Morning Cup: OMB Issues New Stimulus Guidance

This is the latest roundup from our stimulus blog.

Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has released detailed guidance (175 pages' worth) to department and agency heads on implementing the stimulus package. The Department of Commerce inspector general has issued a "flash report" on the broadband grant program, noting that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration should move fast to complete environmental assessments and perhaps seek an extension beyond the September 2010 deadline for awarding the $4.7 billion in grants. And New Yorker writer Steve Coll digs up an interesting provision in the job-training section of the bill.

In the states: California has appointed its own stimulus watchdog, the Los Angeles controller who revealed a backlog of thousands of untested rape kits. So has Pennsylvania: a former manufacturing CEO. Despite Gov. Bobby Jindal's opposition to some of the federal stimulus money, Louisiana's economy benefited from a previous federal influx after Hurricane Katrina, reports the New York Times.

Project of the day: Despite the political wrangling over stimulus money in South Carolina, $17 million has been approved for a bridge over the Little Pee Dee River.

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