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Internet: An Overview of Key Technology Policy Issues Affecting Its Use and Growth
The growth of the Internet may be affected by issues being debated by Congress. This report summarizes several key technology policy issues that were under consideration by the 106th Congress.
Agricultural Trade in the 106th Congress: A Review of Issues
The 106th Congress considered a number of trade policy developments against a backdrop of weak foreign demand and large world supplies of agricultural commodities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that the value of U.S. agricultural exports fell between FY1996 (a record year) and FY1999 by almost $11 billion, to $49.2 billion. Agricultural exports did climb back to $50.9 billion in FY2000, and are now projected at $53 billion in FY2001. However, the pace of recovery concerned many agricultural groups and their supporters in Congress. Although they recognize that many world economic, farm production, political, and weather factors influence exports, many of these groups believe that the agricultural sector's future prosperity also depends upon such U.S. trade policies as: 1) encouraging China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its binding rules and responsibilities; 2) exempting agricultural exports from U.S. unilateral economic sanctions; 3) fully using export and food aid programs; and 4) aggressively battling foreign-imposed barriers to the movement of U.S. farm products. A few U.S. farm groups are wary of such approaches.
Agriculture in the Next Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations
This report discusses the objective of agricultural negotiations in the World Trade Organizations (WTO) in 2001 to create trade reform. The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) established a new set of rules for the conduct of agricultural trade that the report also considers.
Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety - Federal Program and Legislative Issues
This report provides Hazardous materials transportation safety - federal program and legislative issues.
Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement: Debate Over Government Policy, December 28, 2000
This report discusses contribution of technological advancement to economic growth and productivity increases. Because technology can contribute to economic growth and productivity increases, congressional interest has focused on how to augment private-sector technological development.
Reauthorization of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund
No Description Available.
Budget FY2001: A Chronology with Internet Access
This is a select chronology of, and a finding guide for information on, congressional and presidential actions and documents related to major budget events in calendar year 2000, covering the FY2001 budget. Brief information is provided for the President’s budget, congressional budget resolutions, appropriations measures (regular, continuing, supplementals, and rescissions), budget reconciliation, House and Senate votes, line-item vetoes, publications, testimony, charts, and tables.
Charitable Choice: Constitutional Issues and Developments Through the 106th Congress
This report is about the charitable choice of constitutional issues and developments through the 106th congress.
Environmental Reauthorizations and Regulatory Reform: From the 104th Congress through the 106th
No Description Available.
Continuing Appropriations Acts: Brief Overview of Recent Practices
For FY2001, twenty-one continuing resolutions became law. These measures extended funding for the outstanding FY2001 regular appropriations bills from October 1, 2000, through midnight, December 21, 2000.
China: Suspected Acquisition of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Secrets
This CRS Report discusses China’s suspected acquisition of U.S. nuclear weapon secrets, including that on the W88, the newest U.S. nuclear warhead, since the late 1970s. This current controversy, began in early 1999, raises policy issues about whether U.S. security is further threatened by the PRC’s suspected use of U.S. nuclear weapon secrets in its development of nuclear forces, as well as whether the Administration’s response to the security problems is effective or mishandled and whether it fairly used or abused its investigative and prosecuting authority.
The Marriage Tax Penalty: An Overview of the Issues
No Description Available.
A Value-Added Tax Contrasted with a National Sales Tax
Proposals to replace all or part of the income tax and proposals for national health care have sparked congressional interest in possible sources of additional revenue. A value-added tax (VAT) or a national sales tax (NST) have been frequently discussed as possible new tax services. Both the VAT and the NST are taxes on the consumption of goods and services and are conceptually similar. Yet, these taxes also have significant differences. This issue brief discusses some of the potential policy implications associated with these differences.
Water Quality Initiatives and Agriculture
No Description Available.
Education Vouchers: Constitutional Issues and Cases
This report details the constitutional standards that currently apply to indirect aid programs and summarizes all of the pertinent state and federal court decisions, including the Ohio case that will be heard by the Supreme Court. On September 25, 2001, the Supreme Court agreed to review a case raising the controversial issue of the constitutionality of education vouchers. In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris the Sixth Circuit held Ohio’s Pilot Scholarship Program, which provided up to $2500 to help low-income students in Cleveland’s public schools attend private schools in the city, to violate the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment.
The European Union's Ban on Hormone-Treated Meat
The European Union (EU) continues to ban imports of meat derived from animals treated with growth hormones despite rulings by World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panels that the banis inconsistent with the Uruguay Round Agreement on health and safety measures used to restrict imports (the Sanitary and Phytosanitary or SPS Agreement). U.S. retaliation, authorized by the WTO, in the form of 100% duties on $116 million of EU agricultural products remains in effect while negotiations to resolve the dispute continue. Thus far, EU offers of compensation (trade concessions) for lost U.S. meat exports in lieu of lifting the ban have been rejected by the United States.
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Policy: Key Issues in the 107th Congress
Among the 107th Congress' first orders of business will be dealing with the initiatives-both domestic and foreign policy-proposed by President Bush throughout his presidential campaign. This report contains information on those orders of business including U.S. foreign and security policy, global issues, defense policy, and more.
Patent Law and Its Application to the Pharmaceutical Industry: An Examination of the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 ("The Hatch-Waxman Act")
No Description Available.
Agriculture and the 106th Congress: A Summary of Major Issues
Most congressional interest in agriculture in the 106th Congress was focused on persistent low prices for major commodities and proposals to redress declining farm income. Six emergency farm aid bills were approved, increasing agricultural spending by nearly $27 billion for fiscal years 1999-2001. These bills provided disaster relief along with short term “market loss payments”to farmers to shore up farm income. Some longer term changes also were enacted as part of emergency farm legislation, which this report discusses in brief.
Economic Sanctions: Legislation in the 106th Congress
This report tracks legislation relating to the use of economic sanctions in pursuit of foreign policy or national security objectives. Separate sections are given to the areas of greatest activity: sanctions imposed against India and Pakistan; exemptions of food and medicine exports; and sanctions reform. A separate table is included listing sanctions measures that were introduced but received no consideration, including measures pertaining to export controls, nonproliferation, drug certifications, and the sanctions regimes leveled, or proposed to be leveled, against Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Serbia and Montenegro, and other countries.
Agricultural Marketing Assistance Loans and Loan Deficiency Payments
This report discusses marketing assistance loans for major crops. The debate surrounds enlarging the program to create further farm income support.
Agricultural Marketing Assistance Loans and Loan Deficiency Payments
Marketing assistance loans for the major crops were designed to facilitate orderly marketing by providing short-term financing so that farmers could pay their bills right after harvest and spread their sales over the entire marketing year. However, the persistence of very low commodity prices transformed the loan program into a major vehicle of farm income support. Marketing loan program benefits (primarily loan deficiency payments, LDPs) to farmers amounted to about $5.9 billion in 1999, and will exceed $6.5 billion in 2000. Such levels of use and high costs have revealed several administrative problems and given rise to several policy issues. Some policy makers have favored broadening the scope and enhancing the benefits of the program to achieve greater farm income support. Anticipated adverse market impacts have discouraged adoption of these proposals to date. A persistent policy issue is the payment limitation on marketing loan gains.
Electoral Vote Counts in Congress: Survey of Certain Congressional Practices
This report surveys certain aspects of the historical congressional practice in counting the presidential electoral votes in Congress.
Middle East: Domestic Politics and the Peace Process – Proceedings of a CRS Seminar
No Description Available.
Causes of Unemployment: A Cross-Country Analysis
This report examines data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to explore what differences in microeconomic structures and policies explain the causes of unemployment across various countries.
Internet Transactions and the Sales Tax
This report is an introduction to the economics of electronic commerce and its potential impact on sales and use tax collections. Presently, 45 states (and the District of Columbia) require that retail outlets add a fixed percentage to the sales price of all taxable items (inclusive of federally imposed excise taxes).
The Male-Female Wage Gap: A Fact Sheet
Although women continue to often earn less than men, the size of the wage gap has gradually narrowed. Today, women with a strong attachment to the labor market typically earn 72-77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Studies have identified factors that contribute to the pay disparity, but they have been unable to fully justify its existence. The unexplained portion of the wage differential is often attributed entirely to discrimination (i.e., unequal rewards for equal labor market qualifications), but it also represents omitted variables and measurement error.
Ten Years in U.S.-China Policy; Interest Groups and Their Influence, 1989-2000
No Description Available.
Campaign Finance: Constitutional and Legal Issues of Soft Money
As in the 105th Congress, many of the 106th Congress bills focus on political party soft money--subjecting contributions, expenditures, or transfers of national political parties to the limitations, prohibitions and reporting requirements of the FECA. Other bills would restrict corporate and labor union soft money. Another major reform proposal would subject certain types of advocacy communications to FECA regulation, either fully or just insofar as disclosure requirements.
Emergency Funding for Agriculture: A Brief History of Congressional Action, FY1989-FY2001
From FY1989 through FY2001 (to date), nineteen appropriations or farm disaster acts have provided $38 billion in emergency funding for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs. Nearly $27 billion, or about 70 percent of the total amount, has been provided for FY1999-FY2001 alone. Since FY1989, the vast majority of the funds has been paid directly to farmers, primarily in the form of “market loss payments” (just under $17 billion, all since FY1999) to compensate for low farm commodity prices, and disaster payments($15.6 billion) paid to any producer who experienced a major crop loss caused by a natural disaster. The remaining $5.4 billion has funded a wide array of other USDA programs, including other forms of farm disaster assistance, farm loans, overseas food aid, food and nutrition programs, and rural development assistance.
Environmental Protection: New Approaches
This report summarizes briefly a number of "new approaches," grouped under the following categories: Information: Approaches to improve the quantity and quality of information to enhance the knowledge base underlying environ- mental decisions (e.g., risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis).Public Sector Processes: Approaches to restructure governmental processes for making environmental decisions (e.g., devolution). Incentives: Approaches that emphasize incentives as opposed to regulatory or financial penalties for achieving environmental ends. Approaches that rely on markets and common law for environmental decisions to the extent possible. Approaches to inculcate environmental values in public or private managerial decisions (e.g., sustainability).
Federal Railroad Safety Program and Reauthorization Issues
This report details the Federal Railroad Safety Program, and includes information such as background, statistics, and legislative issues.
Fiji Islands Political Crisis: Background, Analysis, and Chronology
No Description Available.
The Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) Tax Benefit for Exporting: WTO Issues and an Economic Analysis
This report provides a brief overview of the U.S. international tax system, the mechanics of FSC’s partial tax exemption, and how FSC fits into the overall U.S. tax structure.
Patent Ownership and Federal Research and Development (R and D): A Discussion on the Bayh-Dole Act and the Stevenson-Wydler Act
Two major laws govern the dispensation of patents associated with federal research and development (R&D) activities. Both P.L. 96-418, the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act, as amended, and P.L. 96-517, Amendments to the Patent and Trademark Act (commonly referred to as "Bayh-Dole" after its two main sponsors, former Senators Birch Bayh and Robert Dole), are the foundation for efforts to utilize patent ownership to encourage the commercialization of technologies and techniques that have their roots in the federal R&D enterprise
Asset Distribution of Taxable Estates: An Analysis
This report provides data on the distribution of assets in taxable estates that filed returns in 1998. The report also offers a brief overview of the estate and gift tax and "The Death Tax Elimination Act of 2000," which was passed in the 106th Congress and vetoed. This report finds that farm and business assets represent a small share of the total value of taxable estate tax returns filed in 1998. For an overview of estate tax, see CRS Report RL30600, Estate and Gift Taxes: Economic Issues, by Jane G. Gravelle and Steven Maguire. This report will be updated as new data becomes available.
China-U.S. Trade Agreements: Compliance Issues
No Description Available.
Presidential Authority to Create a National Monument on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Possible Effects of Designation
No Description Available.
Farm Economic Relief: Issues and Options for Congress
This report discusses issues regarding Agriculture funding, specifically the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act (P.L. 104-127), which prescribed farm commodity support policy through 2002.
R&D Partnerships and Intellectual Property: Implications for U.S. Policy
Congressional interest in the value of intellectual property has grown as technology becomes increasingly important to the United States. It is now widely accepted that technological progress accounts for up to one-half of the nation's economic growth. Concurrently, the role of patents has changed as the use of cooperative research and development (R&D) expands to facilitate this technological advancement and generate new products, processes, and services for the marketplace.
Alternative Transportation Fuels and Vehicles: Energy, Environment, and Development Issues
This report reviews several issues relating to alternative fuels and vehicles, mainly to combat dependence on petroleum imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report discusses the advantages and drawbacks of various alternative fuels and vehicles, as well as related legislation.
Clean Air Standards: The Supreme Court Agrees to Review
In May, 2000, the Supreme Court agreed to review this decision, raising the prospect of a major pronouncement on the non-delegation doctrine, the enforceability of the revised ozone standard, and the role of compliance costs in setting nationwide air quality standards.
Forest Fire Protection
This report provider bans historical background on wildfires and describes concerns about the "Urban-Wildland interface" and about forest and rangeland health. It also discusses fuel management, fire control, and fire effects.
Immigration Legislation and Issues in the 106th Congress
This report briefs the Immigration legislation and issues in the 106th Congress.
Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement: Debate Over Government Policy
This report discusses contribution of technological advancement to economic growth and productivity increases. Because technology can contribute to economic growth and productivity increases, congressional interest has focused on how to augment private-sector technological development.
Technology Transfer: Use of Federally Funded Research and Development
The government will spend approximately one-third of the $79 billion federal R&D budget for intramural research and development to meet mission requirements in over 700 government laboratories (including Federally Funded Research and Development Centers). The technology and expertise generated by this endeavor may have application beyond the immediate goals or intent of federally funded R&D
Environmental Protection Agency: FY2001 Budget Issues
The request for state and local wastewater and drinking water capital needs was a key issue. The request of $2.91 billion for State and Tribal Assistance Grants, which fund these needs, was about one-half billion less than in FY2000. The House passed $3.18 billion, the Senate $3.32 billion, and the conferees $3.62 billion. The request included $800 million for Clean Water State Revolving Funds, $550 million less than in FY2000. The House passed $1.20 billion, the Senate $1.35 billion and the conferees $1.35 billion. Conferees approved the $825 million requested for Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. Congress denied the Administration's request for a new Clean Air Partnership program. EPA requested $100 million for Mexican border water projects and $15 million for State of Alaska projects. Conferees approved $75 million and $35 million respectively. For state and tribal administrative grants, the conferees approved roughly the requested amount of $1.0 billion.
Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR): The U-2 Aircraft and Global Hawk UAV Programs
Among airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconaissance (ISR) platforms, the U-2 Dragon Lady and the RQ-4A Global Hawk are especially valuable. This report discusses how best to use existing and planned manned and unmanned ISR aircraft to most effectively satisfy the Department of Defense's (Dod) requirements for timely and accurate information on enemy forces.
American Federalism, 1776 to 2000: Significant Events
This report consists of American Federalism, 1776 to 2000: Significant Events.
Iraq: Oil-for-Food Program
This report discusses the “oil-for-food” program which represents a longstanding U.N. Security Council effort to alleviate human suffering in Iraq while maintaining pressure on the Iraqi government to comply with all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.
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