The leading property rights bills in the Congress are the Contract with America-derived H.R. 9 (Division B), as passed by the House in March, 1995, and S. 605, as reported from the Committee on the Judiciary.

Japan's war reparations following World War II came in two stages. In the first, 1946-1949, U.S. and allied governments arranged for U.S. occupation authorities to ship about $160 million in Japanese industrial equipment to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the British colonies in East Asia.

This report provides inflation adjusted excise tax rates for alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline products. The base for computation is November 1951; the adjustments show what the tax rates would be if they had been increased to reflect inflation. All of the above cited commodities had rate increases effective for that date under the Revenue Act of 1951. Just as the Congress was prepared to lower excise tax rates because of peacetime conditions, plans had to be revised as a result of the start of the Korean War. Thus, the Revenue Act of 1951 was born out of revenue needs due to increased military expenditures.

If the 103rd Congress embarks upon an effort to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it will run into an old acquaintance: the property rights issue. As now written, the ESA has at least the potential to curtail property rights (whatever its actual impact as implemented may be). This report explores the legal repercussions of those impacts, especially whether they constitute takings of property under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Increasingly, efforts to protect integral features of the natural environment that are essential to human well being face a double challenge. First, the magnitude of some conventional and emerging threats to environmental quality is growing, despite solid progress in controlling some causes. This is particularly the concern on a global scale in terms of atmospheric changes and loss of biological diversity. Second, easily-implemented uniform control methods using feasible technologies or other direct regulatory approaches are already in place for many pollution and resource management problems in the United States. Additional progress with so-called command and control policies can be expensive and disruptive, and thus counter productive to overall economic well being. This type of dilemma is common where environmental deterioration results from diffuse and complex causes inherent in technically-advanced high-consumption industrial societies such as the U.S. Solutions to these types of environmental problems are complicated by the diffuse benefits which obscures the net gains of additional controls that have concentrated and highly visible costs. Given this double bind, many policy analysts and academics have for years advocated more cost-effective and flexible approaches relying on market forces to further some environmental management objectives. Although market-based theory and practical environmental policy are …

This report discusses the dispute between Greece and Turkey over the Rocky islet crisis.

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