Government

The fiscal year 2009 allocation of Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) is up about 4% from last year, and is being distributed to about 60% of the nation's counties and other local jurisdictions.

US EPA and Army Corps of Engineers say they "cannot make the list of 'high hazard' coal ash impoundment sites public," even though risk to communities exists -- like the December 2008 pond failure at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee.

$15 million of Stimulus funding for 55 projects, designed to help reduce wildfire hazards and reclaim burned lands, could be of substantial interest in the receiving communities.

The Obama EPA partially reverses a Bush-era procedure for setting health-based standards under the Clean Air Act.

The Government Printing Office web site apparently took down the publication after discovery of the mistake -- but the entire report is still available on the site of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

NYT: "The goal is to open up a system in which the agency failed to inform the public that a widely prescribed heartburn drug was especially toxic to babies; that a diabetes medicine and a painkiller increased heart attack risks; and that antidepressants increased suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and teenagers."