The Government Accountability Office has released its latest progress report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the Treasury Department's new Office of Financial Stability (OFS). The Eye will not even attempt to assess TARP's economic impact, but will instead focus on how it's altered the federal food chain.

As of Monday, Treasury had hired 38 permanent staff and 52 temporary staff for OFS, up from five permanent staffers and 43 temporary hires in late November. The temporary staff (referred to as "detailees") come mostly from other parts of the Treasury Department, including the U.S. Mint and IRS and from other agencies and departments, including the SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, HUD, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Treasury anticipates it will need a total of approximately 131 staffers, through a mix of permanent and temporary hires.

OFS' recruitment process has been delayed however, because Treasury requires most applicants disclose financial information to determine any potential conflicts of interest. "Some qualified candidates were unaware when they applied for an OFS position that their financial investments could pose conflicts and subsequently made the decision not to pursue employment with OFS," according to the report. Treasury is thus collecting financial information as early as possible in the hiring process.

Adding to the delays, "Treasury said that candidates with the right skills and abilities to fill positions in OFS often work for a financial regulator that can offer a more competitive salary than OFS." The department's Human Resources division is considering incentives for potential hires, but is limited by current laws and Office of Personnel Management regulations.

The report credits OFS with establishing a relatively seamless plan to keep high-level staffers in place during the presidential transition, retaining several Bush-era hires until the Obama administration names permanent replacements. But it has not completed formal job descriptions for some positions, nor has established a formal workforce plan that defines the long- and short-term needs for the program.

Still, at least someone is hiring.

Happy Friday! We start with two noteworthy links from government Web sites First, check out the Justice Department's National Motor Vehicle Title Information System Web site that launched yesterday. Once all 50 states are participating by next year, it will allow auto consumers to assure their purchase is not a "lemon." Then make sure to visit USA.gov, which has compiled all of the government's food safety information in one spot.

It's nice to learn that a cabinet secretary will practice what he preaches (or something like that): Arne Duncan will enroll his children 7-year-old daughter in Arlington, Va. public schools, telling The Post's Maria Glod that he appreciates the quality of the schools and the diversity of the student body. Duncan and his wife also have a 4-year-old son.

Speaking of the cabinet, another Republican may soon join it. New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg is in the mix for commerce secretary, according to Roll Call and The New York Times.

"If Mr. Gregg accepted the post, he would probably be replaced by a Democrat," the Times reports.

In other news...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan will send his children to Virginia public schools.

By The Post's Maria Glod:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said his young daughter will attend public school in Northern Virginia.

In an interview, Duncan, 44, said he was attracted by both the quality of Arlington County schools and the diversity of the student body. He said his 7-year-old daughter, Claire, will enroll in first grade at a county elementary school.

Duncan and his wife, Karen, also have a son, 4-year-old Ryan. Both children sat quietly during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, reading books and drawing. Their behavior earned them praise from several senators.

“You’ve got a beautiful family behind you. I am quite pleased that your young son is sitting there reading books instead of amusing himself with the latest electronic gadget,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said during the Jan. 13 hearing. “As the mom of two boys, I know that it’s tough to kind of keep them in their seats. But you’re doing right.”

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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has asked the Justice Department to review allegations of criminal activity at the scandal-ridden Mineral Management Service and has tapped his chief of staff, Tom Strickland, to oversee a top-to-bottom review of the Colorado-based federal agency that manages American natural gas and oil on the outer continental shelf. Interior will also examine the possible restructuring of MMS's royalty-in-kind program and has issued a new code of conduct for the agency.

"The President has made it clear that the type of ethical transgressions, blatant conflicts of interest, wastes and abuses that we have seen over the past eight years will no longer be tolerated," Salazar said this afternoon during an appearance at MMS offices in Lakewood, Colo. "The Department of the Interior will raise the bar for ethics, and we will set the standard for reform."

Three separate inspector general reports released last September revealed instances of wrongdoing among current and former MMS staffers who accepted gifts including tickets to sporting events and concerts from oil and gas industry representatives; allegedly had sexual relationships with subordinates; bought cocaine from fellow staffers; and arranged for hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting work upon retirement.

Most of the problems revolve around the royalty-in-kind program, which collects in-kind payments on federal oil and gas leases. In November, some of the accused employees were disciplined for their transgressions while others were fired. Salazar today also tasked Strickland, a former U.S. attorney, with reviewing those personnel actions to determine if additional actions are necessary.

"The problems that occurred here in Lakewood were the product of a few individuals and a set of special interests who capitalized on an outdated and flawed royalty collection system," Salazar said.

The new MMS code of conduct states that employees can no longer solicit or accept gifts or any other items of monetary value from industry representatives with business before the agency; must act in an impartial manner; disclose cases of waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption and should avoid actions that may create the appearance of illegal or unethical behavior. Staffers also cannot engage in employment that conflicts with official responsibilities and must get written approval to do any outside work or activity related to official duties.

"All ideas for reform will be on the table," he said, adding that "We need a system that delivers a fair value to the taxpayer, is straightforward and transparent, and is less vulnerable to the type of abuses we have seen."

Salazar will get credit for quickly tackling corruption at his new department, but some observers still hope for further action. "It’s a first step, but we don’t know what the second one is, or how big it will be," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which counts several thousand Interior employees as members.

One of the reasons for ethical lapses at MMS appears to have been a perception that the agency viewed oil and gas companies as partners, rather than an industry requiring regulation on behalf of taxpayers, Ruch said.

Beyond MMS, there have been several recent examples of criminal or unethical behavior across the Interior Department, including the case of former deputy Interior secretary Steven Griles, who was convicted in 2007 for lying to a Senate committee about his connections to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Word of Salazar's changes first came yesterday when he appeared at the daily White House press briefing. Earlier this week, he also announced a separate review of the department's ethics policies.

It appears that the news media is partially to blame for the continuing decline of the U.S. Postal Service.

Does the news media deserve blame for the demise of the U.S. Postal Service?

The bad news about its future came yesterday during a Senate subcommittee hearing on the financial future of the Postal Service. There's an interesting nugget in the prepared testimony of Phillip Herr, the Government Accountability Office's director of physical infrastructure. He suggests that an economic recovery may not trigger an increase in mail volume, "due to continuing social and technological trends that have changed the way that people communicate and use the mail." Specifically:

Periodicals (e.g., mailed newspapers and magazines) volume has been declining due to changing reading preferences and these declines are expected to continue. Overall newspaper readership is falling. Also, the Christian Science Monitor and U.S. News and World Report recently announced that they would discontinue their printed editions. Businesses and consumers are becoming more likely to obtain news and information from the Internet, a trend that is particularly evident among young people.

Postal cutbacks may trigger even more problems for the news industry however, since curtailed mail delivery may disrupt the publishing schedules of magazines and other news publications dependent upon USPS to deliver material in a timely fashion.

Herr also suggested that first-class mail volume is unlikely to increase since households, business and other organizations have cut back considerably on printed mail in favor of electronic alternatives. Standard mail volume may also continue to decline as companies turn to Web-based search engine advertising.

But the Postal Service and other folks went there: they blamed the media and the rise of twenty-something bloggers like yours truly, for possibly causing the end of six-day delivery.

Apologies in advance.

UPDATE 4:32 p.m. ET: The Eye's colleague Joe Davidson reports a cut in six-day delivery looks less likely, thanks to the actions of some lawmakers. But still feel free to blame the media, if you must.

Good government groups, media outlets and other executive branch observers cheered when President Obama issued an executive order last week instructing all agencies and departments to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The FOIA request process can be maddening and the amount of time between a request and the actual delivery of information often renders the information useless, as New Orleans Times-Picayune staff writer Mark Schleifstein recently wrote. The Times-Picayune environmental reporter filed a FOIA request in Oct. 2005 for information about FEMA's "Rapid Needs Assessment Teams" and how they responded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He requested expedited delivery of the requested records, as is allowed by law.

As Schleifstein wrote:

Forty months later, in a letter whose envelope was dated Jan. 12, 2009 -- there's no date on the letter itself -- Alisa T. Henderson, chief of FEMA's "Disclosure Office," wrote, "We sincerely apologize for this delay and any inconvenience it may have caused."

Henderson actually was following up on a Nov. 19 call from one of her employees who had asked whether I still wanted the information and stating the obvious, that Katrina and Rita hit more than three years ago. Follow the federal logic here: If we break the law for long enough, you should allow us to break it forever.

That call and Henderson's letter are only the latest in what's become an annual apology ritual for the office allegedly handling public information requests. I received my first response on Oct. 7, 2005, from Jeff Ovall, a FEMA attorney, who explained that my request for expedited processing had been granted (!) but that FEMA was a bit short-handed at the time, given the hurricanes.

Schleifstein says he wrote the piece before Obama issued his executive order, a move he welcomes. FEMA has reached out in an unofficial capacity since the piece ran last weekend, and he expects a "positive response" in the next week or so.

"I think they need to put some more resources into answering FOIA requests," he said. "I think it's clear from my conversations over the years with FEMA that they may have only one or two staffers assigned to do that, especially after Katrina. There was no effort made to respond to them. No serious effort."

While he's suffered through FOIA issues with FEMA, Schleifstein credits the Army Corps of Engineers for going "out of their way to give us what we want."

As for what the Obama administration can do to remedy the problem, Schleifstein suggests it consider how Louisiana handles such requests.

"Our state law is extremely open. It really does assume that the obligation is on the agency to find a way of giving the information to the public, rather than on the person asking to prove that he needs it."

Make sure to train your Eyes on Schleifstein's entire piece.

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Happy Thursday! A reminder that there's only one month left to submit nominations for the Partnership for Public Service's Service to America Medals, given to dedicated federal employees each Fall.

Also -- if you're a telecommuter or interested in using video teleconference technology at your federal office, stop by the grand opening of the TANDBERG Executive Briefing Center in Reston, Va. today from 4 to 7 p.m. for a demonstration of VTC technology. You should pre-register if planning to stop by.

Next week The Eye unveils the latest report in our "Ask Your Government" series. Make sure to submit your questions for federal departments, agencies and offices through our Google Moderator group.

Send your event notices, news tips, questions or comments to federaleye@washingtonpost.com. And don't forget to follow The Eye on Twitter!

In the news...

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) has introduced a bill that would increase resources and regulatory authority for the Food and Drug Administration, saying it "can't and doesn't do its job, and American lives are at risk. We're killing Americans."

The FDA publicly released its inspection reports for the Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Ga. at the heart of the national salmonella outbreak.

"We don't have a good idea right now in terms of how much of that product is still out there; it may have largely been consumed," Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition told The Post.

Interestingly, "The last time the FDA inspected the plant was in 2001, officials said yesterday. In 2006, the agency contracted inspections to the Georgia Department of Agriculture. State inspectors visited the plant about twice a year, but in 2008 they did not check for salmonella. The state inspection reports all seemed to play down deficiencies, saying all that was needed was routine follow-up."

In other news...

No, Helen Thomas has not been replaced by Ken Salazar, but the Interior Secretary did take possession of her high-profile front-row seat in the White House Briefing Room this afternoon, becoming the first Obama administration cabinet secretary to appear at a press briefing. It's the first time anyone can remember a cabinet official sitting in the press seats during a daily White House news briefing. (See the video above.)

Salazar's playful move followed a serious announcement: he will travel tomorrow to the Lakewood, Colo. offices of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to unveil plans to reform the entire Interior Department.

“Over the last eight years, the Department of the Interior has been tarnished by ethical lapses and criminal behavior that has extended to the highest levels of government," Salazar said, noting that "It is the department that the American people associate with Jack Abramoff."

MMS has been the home to most of the high-profile ethical lapses. It manages the leases for natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf and last year it collected roughly $23 billion in revenues. Three separate inspector general reports released last September revealed cases of wrongdoing among current and former staffers. The reports found that staffers accepted gifts from oil and gas industry representatives, including tickets to concerts and sporting events. They also allege sexual misconduct between MMS employees and industry representatives and found that a program manager bought cocaine from a subordinate.

Following a statement to the press, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took a front-row seat in the White House Briefing Room Wednesday afternoon.

“The Lakewood, Colo. office of the Minerals Management Service is tasked with making sure that taxpayers collect their fair share from oil and gas development on our public lands," Salazar told reporters.

“Yet during the last Administration, some of the employees of that office violated the public trust by accepting gifts and employment contracts from the oil and gas companies they are supposed to be holding accountable."

The secretary said tomorrow's announcement “is only the first step of our long-term effort to enact comprehensive, top-to-bottom reform of the Department of Interior."

Following his remarks, Salazar plopped down between CBS' Chip Reid and ABC's Jake Tapper, in the seat normally occupied by Thomas. The famed newspaper columnist and author has worked the White House beat since the Kennedy administration. No word on her whereabouts today.

While most of the nation will focus on the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers when they play in Sunday's 43rd annual Super Bowl (that's XLIII in Roman numerals), some federal agencies will focus on off-field activities. (See The Eye's game predictions below.)

The Arizona Cardinals face the Pittsburgh Steelers will play this Sunday in Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay, Fla.

The Department of Homeland Security has classified the big game as a Special Security Event (SSE), meaning the department and other federal agencies will partner with Tampa Police and Florida state authorities "providing resources and situational awareness," DHS spokesman Sean Smith said. An SSE is different than a National Special Security Event (NSSE), the classification given to last week's Inauguration. An NSSE requires the attendance of political dignitaries and historical, political or symbolic significance that could cause heightened concern for possible terrorist attacks or criminal activity.

Former Arizona governor turned Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will be rooting for her home state Cardinals, but she'll also be on the clock.

“The Secretary has been briefed on arrangements for the Super Bowl and will be in regular contact with officials at all levels of government on the ground managing security for the game," Smith said. "Having just last year hosted one in Arizona, she is familiar with the set up in place." Napolitano will not be in attendance at Sunday's game in Tampa.

In addition to her official Super Bowl duties, Napolitano has placed a dinner bet with Edward Rendell (D-Pa.), the governor of the Steelers' home state. He apologized to Napolitano last month following some Eye-raising remarks about her qualifications for the DHS post.

Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration has taken steps to deal with increased air traffic to the Super Bowl. It expects 1,000 additional aircraft will use Tampa-area airports this weekend and will set flight restrictions around the city on Sunday. It also plans to add extra staff all day Sunday and Monday morning at Tampa Tower to deal with an anticipated higher volume of traffic.

Finally, in a (futile?) attempt to link itself to the nation's largest sporting event, the Department of Agriculture has issued a reminder about food safety that includes some football-themed language.

The USDA urges consumers to "avoid penalties for illegal use of hands" by washing them before handling food and "Ensure your foods are in 'the Red Zone' by using a food thermometer."

We can all hope the football game is better than the USDA's puns.

As for the big game, The Eye, a N.Y. Giants fan, usually avoids sports predictions, but feels pretty confident that the Cardinals -- on a streak of late -- will beat the Steelers by six. What do you think? What do The Eye's Post blogging colleagues think? Find out at The Post's Super Bowl Prediction Page.

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Happy Wednesday! Eric Holder gets one step closer to the Justice Department today when the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote favorably on his confirmation. The Senate Intelligence Commitee is also scheduled to approve the nomination of Retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair to serve as direction of national intelligence. Blair's written responses to further questions from the panel seems to have secured his confirmation.

Al "In the Loop" Kamen (an Eye mentor) notes that Timothy Geithner won Senate approval with barely enough to stop a filibuster.

"Since the Carter administration, though, most Cabinet secretaries have either been confirmed easily or forced to withdraw, often kicking and screaming, when it became clear that the votes weren't there. President Bush I Pentagon nominee John Tower was the only one rejected outright, 53 to 47," writes Kamen.

Still, Geithner set new limits on lobbyists' influence over the $700 billion bailout program, while appointing a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist as his chief of staff. Hmm...

In other news...

Washington-area Federal offices are open today under an unscheduled or "liberal leave" policy, meaning employees who cannot report for work can request unscheduled leave for the entire work day.

Employees have to notify their supervisors of their decision to take unscheduled leave.

The Office of Personnel Management decides when to alter employee work schedules due to the weather or other events.

For a list of Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia school closings, click here.