From above, the water lily pools in the Conservatory Courtyard are works of art as they are prepared for Monet’s Garden.

Putnam Materials Corp
20 Haarlem Ave
White Plains, NY 10603

Facility:

Putnam Materials
1150 St Rte 311
Patterson, NY 12563

Application ID:

3-3724-00017/00009

Permit(s) Applied for:

Article 17 Titles 7 & 8 Industrial SPDES – Surface Discharge

Project is Located:

Patterson, Putnam County

Project Description:

Putnam Materials operates a stone quarry at 1150 St Rte 311, Patterson, NY. Rainwater, and groundwater which has infiltrated through fractures, collect on the quarry floor. The water is pumped from a sump at the bottom of the quarry and discharges to an Unnamed Tributary of East Branch Croton River.

The company has requested modification of the SPDES permit # NY 021 5503 to add outfalls 002 and 003 for two existing, previously unidentified subsurface sewage disposal systems serving the facility.

The Department has made a tentative determination to approve this application for a modification of SPDES permit for the discharge of industrial stormwater from outfall 001 and the discharge of 205 gallons per day of sanitary waste only to groundwater from Outfalls 002 and 003.

No monitoring will be required for sanitary outfalls 002 and 003.

Industry Best Management Practices special conditions and a monitoring diagram were added to the permit and the receiving stream classification corrected to Class C.

Availability of Application Documents:

Filed application documents, and Department draft permits where applicable, are available for inspection during normal business hours at the address of the contact person. To ensure timely service at the time of inspection, it is recommended that an appointment be made with the contact person.

State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) Determination:

Project is an Unlisted Action and will not have a significant impact on the environment. A Negative Declaration is on file. A coordinated review was not performed.

SEQR Lead Agency: None Designated

State Historic Preservation Act (SHPA) Determination:

The proposed activity is not subject to review in accordance with SHPA. The permit type is exempt or the activity is being reviewed in accordance with federal historic preservation regulations.

Coastal Management:

This project is not located in a Coastal Management area and is not subject to the Waterfront Revitalization and Coastal Resources Act.

Opportunity for Public Comment:

Comments on this project must be submitted in writing to the Contact Person no later than Jun 15, 2012.

Contact:

Rebecca S Crist
NYSDEC Region 3 Headquarters
21 South Putt Corners Rd
New Paltz, NY 12561
(845)256-3054
r3dep@gw.dec.state.ny.us

I recently made a mistake that turned into an object lesson on the limits of technology but also – and more importantly – on the limits of government openness. Earlier this year, in trying to figure out how many House staffers had gone on to become lobbyists over a two-year period, I naively relied on the ability of computers to match names. We have some sophisticated matching software, but it is not perfect. As a result, my recent post, “Almost 400 House staffers registered to lobby in last two years” improperly identified a number of staffers as lobbyists because they had the same name or almost the same as a registered lobbyist when, in fact, these were two different people.

The good folks at Legistorm noticed this for us, and so we decided to do an internal Sunlight audit, and our capable intern Breanna Edwards, under the supervision of our reporting team, provided it, using the Center for Responsive Politics’ Revolving Door website, LinkedIn, and official lobbying reports.

Of the 377 House staffers we originally identified as having gone on to lobby, Breanna was able to be certain or almost certain that 219 (58%) were indeed matches. She also identified 21 (6%) as almost certainly false positives (that is, the name match was correct, but it was clearly a case of two people with the same name). The remaining 137 matches our computers identified (36%) could not be confirmed definitively either way, at least just based on those three sources.

Breanna explains the challenges:

We decided to go about this project in a simple and straightforward way, using three tools: the Center for Responsive Politics’ “Revolving Door”, LinkedIn and lobbying reports. I put all of the names through these three tools in almost all instances to be thoroughly sure of my results, though sometimes two out of the three tools, or at the very least one of the tools did not necessarily yield any results.

Center for Responsive Politics’ Revolving Door is a neat tool that records which federal employees have become lobbyists, consultants and strategists, usually providing information on where they worked, the positions they have held for their employers and how long they were there. It’s a really easy tool to use. One simply has to enter in the subject’s name into the given field and see if there is a record. If they did have a detailed record, that made my job easier. However, this database isn’t completely foolproof. Sometimes the information Sunlight had did not match what CRP had, sometimes they only had parts of the information I was given, sometimes they didn’t have any information on the subject at all. If the Center for Responsive Politics’ information didn’t exactly match what I had, or if there was something in the information that I was unclear about, my next step was to double-check LinkedIn.

The great thing about LinkedIn is that people self-advertise a lot there (of course, that is how it was meant to be used) and so there was little doubt that the individuals I was looking for would definitely put most, if not all of their employment history on there.  The trouble of course, is actually finding them and being sure that it was exactly the same person. I found some individuals with ease and, as expected, they gave the information I needed which was a green light. Among other individuals there were multiple people to choose from, all with some part of the employment history I was looking for, but none with the exact sequence I was looking for. I either took that to mean that we were looking at completely different people, or, if it was so blurred I could not tell, marked it as uncertain. In other cases, I just simply could not find the individual. That was when I turned to the lobbying reports.

 Though they sometimes gave some great results, the lobbying reports were the absolute last resort, Only people who make a certain salary are even listed on lobbying reports, which severely limits the number of individuals who even turned up in the search. Another issue: Even when these individuals were listed, a good number of them either did not know how to fill out the form correctly or chose not to fill it out correctly. So while I did manage to procure a few confirmations using this method, the reports really did not help that much.

The main problem was names. The funny thing about names is that there are only so many of them. There are few unique names, as names are not identification numbers. The fact that many individuals with the same or similar names seem to have worked in the same or extremely similar offices did not help our effort. It was nearly impossible to distinguish these people. Other times they simply did not appear, but of course, just because they were not in any databases, didn’t mean that the information we had was false. All these factors made us unable to confirm  some of our findings.

The takeaway lesson ought to be clear: it’s much more difficult than it should be to match congressional staff names with lobbyist names. To do this kind of research, we are at the mercy of what individuals choose to report, especially when they have relatively common names.

This makes it very difficult to have a good understanding of how the revolving door works. There are good reasons the public might want to know which lobbyists have insider connections, and who they are using those connections to help. There are also good reasons the public might want to know which offices have former staff working for various outside groups that are trying to influence legislation.

A simple solution
Here is a simple proposal to improve transparency and disclosure around the revolving door:

1. Lobbyist registration forms list the names of lobbyists working on a particular issue.  In order to be able to determine whether they have spun through the revolving door, each lobbyist should be identified by a publicly accessible unique identification number.

2. Upon registering, each lobbyist should also be required to list every position that he or she has held as a federal, state, or city employee. Currently, registrants are required to list all “covered” legislative and executive branch positions their lobbyists have held for the last 20  years only when the registrant begins representing a new client, but not on subsequent forms.

Doing this would create a simple, searchable, and centralized way to identify which lobbyists formerly served in government, and which didn’t. There is no reason why it should be as difficult as it currently is to verify whether individual public employees have gone on to become lobbyists.

Of course, there is much more to do on the issue of lobbying reform. We support the Lobbyist Disclosure Enhancement Act, introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley as well as the Real-Time Online Lobbying Disclosure Act. For a full list of our lobbying reform proposals, click here.

Prospect Hill Elementary’s whip-smart third graders just got back from the rain forest, and they didn’t even have to take a plane.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Campaign Finance

• McCain back on campaign finance train? Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is reportedly working with Democrats on an effort to require outside groups to disclose information on the donors that have helped them spend massive amounts on this years elections. (The Hill)
• Dems try to embrace super PACs: Senate Democrats are embracing super PACs and courting wealthy donors. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his top lieutenants have been working to raise money for Majority PAC, which could help them hold on to their slim majority in the Senate. (Politico)
• All politics is no longer local: Money from out-of-state donors is dominating congressional races around the country. This might be connected to a nationalization of campaigns and a surge in donations from people at the extremes of the ideological spectrum (NPR)

Government

• Earmarks aside, powerful still steer funding: The congressional ban on earmarks hasn’t stopped the most powerful lawmakers in Congress from advancing projects that would help their states. (Politico)
• Speaker.gov/UPGRADE: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) unveiled the overhauled speaker.gov yesterday. The new website prominently features an active blog and encourages social network sharing and comments. It also relies on the open-source Drupal content management system. (Tech President)

State and Local

• Blogging about lawmaking: More than 50 state lawmakers regularly blog and more are expected to start. Blogging serves as an inexpensive way for lawmakers to engage their constituents. (Pew States)
• Georgia has high potential for corruption: Georgia’s ethics laws were updated in 2010 following a scandal. But, according to the State Integrity Investigation, it has the highest potential for corruption of any state. (Common Blog)

International

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED

• None.

HAPPENING TODAY 5/16

• FCC Oversight. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 2:30 pm. 253 RSOB. Full Committee Hearing.
• Hatch Act: Options for Reform. House Oversight and Government Reform. 9:30 am. 2247 RHOB. Federal Workforce, US Postal Service, and Labor Policy Subcommittee hearing.
• Tax Exempt Organizations Oversight. House Ways and Means. 10:00 am. 1100 LHOB. Oversight Subcommittee Hearing.
• Knowledge and Innovation: Understanding Public Access to Research. Brookings. 2:00-3:30 pm. Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.

SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW 5/17

• Homeland Security Department Ethical Standards. House Homeland Security. 9:30 am. 311 CHOB. Oversight, Investigations, and Management Subcommittee hearing.
• Digital Diplomacy: A New Era of Advancing Policy. CEIP. Thurs. 9:00-10:30 am. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.
• Does Electronic Reporting of Emissions Information Generate Environmental Benefits? Resources for the Future. Thurs. 12:00-1:30 pm. 1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.
• Webinar: All Points of the Compass – Global Legal Collections, Research, and Reference Services at the Law Library of Congress. FedLink/LoC. 2:00-3:00 pm.

Do you want to track transparency news? You can add our feed to your Google Reader, or view it on our Netvibes page. You can also get 2Day in #OpenGov sent directly to your reader!