This report provides information on the Lisbon Treaty and possible U.S.-EU implications that may be of interest to the 112th Congress.

This report discusses the current political and social climate of Iraq, specifically in regards to the influence of the U.S. military presence over recent years. This report addresses planned and possible future efforts under the Obama Administration, including the scheduled gradual troops withdrawal.

This report provides a historical overview of Israel and it discusses most recent development, politics, economy and relations with United States.

This report provides background information and analysis on U.S. foreign trade in services. It includes an examination of definitions and examples of services to indicate their nature and scope; a review of the importance of services to the U.S. economy including U.S. foreign trade; and an analysis of the policy challenges that confront the United States, especially the challenge of negotiating a set of international rules on trade in services and the challenge of resolving disputes over trade in services with trading partners.

This report discusses the relationship between Iraq and Iran in the post-Saddam Hussein era, with particular focus on what Iran's intentions and/or long-term goals may be for increasing its influence in Iraq. The report explores the various strategies that Iran has used to spread its influence throughout Iraq's military and political spheres. The report also addresses the United States' concern over the Iran-Iraq relationship, especially as it concerns armed Shiite factions and U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

This report, intended as a background overview, briefly summarizes U.S. political history with Taiwan and discusses the complications it has for current U.S. policy and for congressional actions.

This report discusses the environmental activities of the U.S. Coast Guard, which fall within the service's program for protection of natural resources, and consist of maritime oil spill prevention, marine debris, and pollution response preparedness. Protection of living marine resources and fisheries also falls in this category, but is not discussed here. Marine environmental protection is one of six "non-homeland security missions" specified in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

This report provides an overview of the major non-financial effects of the global crisis of 2008.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report provides an overview of carbon offsets and examines some of the issue that are generating debate. This report focuses on the voluntary offsets market.

This report includes an evaluation of deep rock formations with the objective of providing practical maps, data, and some of the issues considered for carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) storage projects in the Ohio River Valley. Injection and storage of CO{sub 2} into deep rock formations represents a feasible option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-burning power plants concentrated along the Ohio River Valley area. This study is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), American Electric Power (AEP), BP, Ohio Coal Development Office, Schlumberger, and Battelle along with its Pacific Northwest Division. An extensive program of drilling, sampling, and testing of a deep well combined with a seismic survey was used to characterize the local and regional geologic features at AEP's 1300-megawatt (MW) Mountaineer Power Plant. Site characterization information has been used as part of a systematic design feasibility assessment for a first-of-a-kind integrated capture and storage facility at an existing coal-fired power plant in the Ohio River Valley region--an area with a large concentration of power plants and other emission sources. Subsurface characterization data have been used for reservoir simulations and to support the review of the issues relating to injection, monitoring, …

This Congressional Research Service Report for Congress details the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act of 1965 with emphasis on the fund's history, purpose, and current issues. - Updated January 7, 2009.

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Ferroelectrics and other materials that exhibit spontaneous polar ordering have demonstrated immense promise for applications ranging from non-volatile memories to microelectromechanical systems. However, experimental evidence of polar ordering and effective synthetic strategies for accessing these materials are lacking for low-dimensional nanomaterials. Here, we demonstrate the synthesis of size-controlled nanocrystals of the polar material germanium telluride (GeTe) using colloidal chemistry and provide the first direct evidence of room-temperature polar ordering in nanocrystals less than 5 nm in size using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy. Synchrotron x-ray diffraction and Raman studies demonstrate a sizeable polar distortion and a reversible size-dependent polar phase transition in these nanocrystals. The stability of polar ordering in solution-processible nanomaterials suggests an economical avenue to Tbit/in2-density non-volatile memory devices and other applications.