The report discusses the FY 2001 Grants, FY 2002 Grants, FY 2003 Grants and FY 2004 Grants. It also points out the distribution of Fire Grants and Program Evaluation.

House rules govern the length of time legislative proposals must be available to Members prior to being considered on the floor. For measures reported from committee, the committee report must have been available for three calendar days. Conference reports must also have been available for three calendar days, and special rules for considering measures for one legislative day. The House, however, also has several means by which it can choose to waive these availability requirements and call up, debate, and vote on a measure in a single calendar day, even if the text of the measure was not made available prior to consideration.

Earth penetrator weapons, often called “bunker busters,” burrow into the ground some tens of feet before detonating, greatly increasing their ability to destroy buried targets. The United States has several types of conventional earth penetrators. The Air Force and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are studying a more effective penetrator, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). The FY2005 defense authorization act contained the full RNEP request, $27.6 million. This report explains the budget request and provides details on the RNEP plan.

Prior to enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), P.L. 107-155, the term “soft money” generally referred to unregulated funds, perceived as resulting from loopholes in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), 2 U.S.C. §§ 431 et seq. The general intent of BCRA, (effective November 6, 2002), which amends FECA, is to restrict the raising and spending of soft money. This Issue Brief discusses constitutional and legal issues surrounding two major types of soft money that BCRA regulates: political party soft money and soft money used for issue advocacy communications. Corporate and labor union soft money, which FECA exempts from regulation and is not addressed by BCRA, is also discussed.

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This report is divided into two segments. The first segment provides the most recent developments and content of the FY2005 continuing resolutions. The second segment provides information on the history of CRs; the nature, scope, and duration of CRs during the last 35 years; the types of CRs that have been enacted; and an overview of those instances when funding (or budget authority2) has lapsed and a funding gap has resulted.

In response to the foreign challenge in the global marketplace, the United States Congress has explored ways to stimulate technological advancement in the private sector. The government has supported various efforts to promote cooperative research and development activities among industry, universities, and the federal R&D establishment designed to increase the competitiveness of American industry and to encourage the generation of new products, processes, and services. Among the issues before Congress are whether joint ventures contribute to industrial competitiveness and what role, if any, the government has in facilitating such arrangements.

The Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) program provides monetary assistance to individuals unemployed as a direct result of a major disaster and who are not eligible for regular Unemployment Compensation (UC) benefits. DUA is funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). DUA is administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) through each state’s UC agency. In the 109th Congress, P.L. 109-176 was signed into law on March 6, 2006, extending the duration of DUA benefits from 26 to 39 weeks for victims of the Hurricane Katrina and Rita disasters.

The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is an agreement among member states to provide assistance after disasters overwhelm a state’s capacity to manage the consequences. The compact, initiated by the states and coordinated by the National Emergency Management Association, provides a structure for requesting emergency assistance from party states. EMAC also resolves some, but not all, potential legal and administrative obstacles that may hinder such assistance. EMAC also enhances state preparedness for terrorist attacks by ensuring the availability of resources for fast response and facilitating multi-state cooperation in training activities and preparedness exercises. Congress approved EMAC as an interstate compact in 1996 (P.L. 104-321).

This report discusses about energy tax policy. U.S energy tax policy promoted the supply of oil and gas but witnessed significant cutback, imposition of new excise taxes on oil and introduction of numerous tax preferences for energy conservation.

This report examines the key factors that shape French foreign policy. From that context, it analyzes some of the reasons for the tensions in and the accomplishments of U.S.-French relations.

This report focuses on the legal debate related to global warming, and past and possible litigation. The court cases, decided and pending, address four principal issues, whether the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, from either stationary or mobile sources; whether state regulation of GHG emissions from motor vehicles (limited to California at the moment) preempted by federal law; can the common law of nuisance be used to force cutbacks in GHG emissions; and do the alleged global warming impacts of federal agency actions allow a National Environmental Policy Act challenge?

There is an on-going interest in the pace of U.S. technological advancement due to its influence on U.S. economic growth, productivity, and international competitiveness. Because technology can contribute to economic growth and productivity increases, congressional interest has focused on how to augment private-sector technological development. Legislative activity over the past decade has created a policy for technology development, albeit an ad hoc one. Because of the lack of consensus on the scope and direction of a national policy, Congress has taken an incremental approach aimed at creating new mechanisms to facilitate technological advancement in particular areas and making changes and improvements as necessary

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The Medicaid statute requires that states make disproportionate share (DSH) adjustments to the payment rates of certain hospitals treating large numbers of low-income and Medicaid patients — recognizing the disadvantaged situation of those hospitals. Although the requirement was established in 1981, DSH payments did not become a significant part of the program until after 1989 when they grew from just under $1 billion to almost $17 billion by 1992. During that time states’ Medicaid budgets were facing a number of upward pressures while states were learning about financing techniques that made it easier to collect increased DSH payments from the federal government.

A comprehensive test ban treaty, or CTBT, is the oldest item on the nuclear arms control agenda. Three treaties currently limit testing to underground only, with a maximum force equal to 150,000 tons of TNT. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the United States conducted 1,030 nuclear tests, the Soviet Union 715, the United Kingdom 45, France 210, and China 45. The last U.S. test was held in 1992; the last U.K. test, in 1991. Russia claims it has not conducted nuclear tests since 1991. An article of May 2002 reported “intelligence indicating that Russia is preparing to resume nuclear tests.” Russia rejected the charge.

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Following a brief summary of recent developments regarding the implementation and re-evaluation of the 1997 standards, this report provides a broad overview of the standard-setting process, followed by a description of revisions to earlier standards, legal challenges to the 1997 standard, and particulate matter health effects research. EPA’s ongoing progress in reviewing the 1997 standard is then summarized. Other activities that potentially impact the implementation and review of the particulate matter standards, such as other air quality regulations and proposed legislation, are also discussed in this report.

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The term “Reserve Component” is often used to refer collectively to the seven individual reserve components of the armed forces: the Army National Guard of the The United States, the Army Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, the Air National Guard of the United States, the Air Force Reserve, and the Coast Guard Reserve. The role of these seven reserve components, as codified in law at 10 U.S.C. 10102, is to “provide trained units and qualified persons available for active duty in the armed forces, in time of war or national emergency, and at such other times as the national security may require, to fill the needs of the armed forces whenever...more units and persons are needed than are in the regular components.”

Earth penetrator weapons often called “bunker busters,” burrow into the ground some tens of feet before detonating, greatly increasing their ability to destroy buried targets. The United States has several types of conventional earth penetrators. The current U.S. nuclear earth penetrator, the B61-11 bomb, cannot penetrate certainly types of terrain in which hardened underground facilities may be located, so the Air Force and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are studying a more effective penetrator, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP).