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07/1/2013

Cause of Action letter to President Obama: Remove DHS Deputy IG Charles Edwards

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12/5/2012

Press Release: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Files Lawsuit Against Government

 

DRAKES BAY OYSTER COMPANY FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR ABUSING AUTHORITY, MISREPRESENTING SCIENCE

National Park Service, Interior Department, Secretary Salazar All Named in Lawsuit Over Shut-Down of Bay Area Family Farm

SAN FRANCISCO – Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC) and owner Kevin Lunny filed a lawsuit on Monday, December 3 in response to the decision from Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar to not authorize a special use permit to DBOC on National Park Service (NPS) land that has been home to the Drakes Bay Oyster Company for years.

Cause of Action, a nonprofit government accountability group, along with Stoel Rives, LLP and SSL Law Firm, LLP are representing DBOC in its fight against the decision from Secretary Salazar on several legal claims.

The lawsuit is being filed against:

  • The National Park Service,
  • Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar,
  • The Department of the Interior,
  • NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis,
  • and various NPS employees.

The key components of the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California’s District Court include the following allegations:

  • Defendants failed to comply with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
  • Defendants violated the Data Quality Act and the APA by publishing and using scientifically flawed and false information as part of the decisionmaking process for DBOC’s Special Use Permit (SUP) application.
  • Defendants violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  • Defendants violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
  • NPS employees interfered with the agency’s lawfully required procedures by providing misleading and false information to decisionmakers and the public.

Cause of Action’s Executive Director Dan Epstein offered this comment on the lawsuit:

“Cause of Action is committed to ensuring that federal agency decision-making that can affect economic prosperity in the United States is held to the scrutiny of public accountability. This is why we refuse to let the NPS and Secretary Salazar get away with exerting power that destroys a business and a community under the guise of authorized discretion.

A federal agency is not constitutionally empowered to repeatedly use false scientific data, in contradiction of its own policies, to misrepresent the behaviors of a local family business.”

The complaint can be found here.

To schedule an interview with Dan Epstein, Cause of Action’s Executive Director, or Kevin Lunny, owner of Drakes Bay Oyster Company, contact Mary Beth Hutchins,  202-400-2721 or Jamie Morris, jamie.morris@causeofaction.org, at 202-499-4232.

 

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12/4/2012

Conference Call Audio from Drakes Bay Oyster Company Media Call

Media Conference Call regarding Drakes Bay Oyster Company Lawsuit

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10/18/2012

Cause of Action Reveals As Much As $150 Million in Potential Fraud by the Chicago Transit Authority

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 18, 2012                                                                                                    

CONTACT:  Mary Beth Hutchins, 202-507-5887

 

 

Cause of Action Reveals As Much As $150 Million in Potential Fraud by the Chicago Transit Authority

Were Taxpayer Dollars Improperly Granted to Chicago’s Bus System?

 

WASHINGTON – Federal government accountability group Cause of Action (CoA) today released a report based on insider audit information that reveals the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) may have improperly received up to $150 million in taxpayer funds, dating as far back as 1982.

 

Documented in “A Bus Tour of Chicago-Style Fraud,” a 2007 audit report of the CTA obtained by Cause of Action reveals that the transit agency was found to have overreported the city’s bus Vehicle Revenue Miles (VRM). This misrepresentation of data could have led to the disbursement of a larger share of available federal U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) formula grant funds than the CTA was entitled to receive. In fiscal year 2006 alone, CTA may have received from $1 million to potentially over $5 million in excess grant funding.

 

“For thirty years, the CTA may have been defrauding US taxpayers of millions of dollars and investigators at the Department of Transportation, though aware of this potential fraud, have seemingly taken no steps to investigate or report on the matter,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action. “Our own investigation revealed a web of connections and influence among the CTA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the White House where investigating potential fraud may be mired in politics. In 2011, when notified of the audit we recently obtained, the DOT and its IG acknowledged that while they would look into the matter, a conflict of interest with current staff and CTA existed. To our knowledge no investigation has taken place.”

 

As CoA’s report highlights, those potential conflicts of interest could include Robert S. Rivkin, the current General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation who was General Counsel of the Chicago Transit Authority from 2001 to 2004, during the time CTA was likely overreporting its VRM.  Additionally, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President, was Chair of CTA from 1995 to 2003. As of April of 2009, Jarrett was still receiving deferred compensation from the Chicago Transit Authority.

 

 

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses investigative, legal, and communications tools to educate the public on how government accountability and transparency protects taxpayer interests and economic opportunity. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org

 

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04/20/2012

Washington Post: Nonprofit seeks information about protections for whistleblowers

Read the full story here. Washington Post

“The nonpartisan government accountability group Cause of Action has asked the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget to perform a government-wide audit to determine whether agencies are abiding by whistleblower protection laws.

 

The request comes after revelations that employees of the General Services Administration’s Pacific Rim region felt threatened by an acting regional administrator for voicing concerns over excessive spending. The region organized a 2010 Las Vegas training conference that cost more than $800,000 and has since come under investigation… “IG Miller claimed GSA employees were afraid of retaliation, and according to Miller, Jeff Neely, the [Pacific Rim region] administrator ‘squashed’ agency whistleblowers ‘like a bug,’” Cause of Action’s executive director Daniel Epstein wrote in a letter to Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget and executive chairman of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

 

In two other letters, sent April 19, Epstein asked the Office of Government Ethics to disclose information on GSA’s compliance with the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, a single government-wide standard established in 1989.”

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