On Monday Congress approved $51 billion in disaster aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy, three months after the storm that killed more than 130 people and caused billions in damage to the Atlantic coast.

Follow the money with IRE's coverage page, Hurricane Sandy: Covering the Aftermath

The spending was heavily debated and at a time sparked bipartisan anger over the inability of Congress to provide timely relief. In addition to a reluctance to add to federal debt, concerns about the bill from House Republicans centered on trying to make sure the money was actually being spent on emergency needs ...

As the White House and Congressional Republicans inch toward an agreement before the fiscal cliff deadline, the opportunity remains for digging deeper into the federal budget and the impact of a deal -- or lack of deal -- on both the country's broad economic health and local communities. Find help in these links and resources.

Econocheck
A collaboration between IRE and the Sunlight Foundation, Econocheck is free to both members and non-members. It offers a wealth of data for covering the economy, including the following topics:

• Jobs and Employment
• Taxes, Government Finances and Debt
• Health Care and Insurance 
• Prices and Inflation ...

I became interested in pipeline data after reporting on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. There was (and still is) a lot of debate about the pipeline's projected spill rate and safety. TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the project, already has one U.S. pipeline, which leaked 14 times within its first year of operation. I didn't know if that was unusual, so I wanted to compare TransCanada's record to the leak rates from other companies.

That story eventually proved too much to tackle, but it led me to another story about leak detection. As it turns out ...

For help in the scramble to provide instant results and analysis -- all while sorting through close decisions on the local and federal level --  check out these resources for adding depth to your election night coverage, the day after stories and long range post-election stories. Also, check out our look at data-driven stories leading up to election day.

What's being done

• The Los Angeles Times site had a presidential map as well as a map of California showing how counties voted on candidate races and ballot measures.
• The Huffington Post also had an election center, complete with map and table ...

Federal agencies have launched FOIAonline, a tool that journalists can use to file, track and appeal requests for documents and data under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Here's what you need to know about the service, which was announced just last week.

Not all federal agencies are participating. Here's who's on board:

• Department of Commerce, minus the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Federal Labor Relations Authority
• Merit Systems Protection Board
• National Archives and Records Administration

You can search for other FOIA requests. This search for "pollution" turns up 31 results.

You ...

In a follow-up to its story on the failure's of Obama administration agencies to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, Bloomberg News reports that at least 25 percent of FOIA requests are outsourced to contractors. 

"Since fiscal 2009, the year President Barack Obama took office, spending on FOIA-related contracts has jumped about 40 percent, leaving transparency advocates wondering who’s making the decisions on whether records should be kept secret."

Previously, Bloomberg had found that 19 of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law and just eight of the 57 federal agencies met the 20-day window required by the ...

Transparency Watch is an occasional series from IRE tracking the fight for open records. If you have a story about a quest for public records you'd like to share, email us at web@ire.org.

By Danielle Ivory, Bloomberg

President Barack Obama on his first full day in office ordered federal officials to “usher in a new era of open government” and “act promptly” to make information public.

Bloomberg News in June set out to test out that promise of openness. Transparency is a core value of the company and our news coverage, which is why, for example, we ...

New York Times reporter Barry Meier knew lawsuits against the manufacturers of all-metal artificial hips were on the rise. But it wasn’t until I queried a balky Food and Drug Administration database that he was able to confirm that all-metal hip implants were quickly becoming the biggest and costliest medical implant problem since Medtronic recalled a widely used heart device in 2007.

The FDA collects voluntary reports from patients, health care providers and medical device manufacturers about problems experienced with specific devices. The federal agency compiles the reports of deaths, injuries and product malfunctions in a database known as ...

The statistics did not make sense.

Identity theft complaints to the federal government had been declining for the last four years. With almost daily reports of major information breaches, phishing attacks and other forms of cyber-crime, how could this be?

I answered this question by turning to a federal database that I obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request. I reviewed five year’s worth of identity theft complaints to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the consumer watchdog agency that collects ID theft information.

After a year’s wait for the records and extensive work scrubbing and assembling ...

Badger Guns and Ammo in suburban Milwaukee rose to national prominence in the 1990s when reports showed it had sold more crime guns than any other dealer in the nation.

In 2007, I learned from sources that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had found serious problems at the store, known then as Badger Outdoors. Such records on gun stores are shrouded in secrecy by law but I discovered the ATF was considering revoking the license – a rare move taken against only the worst gun dealers.

However, a few months later ATF’s plan evaporated. The ...