Congressional Research Service Reports - 61 Matching Results

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The Abandoned Mine Land Fund: Grants Distribution and Issues

Description: The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA, P.L. 95-87), enacted in 1977, established reclamation standards for all coal surface mining operations, and for the surface effects of underground mining. It also established the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) program to promote the reclamation of sites mined and abandoned prior to the enactment of SMCRA. To finance reclamation of abandoned mine sites, the legislation established fees on coal production. These collections are divided into federa… more
Date: March 26, 1997
Creator: Bamberger, Robert L.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Electricity Restructuring Background: Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA)

Description: 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.
Date: January 7, 1999
Creator: Abel, Amy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Japan's Sea Shipment of Plutonium

Description: Japan's sea shipment of a ton of plutonium from France to Japan on Nov. 7, 1992, faced strong public opposition, as did a previous one in 1984, from various public interest groups, independent analysts, and Members of Congress. The shipment arrived safely in Tokyo Jan. 4, 1993. Several more shipments at intervals of about 3 years are expected. While the plutonium is owned by Japanese utilities, it was produced from uranium enriched in the United States and supplied under a U.S.-Japan agreement … more
Date: January 15, 1993
Creator: Donnelly, Warren H. & Davis, Zachary S.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Alcohol Fuels Tax Incentives and the EPA Renewable Oxygenate Requirement

Description: 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.
Date: October 7, 1994
Creator: Lazzari, Salvatore
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Tax Incentives for Alcohol Fuels

Description: The blender's tax credits were specifically enacted to complement the excise tax exemptions, so as to help support farm incomes by finding another market for corn, sugar, and other agricultural products that are the basic raw materials for alcohol production. More recently, proponents of expanding the alcohol fuels tax incentives argue that they reduce smog and improve air quality.
Date: February 9, 1995
Creator: Lazzari, Salvatore
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Implementation of the Reformulated Gasoline Program

Description: The Clean Air Act (CAA) was amended in 1990 requiring the sale of cleaner-burning reformulated gasoline (RFG) in the nine worst nonattainment areas. Since the program began on January 1, 1995, legislation has been introduced to delay or repeal the requirement. RFG must contain oxygenates and should result in a 15 percent reduction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and air toxins. While the CAA was being debated, affected parties (e.g., automobile manufacturers, oil industry, and agricultural… more
Date: August 1, 1995
Creator: Mayer, Susan L.; Kumins, Lawrence C. & Segal, Migdon
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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The Naval Petroleum Reserves: Proposed Sale and Issues

Description: The Naval Petroleum Reserves (NPR)--consisting of the large Elk Hills Field in California and smaller fields at Buena Vista Hills (CA) and Teapot Dome (WY)--were established in the early 1900s. Congress authorized full production of the NPR in 1976. Production at Elk Hills, the most significant field, peaked at 181,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 1981; currently, it is 65,000 b/d. The Clinton Administration earmarked the NPR for sale in its FY1996 budget, estimating its gross value at $2.6 billion. more
Date: March 14, 1996
Creator: Bamberger, Robert L.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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World Oil Production After Year 2000: Business As Usual or Crises?

Description: Deficient productive capacity has not yet caused an oil crisis, but that does not mean it never will. Significant increases in world oil demand will have to be met primarily from Persian Gulf supplies. This is a region with a history of wars, illegal occupations, soups, revolutions, sabotage, terrorism, and oil embargoes. To these possibilities may be added growing Islamist movements with various antipathies to the West. If oil production were constrained, oil prices could rise abruptly along w… more
Date: August 18, 1995
Creator: Riva, Joseph P
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Auburn Dam on the American River: Fact Sheet

Description: For more than 30 years, Congress has debated constructing a dam on the American River near Auburn, California. The Army Corps of Engineers recently identified three alternatives for flood control, with the Division office's preferred plan calling for construction of a 508-foot-high detention dam. Currently, two bills address the issue: H.R. 3270 supports construction of the dam, while H.R. 2951 opposes construction of any structure on the North Fork of the American River.
Date: June 6, 1996
Creator: Cody, Betsy A.; Hughes, H. Steven & Price, Shelley
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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World Solar Summit: Launching the World Renewable Energy Program

Description: The World Solar Summit and proposed World Solar Program 1996-2005 address energy problems through increased use of renewable energy technologies. The World Solar Commission will host the World Solar Summit in Harare, Zimbabwe, on September 16 and 17, 1996, and it will direct the World Solar Program 1996-2005. At the Summit, the Commission is expected to adopt a World Plan ofAction and a number of Strategic Projects. The proposed World Plan of Action includes a selection of high-priority renewab… more
Date: August 1, 1996
Creator: Sissine, Fred
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Electric Utility Restructuring: Overview of Basic Policy Questions

Description: 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.
Date: January 7, 1999
Creator: Parker, Larry
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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The Tax Treatment of Alternative Transportation Fuels

Description: Historically, federal energy policy, including energy tax policy, promoted the development of oil and gas at the expense of alternative fuels and nonconventional forms of energy. Beginning in the 1970s, there was a shift in the focus of energy tax policy away from oil and gas toward energy conservation and toward the development of alternative fuels and nonconventional forms of energy.
Date: March 19, 1997
Creator: Lazzari, Salvatore
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Electric Utility Restructuring: Overview of Basic Policy Questions

Description: 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.
Date: January 28, 1997
Creator: Parker, Larry
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Transportation Fuel Taxes Early in the 105th Congress

Description: The 105th Congress has reinstated for about half a year the federal excise taxes on fuel used by noncommercial aviation. This follows a similar move by the 104th Congress on aviation fuel taxes, and actions pertaining to the tax on diesel fuel used in recreational motorboats, and to the fuel tax credits given to first purchasers of diesel-powered cars and light trucks. The 104th Congress also debated repeal of the increase of 4.3 cents per gallon in transportation fuel taxes imposed by the Omni… more
Date: March 17, 1997
Creator: Gelb, Bernard A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Gasoline Excise Tax - Historical Revenues: Fact Sheet

Description: This report provides a fact sheet about the Gasoline Excise Tax - Historical Revenues. The gas tax was regarded as a user tax where the federal government has imposed a gasoline excise tax with the passage of the revenue act in 1932.
Date: September 16, 1997
Creator: Talley, Louis Alan
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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Electricity Restructuring: Comparison of S.1401, H.R. 655, H.R. 1230, S. 722, H.R. 1960, and S. 2287

Description: Once considered the nation's most regulated industry, the electric utility industry is evolving into a more competitive environment. At the current time, the focus of this development is the generating sector, where the advent of new generating technologies, such as gas-fired combined cycle, has lowered both entry barriers to competitors of traditional utilities and lowered the marginal costs of those competitors below those of some traditional utilities. This technological advance has been com… more
Date: July 16, 1998
Creator: Parker, Larry
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund (LUST)

Description: The Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund provides money under Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)- state cooperative agreements to pay cleanup and related costs involving leaking petroleum tanks if no financially solvent owners can be found, or if the owner or operator refuses or is unable to comply with an urgent corrective order. Both EPA and the states use trust fund monies to oversee and enforce LUST corrective actions. Primary financing for the trust fund comes from a 0.1 c… more
Date: August 28, 1997
Creator: Noto, Nonna A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Electricity Restructuring Background: The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992

Description: The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) increased competition in the electric generating sector by creating new entities that can generate and sell electricity at wholesale without being regulated as utilities under PUHCA. PURPA began to shift more regulatory responsibilities to the federal government, and EPACT continued that shift away from the states by creating new options for utilities and regulators to meet electricity demand.
Date: May 4, 1998
Creator: Abel, Amy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Alcohol Fuels Tax Incentive

Description: This report discusses federal tax subsidies for alcohol transportation fuels, as well as legislative actions underway to repeal, extend, or reduce them.
Date: June 23, 1999
Creator: Lazzari, Salvatore
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Transportation Fuel Taxes, Legislative Issues, and the Transportation Equity Act

Description: In reauthorizing federal surface transportation programs this year (P .L 105-178), Congress has modified the attributes of some of the transportation fuel excise taxes that fluid. those programs and others. Since the federal government first started taxing transportation fuels, the issue of how the revenues should be used has played a major role in determining whether and which transportation fuels should be taxed; and by how much. Congress changed several aspects of transportation fuel taxatio… more
Date: June 17, 1998
Creator: Gelb, Bernard A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Nuclear Weapons Production Complex: Environmental Compliance and Waste Management

Description: The aging nuclear weapons production complex, managed by the Department of Energy (DOE), faces enormous environmental and waste management problems. Several hundred billion dollars may be needed to clean up leaking waste pits, groundwater contamination, growing accumulations of radioactive waste, and uncontrolled liquid discharges at DOE facilities. DOE's cleanup program is carried out by the Office of Environmental Management (EM). Cleanup funding escalated rapidly after the end of the Cold Wa… more
Date: January 17, 1997
Creator: Holt, Mark
Item Type: Refine your search to only Report
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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