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Congressional Salaries and Allowances
This report provides basic information on congressional salaries and allowances. First, the report briefly summarizes the current salary of Members of Congress, limits on their outside earned income and honoraria, and applicable health insurance and retirement benefits.
Expanding the Scope of the Public Performance Right for Sound Recordings: A Legal Analysis of the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848 and S. 379)
This report provides information about a Legal Analysis of the Performance Rights Act of 2007 (H.R. 4789 and S. 2500) on Expanding the Scope of the Public Performance Right for Sound Recordings.
Financial Regulatory Reform: Systemic Risk and the Federal Reserve
The recent financial crisis contained a number of systemic risk episodes, or episodes that caused instability for large parts of the financial system. The lesson some policymakers have taken from this crisis is that a systemic risk or "macroprudential" regulator is needed to prevent similar episodes in the future. This report defines the potential duties and responsibilities of a systemic risk regulator, relating those duties to events that potentially contributed to the recent crisis. It then identifies the powers that would need to be given to a regulator to perform those duties, and compares those powers and responsibilities to the Fed's existing powers and responsibilities. It discusses advantages and disadvantages of giving those responsibilities to the Fed or the executive branch. The report also includes a brief overview of major elements of the Administration's proposal, H.R. 4173, which passed the House on December 11, 2009, and the Restoring American Financial Stability Act, which was ordered to be reported out of the Senate Banking Committee on March 22, 2010.
Internet Domain Names: Background and Policy Issues
This report discusses the Domain Name System (DNS), which is the distributed set of databases residing in computers around the world that contain address numbers mapped to corresponding domain names, making it possible to send and receive messages and to access information from computers anywhere on the Internet.
Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security
This report discusses the current political and social climate of Iraq, specifically in regards to the influence of the U.S. military presence over recent years. This report addresses planned and possible future efforts under the Obama Administration, including the scheduled gradual troops withdrawal. This report also discusses the continued tensions between various Iraqi sociocultural groups.
Mountaintop Mining: Background on Current Controversies
No Description Available.
National Security Letters: Proposed Amendments in the 111th Congress
This report includes a chart comparing the provisions of the bills and current law. It also reprints the text of the five National Security Letters (NSL) statutes as they now appear and as they appeared prior to amendment by the USA PATRIOT Act (to which form they would have returned under some of the bills).
U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources: Terminology, Reporting, and Summary
This report describes the characteristics of fossil fuels that make it necessary to use precise terminology (oil, natural gas, and coal), summarizes the major terms and their meanings, and provides a brief summary of U.S. endowment of fossil fuels and the relationship between the U.S. fossil fuel energy endowment and those of other nations.
The United Arab Emirates Nuclear Program and Proposed U.S. Nuclear Cooperation
This report provides background information on the UAE nuclear program, reviews developments to date, analyzes proposed nuclear cooperation with the United States, and discusses relevant legislative proposals and options.
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