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Paul Kiel Talks About the Loan Modification Program
Out of a potential 3.4 million homeowners, only 169,000 have been approved for permanent loan modifications. We sat down with ProPublica reporter Paul Kiel to find out why the approval process is taking so long for so many Americans. We also spoke with one of the homeowners Kiel has reported on, Deb Franklin, who shares her experience of trying to obtain a loan mod.
Greenspan: Not My Fault
March 19: This post has been updated.
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, will be presenting a 48-page paper to the Brookings Institution tomorrow. For years considered “The Maestro” of our economic system, Greenspan’s paper acknowledges that the Fed “did little” to address the systemic risks of banks that were growing increasingly complex, but he doubts that the recession could have been prevented.
I’ve pulled out a few choice excerpts. (If you want to read the full paper, we’ve put it in our handy document viewer.)
ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller Is a Finalist for the Daniel Pearl Award
Today, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists announced that T. Christian Miller and the team responsible for the "Disposable Army: Civilian Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan" series are finalists for the Daniel Pearl Awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. According to the Center for Public Integrity, who sponsors the award, the prize was specifically created to honor cross-border investigative reporting.
Miller was nominated along with Doug Smith and Francine Orr of the Los Angeles Times and Pratap Chatterjee, a freelance journalist, for his series of reports about the obstacles contractors who are injured in war zones face when they go home and try to collect their legally mandated benefits. Earlier this year, Miller was also honored with the Selden Ring Award for this series.
You can see all of the finalists here. Congratulations to everyone!
Congress Does Repair Job on Stimulus School Construction Plan
Last December, we reported in USA Today that a plan to subsidize billions of dollars in school construction under the stimulus bill had largely flopped.
Now, Congress has passed a fix to get the program back on track. President Obama signed the bill today.
“We’re excited about this,” said Ben Matthews, director of school support for North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction. The state was among many that couldn’t take full advantage of the program because of red tape, technical glitches and difficulty persuading lenders to participate.
EPA Launches National Study of Hydraulic Fracturing
Responding to reports of environmental contamination in gas drilling areas across the country, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a nationwide scientific study to determine if the problems are caused by the practice of injecting chemicals and water underground to fracture the gas-bearing rock.
The study, announced Thursday but hinted at for months, will revisit research the agency published in 2004, which concluded that the process of hydraulic fracturing did not pose a threat to drinking water. The 2004 report has been widely criticized, in part because the agency didn't conduct any water tests in reaching that conclusion.
Investigations You Need to Read: Thursday
Word is that the health care bill isn’t dropping until Friday. So in the meantime, check out these accountability headlines:
- Payday lenders, with an aggressive lobbying presence in Washington, attack critics and weaken financial reform efforts, according to Talking Points Memo.
- Also in lobbying ... This year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gears up to target Democrats in midterm elections. It plans to spend at least $50 million in what it’s calling “the most aggressive voter-education and issue-advocacy effort in our nearly hundred-year history,” according to The Washington Post.
- A report shows coal-fired power plants are still spewing highly toxic mercury, according to McClatchy. Mercury emissions are up at more than half of the country’s largest coal-fired power plants.
- Records show insurance giant WellPoint fell short of fulfilling a pledge to spend $30 million to help the uninsured, reports the Los Angeles Times. The company argues it did—through a “complicated reporting process.”
These stories are part of our ongoing roundup of investigations from other news outlets. For more, visit our Investigations Elsewhere page.
CIA Creates Transparency Page That Doesn’t Reveal Much
The CIA posted its open government page this week, following an order from the White House requiring agencies to create Web pages dedicated to transparency.
The move is overdue. Last month we reported that 27 of 64 independent agencies—agencies like the CIA, which are under the purview of the executive branch but function independently—had missed the Feb. 6 deadline for creating these transparency pages. The deadline was set by the White House Office of Management and Budget as part of a larger transparency to-do list. We are are tracking that larger to-do list too.
Reporting Recipe Conference Call Set for Thursday, March 25 at 2 p.m. EDT
Earlier this month, Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber took the unique step of publishing a reporting recipe to show people how they could do their own investigations of nursing boards and other state regulatory and licensing agencies. At the time, we said we would schedule a conference call so that the reporters could walk you through the reporting recipe and answer any questions you might have. Well, the cake has been baking long enough, and we've set the date for the call -- Thursday, March 25 at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PST. If you plan to participate in the call, please sign up here. Call-in information will be sent to those who want to participate.
Introducing the ProPublica Blog: Digging Past the Headlines
Conversations about the future of news often get stuck on a few main topics. The search for new funding streams. How to effectively use social media. Bickering between schools old and new. We’re not weighing in on those debates.
The reason we’re starting this blog at ProPublica is because we’re most concerned with accountability reporting going forward. People are not suffering from a lack of news. Morning to night, they’re barraged by information from tweets, radio, 24-hour cable news, blogs, aggregators, and traditional media. At any moment, there’s a tidal wave of information out there, constantly getting updated. What’s lacking is enough context to make sense of it all. To borrow a metaphor from this Poynter piece, it’s hard to drink from a firehose.
As Health Care Vote Nears, Another Troubling Insurance Story
Reuters filed a stunning report today about a health insurance company that targeted policyholders with HIV to drop their coverage. It opens with the case of Jerome Mitchell:
Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell’s case reveal that [health insurance company Fortis, now known as Assurant Health] had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators….
ProPublica’s A.C. Thompson Discusses NOPD Misconduct on Democracy Now!
This morning, ProPublica's A.C. Thompson was a guest on Democracy Now! to discuss our ongoing joint investigation of the New Orleans Police Department's use of deadly force in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thompson spoke with Amy Goodman and Anjali Kamat about the NOPD's investigations of those shootings, what happened to Henry Glover and the Danziger Bridge incident.
FCC’s Broadband Plan: Who’s for It—and Against It
Since the FCC formally revealed its plan to expand broadband access yesterday, the idea has been generally well-received. And really, what’s there to protest so far? The plan’s stated goal is to connect “100 million households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second service, building the world’s largest market of high-speed broadband users and ensuring that new jobs and businesses are created in America.” It also stresses making broadband faster and more powerful.
So far the only group consistently cited as being the “loser” in all of this is the National Association of Broadcasters, which has expressed reservations about losing its portion of the airwaves to make room for the broadband providers. But which industry players stand to win big if the plan moves forward? Here’s what the Post reported on this point.
Investigations You Need to Read: Wednesday
Today’s accountability headlines:
- Reports of sexual assault in the military rose 11 percent last year, according to Defense Department numbers reported by McClatchy.
- Congress delays tough regulatory decisions on financial overhaul by continually launching dozens of studies, reports The New York Times.
- The Army refuses to end the practice of burning trash on bases, even though it appears to be sickening soldiers, reports Mother Jones.
- The House took steps to rein in earmarks, but some senators, unashamed of earmarks, aren’t so keen on the idea, according to Politico.
- One in four private colleges have business ties with companies affiliated with their own trustees, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Defense News reports that the U.S. gets the least output for every dollar it spends on combat equipment.
These stories are part of our ongoing roundup of investigations from other news outlets. For more, visit our Investigations Elsewhere page.
Stimulus Spending Cracks 40 Percent
The Obama administration has spent $317 billion of last February’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to the latest numbers from Recovery.gov. The funds include $198 billion in spending and an estimated $119 billion in tax cuts, and represent just over 40 percent of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package.
You can track stimulus spending by agency on our interactive Stimulus Progress Bar. You can also see how fast that money is moving out the door, by checking out our Stimulus Speed Chart.
Federal Agencies: Stimulus Priorities Come At Expense of Non-Stimulus Work
With all the attention paid to the stimulus—to contractor waste and fraud, questionable job creation numbers, and inaccurate data—it’s easy to understand why federal agencies are feeling the pressure to get their act together when it comes to the handling and oversight of stimulus contracts.
According to a report by the Commerce Department’s inspector general, many agencies are now prioritizing Recovery Act work to such a point that non-stimulus operations are being compromised. Staff members work increased hours, non-stimulus contract awards suffer delays, and contracts receive less oversight.
Former NHTSA Lawyer: Agency Was ‘Extremely Skeptical’ of Sudden Acceleration Complaints
On Monday, we reported on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s funding situation. Turns out, funding may not be the agency’s only issue. Bloomberg has a piece about sudden unintended acceleration complaints, suggesting that such complaints may not have been taken seriously by the auto regulators:
According to data compiled by Bloomberg News, the average time NHTSA spent investigating reports of unintended acceleration dropped in each of the past three decades. Agency probes of the issue averaged 221 days before 1990, 196 days from 1990 to 2000 and 161 days in the past decade . . .
Lehman Brothers Autopsy: Repo 105, and Why Auditors Have Some Explaining to Do
If you haven’t already watched it, Marketplace has a great video explaining Repo 105, a shady accounting maneuver through which Lehman Brothers hid its financial troubles for so long before finally filing in 2008 for the largest bankruptcy in U.S history.
Repo 105 from Marketplace on Vimeo.
As business reporters sniff through Anton Valukas’ 2,200-page “coroner’s report” on Lehman, here’s a look at all the people who’ve denied they knew anything about the “Repo 105” scam.
Investigations You Need to Read: Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Today in accountability news:
- Federal auditors blocked the Army’s plans to award a $1 billion contract in Afghanistan to the company formerly known as Blackwater, according to The Washington Post.
- With state cuts to reimbursements, more doctors are turning away Medicaid patients, reports The New York Times.
- USA Today reports that lawmakers on their way out of office still have hundreds of thousands—sometimes even millions—in cash left over from campaigns, and many ways to spend it.
- Star-Tribune: Minnesotans who purchased “Support Our Troops” license plates thought they were supporting their military families and veterans, not paying for one of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s staffers.
- Lehman Brothers Fired a 14-year Company Veteran After He Blew the Whistle on its Bad Accounting Practices, reports the Wall Street Journal.
In Baton Rouge, More Allegations of Police Misconduct After Hurricane Katrina
Yesterday, the Baton Rouge Advocate published a damning exposé detailing allegations of misconduct by Baton Rouge police officers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After a four-year legal battle, the paper finally got a cache of police department documents describing a pattern of racist and abusive behavior by Baton Rouge officers in the days after the storm ravaged the Gulf coast. The cops are accused of using demeaning language; routinely harassing African Americans; physically abusing citizens; and seeking to “make life rough for New Orleans evacuees so they would leave town,” according to the Advocate, which has posted the documents…
New Data Shows Loan Mod Logjam Continues; Servicers Must Double-check Denials
New data released Friday shows that the story for the government’s foreclosure prevention program remains the same: Mortgage servicers have delivered relatively few permanent modifications, and hundreds of thousands of borrowers in trial modifications have yet to receive a final answer after many months of waiting.
To illustrate the performance of the servicers in the program, we’ve created an interactive breakdown of the data. There, you can see how bad the logjam is at each one.
Last month, we reported that approximately 100,000 homeowners had been stuck in trials for longer than six months and some homeowners had been stuck in trial modifications for as long as 10 months. That hasn’t changed – in fact, the numbers continue to worsen.
According to a ProPublica analysis of the new data, approximately 150,000 homeowners have been in a trial for longer than six months. The trials are supposed to last only three months – time for the homeowners to turn in all their financial documentation and demonstrate an ability to make the lower monthly payments.
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