Congressional Research Service Reports - 96 Matching Results

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Environmental Protection Agency: FY2000 Budget Issues

Description: State and local wastewater and drinking water capital needs were the most prominent budgetary issues. Senate and House authorizing and appropriating chairmen expressed concern over the requested 17% decrease in the State and Tribal Assistance Grants account from $3.41 billion in FY1999 to $2.84 billion in FY2000. The conference agreement on H.R. 2684 provides a total of $3.47 billion. For clean water state revolving funds, the conference committee approved the Senate's level of $1.35 billion, a… more
Date: October 22, 1999
Creator: Lee, Martin R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Protection Agency: FY1998 Budget

Description: EPA appropriations are included in the annual VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriation Bill. Two major issues were whether Superfund cleanups should be accelerated in the absence of statutory reforms and whether the requested state assistance funds are adequate. Because the House and Senate were in agreement on not granting the requested 50% increase in Superfund and in passing increased state funds, the chief conference issue focused on the roughly $225 million difference between the House an… more
Date: January 12, 1998
Creator: Lee, Martin R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Protection Agency: FY1998 Budget

Description: EPA appropriations are included in the annual VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriation Bill. Two major issues were whether Superfund cleanups should be accelerated in the absence of statutory reforms and whether the requested state assistance funds are adequate. Because the House and Senate were in agreement on not granting the requested 50% increase in Superfund and in passing increased state funds, the chief conference issue was expected to focus on the roughly $225 million difference betwee… more
Date: October 14, 1997
Creator: Lee, Martin R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Protection Agency: An Analysis of Key FY1999 Budget Issues

Description: On February 2, 1998, the President requested $7.8 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in FY1999. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported S. 2168 (S.Rept. 105-216) on June 12; the full Senate passed the bill on July 17. The House Committee reported H.R. 4194 (H.Rept. 105-610) on July 8, 1998; the full House passed it on July 29; and the Senate passed it on July 30 after incorporating S. 2168's provisions. During the week of October 6, the House and Senate approved the conf… more
Date: December 4, 1998
Creator: Lee, Martin R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Fast-Track Trade Authority: Which Environmental Issues are "Directly Related to Trade"?

Description: This report discusses fast-track negotiating authority, which provides that Congress will consider trade agreements within mandatory deadlines, with limited debate, and without amendment. Trade negotiating objectives have generally been included in fast-track legislation to establish priorities for trade negotiators.
Date: October 2, 1997
Creator: Wilson, Arlene
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Fast-Track Trade Authority Proposals: Which Environmental Issues are Included in the Principal Negotiating Objectives?

Description: This report discusses fast-track negotiating authority, which provides that Congress will consider trade agreements within mandatory deadlines, with limited debate, and without amendment. Environmental provisions are eligible for the fast-track procedure only if they meet at least one of the principal trade negotiating objectives.
Date: October 17, 1997
Creator: Wilson, Arlene
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Clean Water Act and TMDLs

Description: Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires states to identify waters that are impaired by pollution, even after application of pollution controls. For those waters, states must establish a total maximum daily load (TMDL) of pollutants to ensure that water quality standards can be attained. Implementation of this provision has been dormant until recently, when states and EPA were prodded by numerous lawsuits. The TMDL issue has become controversial, in part because of requirements and costs … more
Date: September 11, 1997
Creator: Copeland, Claudia
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Highway Fund Sanctions for Clean Air Act Violations

Description: This report provides information concerning the authority to impose sanctions, lists the 14 areas that have been subject to sanctions since 1990, describes their status as of October 1997, and discusses the role of sanctions and alternatives under the Act.
Date: October 22, 1997
Creator: McCarthy, James E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Air Quality: EPA's Ozone Transport Rule, OTAG, and Section 216 Petitions - A Hazy Situation?

Description: The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments provided the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states with new tool to address the problem of interstate transport of air pollutants. This report discusses the actions undertaken as a direct result of this act, additional pollution reduction enforcement measures pursued by the EPA, and actions undertaken by states to reduce offending emissions not in compliance with these measures.
Date: June 15, 1999
Creator: Parker, Larry & Blodgett, John E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Air Quality: EPA's Proposed Ozone Transport Rule, OTAG, and Section 216 Petitions - A Hazy Situation?

Description: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently engaged in a series of regulatory actions to address the transport of ozone pollution in the eastern United States. This report reviews this situation with respect to an EPA-proposed Ozone Transport Rule and other activities.
Date: May 14, 1998
Creator: Parker, Larry & Blodgett, John E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Highway Fund Sanctions and Conformity Under the Clean Air Act

Description: This report discusses two Clean Air Act provisions that can result in denial of federal highway funding to local areas: sanctions and the lapse of what is called "conformity." Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is required to impose highway fund or other sanctions on areas that have not submitted or not implemented adequate plans to attain air quality standards. In addition, federal agencies may not provide financial support to transportation impro… more
Date: October 15, 1999
Creator: McCarthy, James E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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The D.C. Circuit Remands the Ozone and Particulate Matter Clean-Air Standards:

Description: On May 14, 1999, in American Trucking Ass'ns v. EPA, a U.S. court of Appeals ruled that deficiencies in EPA's promulgation of new primary and secondary air quality standards required that they be remanded to the agency for further consideration. The decision is controversial, in part because the two-judge majority opinion relied principally on a long-moribund legal doctrine known as the nondelegation doctrine. The decision, if it survives appeal, will thus have implications for all delegations … more
Date: June 10, 1999
Creator: Meltz, Robert & McCarthy, James E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Protection: Defense-Related Programs

Description: The Department of Defense (DOD) operates six environmental programs that address cleanup of past contamination at military facilities, compliance with environmental laws and regulations that apply to current activities, cleanup at military bases being closed, pollution prevention, natural resource conservation, and environmental technology. In addition, the Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for managing defense nuclear waste generated from the past production of atomic materials used to… more
Date: July 28, 1998
Creator: Bearden, David M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Defense Cleanup and Environmental Programs: Authorization and Appropriations for FY2000

Description: Although Congress authorizes most federal programs for multiple years, it annually authorizes programs for national defense as well as appropriating funding for them each fiscal year. Of the activities traditionally authorized and funded, the Department of Defense (DOD) administers the following six environmental programs: environmental restoration, compliance, cleanup at base closure sites, pollution prevention, environmental technology, and natural resource conservation.
Date: December 13, 1999
Creator: Bearden, David M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Reauthorizations and Regulatory Reform: From the 104th Congress to the 106th

Description: The 104th Congress pursued efforts to reform environmental regulations on several fronts: (1) revising regulatory decision making processes; (2) attaching specific reforms to funding bills; (3) establishing a House corrections day calendar of bills addressing specific regulatory problems; and (4) incorporating regulatory reforms into individual program reauthorization bills. The 105th Congress has pursued regulatory reform in four primary directions: (1) proposals to establish a comprehensive c… more
Date: January 8, 1999
Creator: Blodgett, John E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Leaking Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Issues

Description: Nationwide, more than 370,000 leaks from underground storage tanks (USTs) have been detected, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that many more could be confirmed as older tanks are upgraded, replaced, or closed to meet regulations that went into effect on December 22, 1998.
Date: February 17, 1999
Creator: Tiemann, Mary
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Equity

Description: More than 20 years of Federal pollution control programs notwithstanding, growing perception that minority and low-income communities remain at disproportionately high risk of exposure to toxic pollutants is focusing attention on "environmental equity" issues. Federal legislation has been introduced to ensure equal protection of environmental quality and public health. Equity legislation is opposed by people who are skeptical of its long-term prospects and believe that there is insufficient evi… more
Date: August 14, 1992
Creator: Schierow, Linda-Jo
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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DOE Environmental Technology Department - A Fact Sheet

Description: The Department of Energy (DOE) established the Office of Technology Development in 1989 to develop faster and less expensive technical solutions to the Department's widespread environmental problems, primarily the legacy of decades of nuclear weapons production. Without new environmental technologies, DOE contends, some types of contamination may prove impossible to clean up. The Office of Technology Development, which is part of DOE's Environmental Management Program (EM), manages all stages o… more
Date: March 11, 1994
Creator: Holt, Mark
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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A Directory of Some Interest Groups and Governmental Organizations Concerned With National Environmental Policies

Description: This report briefly describes selected associations that have demonstrated strong and continuous interest in environmental protection policies of the United States. It provides background information on some of the active participants in national policy discussions. The set of organizations abstracted for this report is not comprehensive; many groups necessarily have been omitted, often because they failed to respond to our request for information. An attempt was made to balance divergent polit… more
Date: September 21, 1993
Creator: Schierow, Linda-Jo
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Risk Analysis and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Environmental Regulations

Description: Concerns about the national economy, environment, public health, and the quality of EPA's regulatory process have led Congress to consider proposals to require EPA analyses of risks, costs, and benefits of proposed regulations. Proponents of analysis want the results used to design more efficient regulations and to prioritize environmental problems for Federal attention. Risk analysis summarizes available scientific information about hazardous activities, chemicals, or technologies and the effe… more
Date: December 2, 1994
Creator: Schierow, Linda-Jo
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Environmental Reauthorizations and Regulatory Reform: Recent Developments

Description: If general regulatory reform bills were enacted, debates on statute-specific reauthorizations could shift from regulatory reforms to the substantive regulatory requirements of each Act. In this case, regulatory reform could consist of proposals to modify statutory requirements to reduce costs to the private sector and State and local governments, to increase flexibility, and to reduce or compensate regulatory impacts on the value of private property. At issue would be a series of potential trad… more
Date: December 19, 1994
Creator: Blodgett, John E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996: Overview of P.L. 104-182

Description: The 104th Congress made extensive changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) with the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 (P.L. 104-182), bringing to a close a multi-year effort to amend a statute that was widely criticized as having too little flexibility, too many unfunded mandates, and an arduous but unfocused regulatory schedule. Among the many changes to the SDWA, the 1996 amendments added provisions to provide funding to communities for drinking water madates, focus regulatory e… more
Date: February 8, 1999
Creator: Tiemann, Mary
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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International Forest Agreements: Current Status

Description: Over the past decade, there has been extensive public concern about loss of forests around the world. Attention to the rapid rate of tropical deforestation accelerated during the late 1980's as concern about global climate change emerged; at the time, the extensive burning of forests in Brazil (and the consequent release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) was a major concern.
Date: September 11, 1995
Creator: Fletcher, Susan R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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