Background The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. FERC also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and interstate natural gas pipelines as well as licensing hydropower projects. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave FERC additional responsibilities as outlined and updated Strategic Plan. As part of that responsibility, FERC: Regulates the transmission and wholesale sales of electricity in interstate commerce; Reviews certain mergers and acquisitions and corporate transactions by electricity companies; Regulates the transmission and sale of natural gas for resale in…
Author: John Greenewald
Background According to Schnabel Engineering: In 2005, settlement and lateral movement of the North Plaza and the Ashlar Seawall prompted the National Park Service (NPS) to close a portion of the Jefferson Memorial due to public safety concerns. Schnabel was commissioned by NPS to analyze the problem and develop a repair strategy. [They] conducted an extended settlement study to determine the cause of the seawall and North Plaza movements and the rate of settlement. The problem was in large part due to the foundation timber piles of the seawall not extending to bedrock. Schnabel conducted a value analysis with NPS…
Background In April 2009, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) awarded a contract to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which is now known as CoreCivic, Inc., to house up to 2,567 low-security, non-U.S. citizen adult male inmates in the Adams County Correctional Center (Adams County).1 The BOP exercised the contract’s second of three 2-year option periods in 2015, extending it through July 2017 and increasing its value to about $468 million. As of June 2016, it was the third largest Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) contract in terms of dollars obligated since fiscal year (FY) 2009. The DOJ Office…
Background The U.S. Postal Service’s security program is. designed to reduce the incidence of crime against employees, the mail, and other assets, as well as maintain the integrity of the Postal Service .. The Postal Service faces a variety of security challenges and threats that it must take seriously. Our objective was to determine whether the Capital District had an effective anonymous mail program in place to prevent potentially dangerous mail from entering the. mailstream and a workplace violence program to mitigate violence. We developed an enhanced security risk model to identify high-risk districts that warrant further review. We analyzed…
Background Melanie Ann Pustay became the Director of the Office of Information Policy of the United States Department of Justice in 2007. The Office of Information Policy is responsible for developing guidance for Executive Branch agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), for ensuring that the President’s FOIA Memorandum and the Attorney General’s FOIA Guidelines are fully implemented across the government, and for overseeing agency compliance with the law. Before becoming Director, Ms. Pustay served for eight years as Deputy Director of OIP, where she was responsible for the Department’s responses to access requests made to the Department’s Senior…