The Center for Progressive Reform works to protect and improve the quality of public debate on environmental, health and safety issues by promoting a sound regulatory process. Toward that end, CPR scholars file comments with regulatory agencies, testify before congressional committees, publish opinion articles, and prepare white papers and reports. These products build on the academic scholarship and research conducted by CPR scholars. Recent CPR work on secrecy issues includes:

• Secrecy. Even before September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration had implemented a number of measures to restrict public access to information. But the Homeland Security Act has clamped down even more, restricting the public's right to know, and extending secrecy to corporate information. (Read CPR Perspective on Secrecy.)
  
  
  • Read "Bush White House blocks information to EPA libraries," by Joel Mintz and Rebecca Bratspies, published December 12, 2006 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, about the Administration's decision to close down this vital source of information for EPA staff, environmental activists and the public.
    
    
  • Read Joseph Feller's, "In Bush Grazing Decision, Politics, Secrecy Win Again," a description of Administration suppression of a damning environmental impact statement assessing the harm from a Bureau of Land Management grazing policy, published August 18 on the websites of the Center for American Progress and AlterNet.
    
    
  • Read Rena Steinzor’s May 2004 comments on the Department of Homeland Security’s Procedures for Handling Critical Infrastructure Information (Interim Rule).
    
    
  • Read Rena Steinzor's comments on the Department of Homeland Security's proposed rule for handling Critical Infrastructure Information, in which she writes that "DHS needs to go back to the drawing board."
    
    
  • Read Rena Steinzor's April 21, 2003 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun on excessive secrecy in the Defense Department's contracting process for rebuilding Iraq.
    
    
  • Read Rena Steinzor's article, "Democracy Dies Behind Closed Doors: The Homeland Security Act and Corporate Accountability," to be published in a forthcoming issue of The Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy.