UNT Libraries Government Documents Department - 52 Matching Results
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- Electricity Restructuring Background: Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA)
- This report provides background information on PUHCA, including its history and impact. It also discusses how PUHCA reform fits into the current electric utility industry restructuring debate. This report will be updated as events warrant. For related information on electricity restructuring, see the CRS Electronic Briefing Book.
- Free and Reduced-Rate Television Time for Political Candidates
- This report provides an overview of free and reduced-rate TV time and discusses the policy, constitutional, and legal issues it raises.
- Free and Reduced-Rate Television Time for Potential Candidates
- This report provides an overview of free and reduced-rate TV time and discusses the policy, constitutional, and legal issues it raises.
- Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798-1993
- This report lists 234 instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It brings up to date a 1989 list that was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough sketch survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad. A detailed description and analysis are not undertaken here.
- Tracking Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Basic Sources
- This report is a guide to basic sources useful in tracking federal legislation and regulations. It has been prepared primarily for the use of constituents who wish to follow the federal government's legislative or regulatory activities at the local level. Brief annotations for the selected printed, telephone, electronic, and related sources describe their scope, focus, and frequency, include publisher contact information, and provide Internet addresses where available.
- Tracking Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Basic Sources
- This report is a guide to basic sources useful in tracking federal legislation and regulations. It has been prepared primarily for the use of constituents who wish to follow the federal government's legislative or regulatory activities at the local level. Brief annotations for the selected printed, telephone, electronic, and related sources describe their scope, focus, and frequency, include publisher contact information, and provide Internet addresses where available.
- Obstruction of Justice Under Federal Law: An Abbreviated Sketch
- This report focuses on selected aspects of the general obstruction of justice provisions found in 18 U.S.C. 1503, 1505, and 1512. It is essentially a replica, without footnotes or citations, of CRS Report 98-832, Obstruction of Justice Under Federal Law: A Review of Some of the Elements.
- Military Retirement and Veterans' Compensation: Concurrent Receipt Issues
- This report describes the history and background of the offset and the legislative history of recent attempts to eliminate or reduce the offset. It delineates and analyzes the arguments for and against eliminating or reducing the offset and allowing concurrent receipt, and addresses the issues of costs, precedents in other Federal programs, purposes of the two programs, and equity issues. Finally, options other than full concurrent receipt are mentioned.
- Forest Fires and Forest Health
- Interest in fuel management, to reduce fire control costs and damages, has been renewed with the numerous, destructive wildfires spread across the West during the summers of 1988 and 1994.
- Salvage Timber Sales and Forest Health
- Interest in salvaging timber has increased markedly since extensive forest fires in 1994. The focus is to use the dead and dying timber before it goes to waste and to increase the supply of Federal timber available to the wood products industry. Supporters also note that salvage sales are one tool that can be used to improve forest health. Critics counter that some dead and dying trees are necessary for healthy ecosystems, and that salvage sales are costly to the U.S. Treasury and to the environment. This report describes the concerns over forest health, and then examines the benefits, costs, and financial consequences of salvage timber sales.
- Federal Land Ownership: Constitutional Authority; the History of Acquisition, Disposal, and Retention; and Current Acquisition and Disposal Authorities
- Federal land ownership and management are of perennial interest to Congress. This report describes the constitutional authority for federal land ownership. It provides the history of federal land acquisition and disposal, and describes the federal land management agency jurisdictions, based on congressional authorities to reserve or withdraw lands from disposal. The report then describes several efforts to force additional federal land disposal, including recent legislative activity. It concludes with describes the various current land acquisition and disposal authorities of the four major federal land management agencies. The report will be updated to reflect major legislative activity or changes in acquisition or disposal authorities.
- The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management: History and Analysis of Merger Proposals
- This report is on The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management: History and Analysis of Merger Proposals.
- Tax Aspects of Clinton's Health Care Plan : The Classification of Workers as Independent Contractors or Employees
- No Description Available.
- Appropriations for FY1996 : Interior
- This report is about the appropriations for the fiscal Year 1996.
- Selected Interior and Related Agencies Budget Requests for I T 1995
- This report reviews the FY 1995 budget request of the Department of the Interior with brief analyses of the budget requests of selected agencies within the department that principally are involved in natural resources programs or activities. This report also provides an overview of the mission of the Department of the Interior, its organization, and its major budget initiatives for FY 1995 .
- The Department of Energy's FY1998 Budget
- This issue brief describes the FY1998 request for DOE's major programs, its implications, and congressional action on the DOE budget. Table 1 at the end of the issue brief highlights the FY1998 DOE budget request. House and Senate marks and the final budget enacted will be included in revised versions as the appropriations bills move through the Congress.
- Afghanistan: Connections to Islamic Movements In Central and South Asia and Southern Russia
- After several years of relative peace in Central Asia and southern Russia, Islamic extremist movements have become more active in Russia and in Central and South Asia, threatening stability in the region. Although numerous factors might account for the upsurge in activity, several of these movements appear to have connections to the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These linkages raise questions about whether the United States, as part of a broader effort to promote peace and stability in the region, should continue to engage the Taliban regime, or strongly confront it. This report will be updated as events warrant.
- Appalachian Development Highway Program (ADHP): An Overview
- This report discusses the Appalachian Development Highway Program (ADHP). After a brief description of the ADHP system, the report describes the ADHP's operation, organization, spending history and status. It then describes changes in its funding mechanism resultant from TEA 21 and issues of interest to Congress related to the ADHP.
- Appalachian Development Highway Program: An Overview
- The Appalachian Development Highway Program is a road building program that is intended to break Appalachia's regional isolation and encourage Appalachian economic development. Administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Appalachian Development Highway Program is authorized to develop a network of 3,025 miles of corridor roads. This report details the program origins, administration and organization, spending history, and issues for Congress.
- The Financial Outlook for Social Security and Medicare
- This report provides an overview of the financial outlook for social security and medicare programs.
- The Financial Outlook for Social Security and Medicare
- This report provides an overview of the financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare programs.
- Social Security: Recommendations of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security
- No Description Available.
- Immigration and Naturalization Service’s FY1999 Budget
- This report provides an overview of the immigration and naturalization service's budget during Fiscal Year 1999.
- Immigration and Naturalization Service's FY1999 Budget
- No Description Available.
- Alcohol Fuels Tax Incentives and the EPA Renewable Oxygenate Requirement
- This report examines the current alcohol fuels Federal tax incentives. Part I describes the statutory provisions of each of the five incentives. Part II examines the major public policy and economic issues of concern to policymakers: potential revenue effects, effectiveness, and economic efficiency.
- Environmental Protection Issues: From the 104th to the 105th Congress
- The continued interest in regulatory reform measures in the final moments of the 104th Congress suggests that the 105th Congress will consider them again. At the same time the fact that the 104th Congress enacted flexibility provisions in drinking water and food safety/pesticides legislation could be an indicator that the 105th Congress may pursue reforms in individual reauthorization legislation rather than in broad regulatory reform bills.
- Redefining the Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education: The Goals 2000 Proposal and Reauthorization of the ESEA
- Report summarizing federal aid for elementary and secondary education, with a focus on the proposals of Goals 2000.
- The Endangered Species Act and Private Property
- If the 103rd Congress embarks upon an effort to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it will run into an old acquaintance: the property rights issue. As now written, the ESA has at least the potential to curtail property rights (whatever its actual impact as implemented may be). This report explores the legal repercussions of those impacts, especially whether they constitute takings of property under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
- Property Rights: Comparison of H.R. 9 as Passed and S. 605 as Reported
- The leading property rights bills in the Congress are the Contract with America-derived H.R. 9 (Division B), as passed by the House in March, 1995, and S. 605, as reported from the Committee on the Judiciary.
- Deep Seabed Mining: U.S. Interests and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea
- On July 29, 1994, the United States signed the Agreement Relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982. This agreement substantially reforms the seabed mining provisions of the 1982 Convention, which the United States found objectionable. In signing the Agreement, President Clinton accepted provisional application of it which enables the United States to participate in the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and its organs and bodies. On November 16, 1994, the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention entered into force without accession by the United States.The treaty document was referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations late in the 103d Congress and awaits committee action in the 104th Congress.
- Greece and Turkey: The Rocky Islet Crisis
- This report discusses the dispute between Greece and Turkey over the Rocky islet crisis.
- Market-Based Environmental Management: Issues in Implementation
- Increasingly, efforts to protect integral features of the natural environment that are essential to human well being face a double challenge. First, the magnitude of some conventional and emerging threats to environmental quality is growing, despite solid progress in controlling some causes. This is particularly the concern on a global scale in terms of atmospheric changes and loss of biological diversity. Second, easily-implemented uniform control methods using feasible technologies or other direct regulatory approaches are already in place for many pollution and resource management problems in the United States. Additional progress with so-called command and control policies can be expensive and disruptive, and thus counter productive to overall economic well being. This type of dilemma is common where environmental deterioration results from diffuse and complex causes inherent in technically-advanced high-consumption industrial societies such as the U.S. Solutions to these types of environmental problems are complicated by the diffuse benefits which obscures the net gains of additional controls that have concentrated and highly visible costs. Given this double bind, many policy analysts and academics have for years advocated more cost-effective and flexible approaches relying on market forces to further some environmental management objectives. Although market-based theory and practical environmental policy are still far apart, the incremental approach to environmental policymaking since the late seventies has resulted in some market-type innovations within traditional regulatory frameworks at all levels of government. The most prominent examples are the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) air emissions trading program and the recently enacted sulfur dioxide allowance trading program under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.
- Special Elections and Membership Changes in the 103d Congress, First Session
- This report provides information on membership changes in the first session of the 103d Congress through special elections for vacancies in the House of Representatives and appointments and special elections for vacancies in the Senate .
- Japan's World War II Reparations: A Fact Sheet
- Japan's war reparations following World War II came in two stages. In the first, 1946-1949, U.S. and allied governments arranged for U.S. occupation authorities to ship about $160 million in Japanese industrial equipment to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the British colonies in East Asia.
- Electric Utility Restructuring: Overview of Basic Policy Questions
- Proposals to increase competition in the electric utility industry involve segmenting electric functions (generation, transmission, distribution) that are currently integrated (or bundled) in most cases (both in terms of corporate and rate structures). This report identifies five basic issues this effort raises for the Congress to consider as the debate on restructuring proceeds.
- Drug Control: International Policy and Options
- Over the past decade, worldwide production of illicit drugs has risen dramatically: opium and marijuana production has roughly doubled and coca production tripled. Street prices of cocaine and heroin have fallen significantly in the past 20 years, reflecting increased availability. Despite apparent national political resolve to deal with the drug problem, inherent contradictions regularly appear between U.S. anti-drug policy and other national policy goals and concerns. The mix of competing domestic and international pressures and priorities has produced an ongoing series of disputes within and between the legislative and executive branches concerning U.S. international drug policy. One contentious issue has been the Congressionally-mandated certification process, an instrument designed to induce specified drug-exporting countries to prioritize or pay more attention to the fight against narcotics businesses.
- Investigative Oversight: An Introduction to the Law, Practice and Procedure of Congressional Inquiry
- This report provides an overview of some of the more common legal, procedural, and practical issues, questions and problems that committees have faced in the courts of an oversight investigation.
- Investigative Oversight: An Introduction to the Law, Practice and Procedure of Congressional Inquiry
- This report will provide an overview of some of the more common legal, procedural and practical issues, questions, and problems that committees have faced in the course of an investigation. Following a summary of the case law developing the scope and limitations of the power of inquiry, the essential tools of investigative oversight--subpoenas, staff interviews and depositions, grants of immunity, and the contempt power -- are described. Next, some of the special problems of investigating the executive are detailed, with particular emphasis on claims of presidential executive privilege, the problems raised by attempts to access information with respect to open or closed civil or criminal investigative matters, or to obtain information that is part of the agency deliberative process, and the effect on congressional access of statutory prohibitions on public disclosure. The discussion then focuses on various procedural and legal requirements that accompany the preparation for, and conduct of, an investigative hearing, including matters concerning jurisdiction, particular rules and requirements for the conduct of such proceedings, and the nature, applicability and scope of certain constitutional and common law testimonial privileges that may be claimed by witnesses. The case law and practice respecting the rights of minority party members during the investigative process is also reviewed. The report concludes with a description of the roles played by the offices of House General Counsel and Senate Legal Counsel in such investigations.
- House and Senate Rules of Procedure: A Comparison
- This report compares selected House and Senate rules of procedure governing various stages of the legislative process: referral of legislation to committees; scheduling and calling up measures; and floor consideration. The appendices provide sources of additional information about House and Senate rules of procedure.
- Comparing Countries' Levels of Development
- No Description Available.
- United States Trade and Trade Balance with Japan 1958-1993: A Brief Historical Overview
- The purpose of this brief report is to appraise Congress of some relevant perspectives concerning the experience of U.S.-Japan merchandise trade since 1968. For the first seven years of the period under review, more American goods were sold to Japan than imported from that nascent major Asian economy, which has been,however, trailing Canada by far as our second top trading partner. Somewhat normally acceptable trade deficits were registered between 1966 and 1979, after which the growth of trade imbalances became unprecedented.
- Appropriations for FY2000: VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies
- Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Subcommittees on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations.
- Higher Educati by the 1
- No Description Available.
- China After Deng Xiaoping - Implications for the United States
- Deng Xiaoping's death will create a vacuum at the center of political power in China. Successor leaders will decide whether to continue the recent collective leadership decision-making processes and policy emphasis on political stability and economic reform; or to press for political power in a search for personal or policy advantage. A struggle for political power in Beijing would complicate an already difficult set of problems of governance caused by rapid economic growth, social change, realignment of central and local power arrangements and other factors. Nevertheless, there are important reasons why China may effectively work its way through the leadership transition.
- Excise Taxes on Alcohol, Tobacco, and Gasoline: History and Inflation Adjusted Rates
- No Description Available.
- Excise Taxes on Alcohol, Tobacco, and Gasoline: History and Inflation Adjusted Rates
- This report provides inflation adjusted excise tax rates for alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline products. The base for computation is November 1951; the adjustments show what the tax rates would be if they had been increased to reflect inflation. All of the above cited commodities had rate increases effective for that date under the Revenue Act of 1951. Just as the Congress was prepared to lower excise tax rates because of peacetime conditions, plans had to be revised as a result of the start of the Korean War. Thus, the Revenue Act of 1951 was born out of revenue needs due to increased military expenditures.
- RADIO FREE IRAQ AND RADIO FREE IRAN: BACKGROUND, LEGISLATION, AND POLICY ISSUES FOR CONGRESS
- No Description Available.
- Social Security: Raising or Eliminating the Taxable Earnings Base
- No Description Available.
- Social Security: Recommendations of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security
- No Description Available.
- Standard of Proof in Senate Impeachment Proceedings
- No Description Available.