fuels peak before 2020, and energy-related CO2 emissions just 6% higher in 2020 than in 2007. Relative to a Reference Scenario of current policies, emissions in 2020 would need to be reduced by 3.8 gigatonnes (Gt) worldwide to achieve the 450 Scenario. 1.6 Gt of this reduction occurs in OECD countries, while policies and measures in China – already being considered by the Chinese government – account for 1 Gt of emissions reductions, more than anywhere else. This underlines the leading role China will play in the global combat against climate change.”

The cost of the transition would be $10 trillion between 2010 and 2030, but would be largely offset by $8.6 trillion in fuel savings over the same period, the press release said. “Yet we need to act urgently and now. Every year of delay adds an extra USD 500 billion to the investment needed between 2010 and 2030 in the energy sector.”

A front-page New York Times story on October 4 revealed information about a confidential, internal report at the International Atomic Energy Agency which found, among its “tentative” conclusions, that Iran had acquired the information needed to make a workable nuclear bomb. As the Times story noted, excerpts of the 67-page report, titled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” were posted online (pdf, 121kb) last week by the Institute for Science and International Security, which said on its website that it understood the report to be “a working document and not necessarily a final report.”

Here are some highlights from those excerpts:

“The significance of the information is that Iran may have developed an effective high explosive implosion system, which could be contained within a payload container believed to be small enough to fit into the re-entry body chamber of the Shahab 3 missile…

The Agency assesses that Iran is steadily making progress in the development of its own indigenous nuclear programme. Iran has been reporting on a regular basis major achievements in mastering the various parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, which the Agency has been able to verify…

The Agency further assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device based upon HEU (highly enriched uranium) as the fission fuel. The necessary information was most likely obtained from external sources and probably modified by Iran. The Agency believes that non-nuclear experiments conducted in Iran would give confidence that the implosion system would function correctly…

Overall the Agency does not believe that Iran has yet achieved the means of integrating a nuclear payload into the Shahab 3 missile with any confidence that it would work. Nonetheless, with further effort it is likely that Iran will overcome problems and confidence will be built up.”

The Times story also mentioned an IAEA report from August (pdf, 60kb) which, according to the Times, indicated that IAEA staff had “concluded that the evidence of Iran’s alleged military activity was probably genuine.” In that report, the IAEA cited previous documentation on “a number of outstanding issues which give rise to concerns, and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.” The report went on to assert that “the information contained in that documentation appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran with a view to removing the doubts which naturally arise, in light of all of the outstanding issues, about the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.”

The IAEA website brings together information on Iran in a section titled In Focus: IAEA and Iran.