Congressional Research Service Reports - 161 Matching Results
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- House Committee Party Ratios: 98th-111th Congresses
- This report provides statistical information on and selected analyses of the House committee party ratios for 14 Congresses, covering the period from the 98th through the 111th Congresses.
- House Committee Funding Requests and Authorizations, 104th-110th Congresses
- This report provides committee funding requests and authorizations for House committees in the 104th-110th Congresses.
- Child Nutrition and WIC Legislation in the 108th and 109th Congresses
- Child nutrition programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children are typically subject to periodic comprehensive reviews, when several appropriations and other authorities expire and have to be reauthorized.
- The Electoral College: Reform Proposals in the 108th Congress
- American voters elect the President and Vice President of the United States under a complex arrangement of constitutional provisions, federal and state laws, and political party practices known as the electoral college system. Despite occasional close elections, this system has delivered uncontested results in 46 of 50 elections since adoption of the 12th Amendment, effective in 1804. Throughout this period, nevertheless, it has been the subject of persistent criticism and many reform proposals. Related measures fall into two basic categories: those that would eliminate the electoral college and substitute direct popular election of the President and Vice President, and those that would retain the existing system in some form and correct perceived defects.
- The Electoral College: Reform Proposals in the 108th Congress
- American voters elect the President and Vice President of the United States under a complex arrangement of constitutional provisions, federal and state laws, and political party practices known as the electoral college system. Despite occasional close elections, this system has delivered uncontested results in 46 of 50 elections since adoption of the 12th Amendment, effective in 1804. Throughout this period, nevertheless, it has been the subject of persistent criticism and many reform proposals. Related measures fall into two basic categories: those that would eliminate the electoral college and substitute direct popular election of the President and Vice President, and those that would retain the existing system in some form and correct perceived defects.
- U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations by President George W. Bush During the 107th and 108th Congresses
- This report lists and provides statistics on President George W. Bush's nominations to U.S. district courts and courts of appeal (circuit courts) during the 107th and 108th Congresses and actions taken on the nominations by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate. This report focuses on judicial nominations made by the President and Senate actions taken on the nominations by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate.
- Adult Education and Literacy: Reauthorization Proposals of the 108th Congress
- This report discusses how the 108th Congress considered, but ultimately did not reauthorize the federal adult education and literacy programs. Furthermore, the report covers what was passed specifically by the 108th Congress. The report largely examines the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) and its funding.
- Border Security: Immigration Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report provides background information on the main immigration-related border security issues that have been raised as a result of the terrorist attacks and resulting concern for homeland security. It describes enacted legislation in the 107th Congress as well as in previous Congresses that focus on immigration-related border security issues. The report also poses possible immigration-related border security issues the 108th Congress may consider.
- TANF Reauthorization: Side-by-Side Comparison of Current Law and Two Versions of H.R. 4 (108th Congress)
- No Description Available.
- Anti-Tax-Shelter and Other Revenue-Raising Tax Proposals Considered in the 108th Congress
- Several bills introduced in the 108th Congress included revenue-raising provisions, particularly those aimed at tax shelters that are generally used by corporations. In 2003, anti-sheltering provisions were included in several bills. This report is an overview of the revenue-raising provisions in the original reported versions of H.R. 2896 and S. 1637 and the final anti-sheltering bill as enacted.
- Naming Post Offices Through Legislation
- This report describes how the practice of naming post offices through public law originated and how it is commonly done today. House and Senate practices for approving legislation and procedures followed by the U.S. Postal Service in organizing a dedication ceremony, are also described. An increasingly common form of legislation is the naming of post offices for former Members of Congress or other figures of local or national renown. About one in six public laws passed by the 108th Congress was a post office naming bill approved under suspension of the rules. Unanimity of a state's congressional delegation is required for the movement of naming bills to the floor of the House or Senate. The costs of dedicating a post office in the name of an individual are modest, and this action results in no change in public identification of the facility by its geographic location.
- Child Welfare Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses child welfare services that seek to protect children who have been abused or neglected or who are at risk of maltreatment. It also point out child welfare financing and other child welfare issues.
- China-U.S. Relations During the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the background and overview of the China-U.S. relations, Key Issues during the 108th congress, U.S. Policy Trends and China's space program.
- Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Selected Legislation from the 108th Congress
- The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as passed in 1978, provided a statutory framework for the use of electronic surveillance in the context of foreign intelligence gathering. In doing so, Congress sought to strike a balance between national security interests and personal privacy rights. Subsequent legislation expanded federal laws dealing with foreign intelligence gathering to address physical searches, pen registers and trap and trace devices, and access to certain business records.
- War On Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments
- This report covers significant legislative and oversight activities of the 108th Congress that concern domestic law enforcement aspects of federal anti-drug policy. It also includes an overview of significant executive branch actions and other current developments of likely interest to the congressional audience that follows this issue.
- Climate Change Legislation in the 108th Congress
- Climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been an issue in the 108th Congress, as they have been over the past decade. Bills directly addressing climate change issues range from those focused primarily on climate change research (H.R. 1578 and S. 1164) to comprehensive emissions cap and trading programs for all six greenhouse gases (S. 139 and H.R. 4067). This report briefly discusses basic concepts on which these bills are based, and compares major provisions of the bills in each of the following categories: climate change research, GHG reporting and registries, and cap and trade programs.
- Copyright Law: Digital Rights Management Legislation in the 107th and 108th Congresses
- Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to the technology that copyright owners use to protect digital media. This report surveys several of the DRM bills that were introduced in the 107th and 108th Congresses. Generally, the bills are directed at two separate goals. One goal is to increase access to digitally-protected media for lawful purposes. The other attempts to thwart digital piracy and would do so by enhancing civil and criminal sanctions for digital (and traditional) copyright infringement and educating the public about the rights of copyright holders.
- 9/11 Commission: Legislative Action Concerning U.S. Immigration Law and Policy in the 108th Congress
- From Summary: "This report discusses some of the major immigration areas that were under consideration in the above-mentioned comprehensive reform proposals, including asylum, biometric tracking systems, border security, document security, exclusion, immigration enforcement, and visa issuances."
- Safe Drinking Water Act: Implementation and Issues
- This report discusses key drinking water issues in the 108th Congress involving water infrastructure funding and problems caused by specific contaminants, such as the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), perchlorate, and lead in drinking water. Congress last reauthorized the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1996, and although funding authority for most SDWA programs expired in FY2003, broad reauthorization efforts were not pursued as EPA, states, and water utilities continued implementing the 1996 amendments.
- War On Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments
- This report covers significant legislative and oversight activities of the 108th Congress that concern domestic law enforcement aspects of federal anti-drug policy. Also included will be significant executive branch actions and other current developments of likely interest to the congressional audience that follows this issue.
- Clean Water Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses issues regarding the Clean Water Act. Prospects for legislative initiatives to comprehensively amend the Clean Water Act (CWA) have stalled for some time over whether and exactly how to change the law, and Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected CWA programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals. For example, the 108th Congress enacted one bill amending the CWA, legislation to reauthorize the National Estuary Program (H.R. 4731, P.L. 108-399).
- Internet Gambling: A Sketch of Legislative Proposals in the 108th Congress
- No Description Available.
- Energy Policy: The Continuing Debate and Omnibus Energy Legislation
- This report discusses a variety of issues pertaining to energy policy. It includes information about most recent developments, background and analysis broken down into major categories, and relevant legislation.
- Soil and Water Conservation Issues
- This report discusses soil and water conservation, which were prominent farm policy topics in the 108th Congress as the Administration implemented provisions in the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171). This farm bill increased spending and expanded the scope of the conservation effort by reauthorizing and amending most existing conservation programs and enacting new ones through FY2007.
- Wildfire Protection in the 108th Congress
- The 2000 and 2002 fire seasons were, by most standards, among the worst in the past 50 years. Many argue that the threat of severe wildfires has grown in recent years because of unnaturally high fuel loads (e.g., dense undergrowth and dead trees), raising concerns about damage to property and homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — forests near or surrounding homes. Debates about fire control and protection, including funding and fuel treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed burning), have focused on national forests and other federal lands, but nonfederal lands are also at risk.
- Tax Benefits Enacted in the 108th Congress for Military Personnel
- The Military Families Tax Relief Act (MFTRA) contains several provisions that: 1) increase the death gratuity payment and make it fully tax-exempt; 2) provide members of the military with extended time to defer capital gains resulting from the sale of their principal residences; 3) exempt from income benefits received from the Department of Defense Homeowners Assistance Program; 4) expand combat zone filing rules to include military personnel involved in contingency operations; 5) extend the criteria defining membership in veterans’ organizations; 6) create an above-the-line deduction for overnight travel expenses of National Guard and reserve members; and a few other items.
- Comparison of the House and Senate ETI/Business Investment Bills (H.R. 4520 and S. 1637, 108th Congress)
- In fall 2004, Congress considered legislation that addresses both domestic and international business investment and the long-simmering controversy between the United States and the European Union over the U.S. tax code's extraterritorial income tax benefit for exporting. This report contains information on agreements between the U.S. and the European Union, impact on tax revenues, extraterritorial income benefit for exports, tax benefits restricted to domestic production, and more.
- Taxes, Exports and Investment: ETI/FSC and Domestic Investment Proposals in the 108th Congress
- No Description Available.
- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR): Controversies for the 108th Congress
- This report discusses one major element of the energy debate in the 108th Congress, which has been whether to approve energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska, and if so, under what conditions, or whether to continue to prohibit development to protect the area's biological resources. The Refuge is an area rich in fauna, flora, and commercial oil potential. Current law forbids energy leasing in the Refuge.
- State and Local Sales Tax Deductibility: Legislation in the 108th Congress
- No Description Available.
- Brownfields and Superfund Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the Superfund program for cleaning up the nation's worst hazardous waste sites, created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). It includes recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
- Campaign Finance Legislation in the 108th Congress
- As of October 11, 2004, 29 bills have been introduced in the 108th Congress to change the nation’s campaign finance laws (primarily under Titles 2 and 26 of the U.S. Code). These bills — 20 in the House and nine in the Senate — seek to make improvements in the current system, including to tighten perceived loopholes. In the wake of enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (P.L. 107- 155), there has been decidedly less legislative activity in this area than in recent Congresses, which typically saw well over 100 campaign finance-related bills introduced.
- Clean Water Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- The Clean Water Act Issues has again received attention in the 108th Congress. At issue is how the federal government will assist states and cities in meeting needs to rebuild, repair, and upgrade wastewater treatment plants, especially in light of capital costs which are projected to be as much as $390 billion over the next two decades. In October 2004, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported legislation to authorize $20 billion in funding for clean water infrastructure (S. 2550), while in July 2003, a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee also approved a water infrastructure financing bill (H.R. 1560). Still, prospects for further action during the 108th Congress are uncertain.
- Clean Air Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- The conference report on the energy bill (H.R. 6), which came to the House and Senate floor for action the week of November 17, 2003, contained several Clean Air Act provisions. Most of these are also contained in S. 2095, a revised version of the bill introduced February 12, 2004, and in H.R. 4503, which passed the House June 15, 2004. Most of the air provisions concern the gasoline additives MTBE and ethanol, used to meet Clean Air Act requirements that reformulated gasoline (RFG) sold in the nation’s worst ozone nonattainment areas contain at least 2% oxygen, to improve combustion.
- Brownfields and Superfund Issues in the 108th Congress
- The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
- Brownfields and Superfund Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
- War on Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments
- No Description Available.
- Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Selected Legislation from the 108th Congress
- The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as passed in 1978, provided a statutory framework for the use of electronic surveillance in the context of foreign intelligence gathering. In doing so, Congress sought to strike a balance between national security interests and personal privacy rights. Subsequent legislation expanded federal laws dealing with foreign intelligence gathering to address physical searches, pen registers and trap and trace devices, and access to certain business records.
- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR): Controversies for the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the ongoing debate about whether or not to approve energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Current law forbids energy leasing in the Refuge. This report addresses several legislative options on the issue, as well as policymakers' arguments for and against development, especially in the wake of increasing terrorism since 2000-2001.
- Child Welfare Issues in the 108th Congress
- The purpose of this report is to present a number of generally less broad legislative proposals related to child welfare financing have been introduced in the 108th Congress. Additional child welfare-related proposals designed to improve services, promote timely placement of children across state lines, and for other purposes, are described in this report.
- Accounting Reform After Enron: Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the anxieties within Congress in the wake of the Enron scandal. Moreover, the report notes that the 108th Congress is not likely to pass legislative reform as extreme as the 107th Congress, but will still confront issues of accounting reform. The report also highlights what the 108th Congress plans to reform.
- Electronic Voting Systems (DREs): Legislation in the 108th Congress
- Several bills have been introduced in the 108th Congress to address issues that have been raised about the security of direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. Touchscreen and other DREs using computer-style displays are arguably the most versatile and voter-friendly of any current voting system. The popularity of DREs, particularly the touchscreen variety, has grown in recent years. In addition, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA, P.L. 107 — 252), while not requiring or prohibiting the use of any specific kind of voting system, does promote the use of DREs through some of its provisions.
- Brownfields and Superfund Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report is the superfund program for cleaning up the nation's worst hazardous waste sites that was created by the comprehensive environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERLA.
- Clean Water Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- Prospects for legislative initiatives to comprehensively amend the Clean Water Act have stated for some time over whether and exactly how to change the law, and Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected Clean Water Act programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals. This report contains information on the issues and actions regarding the Clean Water Act addressed in the 108th Congress.
- Child Care Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the FY2003 Appropriations, FY2004: Comparing President Bush's Budget Proposals to the final Appropriations levels, President Bush's FY2005 Budget Request and Hearings.
- Pay Equity Legislation in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the historical presence of a gendered wage gap and the acts, such as the Equal Pay Act (EPA), and compensation for workers to shrink the gap. The report discusses the opposition who believe the gender wage gap will naturally reduce when women continue working and working themselves up the corporate ladder.
- Federal Workforce Flexibilities: A Side-by-Side Comparison of S.129 (108th Congress) with Current Law
- This report compares each of the provisions in S. 129, as passed by the Senate and as ordered to be reported to the House, with current law. The S. 129 is a bill considered by the 108th Congress related to the management of the federal workforce, the Federal Workforce Flexibility Act of 2003.
- Clean Water Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- Prospects for legislative initiatives to comprehensively amend the Clean Water Act have stated for some time over whether and exactly how to change the law, and Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected Clean Water Act programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals. This report contains information on the issues and actions regarding the Clean Water Act addressed in the 108th Congress.
- Clean Air Act Issues in the 108th Congress
- This report discusses the conference report on the energy bill which came to the House and Senate floor for action the week of November 17, 2003, that contained several clean air act provisions. It also contains the most recent developments on clean air act issues.
- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): Comparison and Analysis of Selected Provisions in H.R. 1350 as Passed by the House and by the Senate, 108th Congress
- CRS Report for Congress entailing information about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Topics include, allocation of funds, eligibility of jurisdictions, safeguarding, etc..