In a decision that environmental groups are calling a "significant victory," a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that an Environmental Protection Agency rule curbing state and local control of pollution monitoring violates the Clean Air Act.

Critics say the Bush-backed rule prevented states and local governments from cracking down on pollution-causing power plants, factories and oil refineries. The U.S. Court of Appeals agreed.

In a 2 to 1 decision, Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote for the majority that federal standards cannot ensure proper monitoring, so states and local governments "must be allowed to fill the gap," The Post's Del Quentin Wilber reported.

Yesterday's ruling was the latest setback to the Bush administration's beleagured EPA.

Last month, House Democrats questioned the White House's involvement in an EPA administrator's decision to block California's bid to regulate vehicles' tailpipe emissions, overruling EPA officials in favor of the mandate. Ex-EPA official, Jason K. Burnett, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the White House ordered the EPA to block California's request, contradicting earlier Senate testimony by EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

More than a week before the California show-down, a federal panel threw out a major part of the administration's aggressive plan to reduce soot and smog in the Eastern and Midwestern states, saying the EPA overstepped its authority.

Despite pressure from the Supreme Court to take action, the Bush administration has opted not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the end of the year, leaving the matter of increasing regulations to the next administration.

By Matthew Mosk
The woman who had a lengthy affair with former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has said she met the former senator at the Regency Hotel bar in New York City, and thought he was giving off a special "energy."

But how did Rielle Hunter become a videographer for Edwards in the run up to his presidential campaign announcement? Two former Edwards staffers said this week that the brain behind the "webisodes" was actually a Hollywood producer whose hit titles include the indy film "Swingers" and "Scream." The producer, Cary Woods, set up a June 2006 meeting to introduce Hunter to Edwards's top political aides and to describe his vision for the personalized, web-based videos that would put Hunter and Edwards in close proximity for months -- including at the event where he formally announced his candidacy.

"The producer introduced us to [Rielle] and said, 'Hey I've got this cool idea,'" a former Edwards aide who was privy to the discussions with Woods said. That led to a lunch in Georgetown at the restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Fahrenheit, attended by Woods, Hunter and a top Edwards adviser.

Woods did not respond to messages left with his Los Angeles production company office and with the public relations agent at Plum TV, a New York-based lifestyle television network he helped found.

Continue reading at The Trail»

And so is financial investigative journalism.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will be announcing today the successor to EDGAR, its Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system. EDGAR will be supplemented, and then eventually replaced, by IDEA, which is short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications.

EDGAR is the SEC's free, online financial dosclosure database accessible to any user on the Web, that holds financial data from more than 12,000 pubicly traded companies and 8,000 mutual funds. It is an indispensible tool for business journalists, investors, analysts and regulators. EDGAR provides transaparency, allowing users the ability to access valuable financial documents, from 10-K reports to footnotes.

EDGAR, however, is outdated. Data is presented in one-dimensional block text. The data compiled among its countless pages of filings can be hard to navigate, search, and at times, understand. The financial disclosures of a single company can stretch on for hundreds of pages and be rich with legalese and businesspeak.

In contrast with the 1980s-era, document-based EDGAR platform, IDEA is Internet-based. At its core will be IDEA's utilization of the interactive data technology XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language.

XBRL works similar to the bar code system at a grocery store, but for financials. Individual items from a companies' financial statements are marked, or tagged, with an identification code unique to that particular item. Those tags are then readable by computer programs, just as scanners read the bar codes at checkout. The result is a universal language of "interactive data" that can be read across different systems and applied to any number functions.

The FBI had a strain of the anthrax linked to the deadly 2001 mailings that killed five people, but destroyed it after it apparently "did not meet the standards investigators set out in a subpoena," The Post's Carrie Johnson and Joby Warrick reported today.

Officials conceded that the destruction of the anthrax strain was a "misstep," saying that, in hindsight, they would have done things differently, The Post reported.

The revelation comes as FBI officials try to bolster their case against Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins, the prime suspect in the case who unexpectedly committed suicide last month.

The most convincing pieces of evidence presented at a news conference yesterday were details about Ivins's mysterious flask of anthrax bacteria. His special strain -- labeled RMR-1029 -- was "a mix of normal anthrax cells and four mutated varieties or genetic oddballs," The Post reported.

In case you missed it, The Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reported today about some of the apparent pitfalls in allowing outside contracting "experts" help dictate government rules and policies.

For years, the Science Applications International Corp. advised the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on a project to recycle radioactive materials while simultaneously working on a related contract for the Department of Energy -- without disclosing the conflict of interest as required by law. SAIC stood to gain millions of dollars in potential revenue as a result of its work with the Energy Department and NRC, according to Justice documents.

"The case offers a rare glimpse at one of the consequences of the government's unprecedented reliance on contractors to help federal agencies: Consultants sometimes gain insider knowledge and help draft rules that could benefit their own bottom lines," O'Harrow reported.

A federal grand jury found that the San Diego-based company made dozens of false and fraudulent claims for payment related to its government work, but the SAIC is appealing the decision. Read the full story.

Editors, media analysts and pundits are still grappling over how the mainstream press handled the sordid tale of former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and his mistress, questioning everything from off-the-record chats with the onetime presidential candidate to wondering aloud about the credibility of the tabloid that broke the story, The National Enquirer.

Edwards's off-the-record comments to Raleigh News & Observer Executive Editor John Drescher in October, in which he denied having an extramarital affair, sparked a Sunday column examining the paper's relationship, or lack thereof, with the homegrown politician.

"Because he has acknowledged he lied, I feel free to report" about the conversation, Drescher wrote.

After News & Observer editors weighed whether or not to run a follow-up to the Enquirer story, Dresher said, Edwards called Drescher from an airport, urging him not to run the story. He denied the Enquirer's allegations that he'd had an affair with an unnamed woman -- later identified as campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.

Twenty soldiers told USA TODAY's Gregg Zoroya last week that complaints regarding mold at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., went unanswered for months and that they were later ordered not to publicly speak about the facility's poor conditions.

In response, Army officials replaced ventilation ducts in two barracks that had been encrusted with mold and Maj. Gen. Peter Vangiel, the commanding officer at the base, said it was "inappropriate" for soldiers to be prohibited from talking about problems at the facility, according to USA TODAY.

The Fort Sill story comes 18 months after The Post's Dana Priest and Anne Hull explored conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. The series not only uncovered problems at Walter Reed, once dubbed the "crown jewel" of military medical operaitons, but also highlighted "depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey."

The reaction to the series was bold and swift: The commander of the facility, Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, was fired, as was the secretary of the Army, Francis J. Harvey, within a month of the report; Bush appointed a commission tasked with examining the care of wounded veterans, which recommended the creation of a national caseworker system along with a complete overhaul of military disability compensation policy; and a panel proposed closing down Walter Reed earlier than 2011, the year the Army medical operation is moved to National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

The Post's coverage prompted closer scrutiny of other facilities across the country, including the Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Leonard Downie Jr., who is retiring Sept. 8 after 17 years as executive editor of the Washington Post, initially made his name as an investigative reporter at the newspaper. At 24, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his investigation of the local courts in the District of Columbia. In leading The Post, he has always been the staunchest advocate for investigative reporting, which he refers to in his own inimitable fashion as "accountability reporting." He is a hands-on editor who takes his pencil to every major investigation we do. Under Downie's leadership, the paper won 25 Pulitzer Prizes, a record for any editor, including six this year, a record for The Post in a single year. To say that he is a legend in American journalism understates the fact.

Last week, Downie was the opening day speaker at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. The notes he based his remarks on reflect his commitment to the craft of investigative reporting and his belief that such journalism has a future, on paper or on the Web.

Among the highlights:

"For me, the most important and rewarding journalism you could produce, regardless of platform, technology or audience, is accountability journalism," Downie told the students.

He defined accountability journalism as journalism that holds accountable those in power, brings critical issues to light, rights wrongs, and finally, "matters."

He pointed out that such journalism is expensive and time-consuming, and there is "much worry" about how to continue to do it as newsrooms get smaller. But he also pointed out that newspapers big and small are protecting their ability to do it even as they make cuts in staff.

Downie also cited investigative projects in 2007 that received major notice, including the New York Times investigation into a deadly ingredient contained in Chinese glycerin, the Chicago Tribune investigation into unsafe cribs and toys from China and Washington Post investigations of Walter Reedand Dick Cheney's vice presidency.

As for the future of accountability reporting, Downie noted several trends:

Justice Department officials yesterday provided another look at the evidence collected against Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who was indicted last month on seven counts of falsely reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts.

The original indictment accuses Stevens, 84, of concealing payments of more than $250,000 in goods and services from VECO, an oil company with substantial business in Alaska. The items include home improvements, autos and household items

The new revelations show a direct line of communication from Bill Allen, VECO's founder, to Stevens, writes The Associated Press' Matt Apuzzo. "When Stevens needed a new generator for his house, a car for his daughter or a job for his son, prosecutors say he called VECO, the same company that oversaw an extensive renovation project on his home," Appuzzo reports.

Prosecutors outline a close Allen-Stevens connection:

In a regular feature of Post Investigations, our editors have combed through the in-depth and investigative reports from news outlets across the nation and selected the notable projects of the week.

Get the complete list (in no particular order) after the jump.