U.S. Office of Management and Budget

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is headed by Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, formerly president of the Walmart Foundation and, previously, President of the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mission
According to the Office's web site, the OMB's "predominant mission is to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President's spending plans, OMB evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities. OMB ensures that agency reports, rules, testimony, and proposed legislation are consistent with the President's Budget and with Administration policies.

"In addition, OMB oversees and coordinates the Administration's procurement, financial management, information, and regulatory policies. In each of these areas, OMB's role is to help improve administrative management, to develop better performance measures and coordinating mechanisms, and to reduce any unnecessary burdens on the public."

On Global Warming
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office was behind a push to censor congressional testimony that global warming poses a danger to the public, according to Jason Burnett, a former associate deputy administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The vice president and the White House Office of Management and Budget heavily edited testimony last year by the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). "I read the testimony, checked with EPA scientists, and came to the conclusion that the draft testimony was fundamentally accurate as written," Burnett stated in a letter to Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Lobbied by the Nuclear Industry for Loan Guarantees
In May 2007, The Hill reported that the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), along with "top banking institutions" are lobbying the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) for "more comprehensive" federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. "Since the April meeting" with OMB, the DoE "has proposed that the federal government cover 90 percent of loan guarantees, higher than its original guidelines of 80 percent."

NEI's "New Plant Finance Task Force" is telling federal agencies that without total or near-total federal loan guarantees, which "act as default protection for private lenders," nuclear power companies will "have difficulty in financing new plants, which can cost as much as $4 billion." NEI's Richard Myers said that even increasing the loan guarantees to 90% of plant costs "will probably not be workable." A DoE spokesperson said the agency was not supporting a greater than 90% guarantee because the agency must protect "the taxpayer dollar from the potential financial risks of these projects."

Personnel

 * Howard Shelanski, Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Contact Information
Website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/

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