This report provides information on congressional practices with respect to the duration of continuing resolutions, including the use of full-year measures, and focuses particularly on the period covering FY1998-FY2010.

This report discusses the United States' Department of Defense's (DOD) Japan 2011 Earthquake relief efforts, designated "Operation Tomodachi," which is Japanese for "friend." The report includes an overview of the situation, funding for DOD efforts, naval activities, air activities, and a historical overview of U.S. military presence in Japan.

This report examines the original intent and purpose of the Berry Amendment and legislative proposals to amend the application of domestic source restrictions, as well as potential options for Congress.

Congressional interest in a major reform of the individual income tax that would broaden the base and use the additional tax revenues to lower rates and/or reduce the deficit has increased. This report discusses ways in which the tax base can be broadened, tax expenditures, and impediments to broadening the base/eliminating or reducing expenditures.

This report discusses background and funding for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program (previously known as the High-Performance Computing and Communications program, or HPPCC), which involves multiagency research and development (R&D) projects. It includes information about the program, background on federal technology funding, related activities in the 112th and 111th Congresses, and potential issues for Congress to address.

This report discusses the "DREAM Act", a measure to enable certain unauthorized alien students to legalize their status, as well as related issues.

This report provides information on U.S. Africa Command or (AFRICOM), including AFRICOM's mission, structure, interagency coordination, and its basing and manpower requirements. The report also gives a broad overview of U.S. strategic interests in Africa and the role of U.S. military efforts on the continent as they pertain to the creation of Africa Command.

This report provides an overview and analysis of U.S.-Yemeni relations, including issues such as: political change in Yemeni leadership; ongoing U.S. counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operatives at large in Yemen's hinterlands; and international efforts to bolster the country's stability despite an array of daunting socio-economic problems. Congress and U.S. policymakers may be concerned with prospects for stabilizing Yemen and establishing strong bilateral relations with future Yemeni leaders.

This report describes federal programs that provide grants, loans, loan guarantees, and other direct or indirect regulatory incentives for energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable energy. For each program, the report provides the administering agency, authorizing statute(s), annual funding, and the program expiration date. The appendixes provide summary information in a tabular format.

This report summarizes issues, arguments, and concerns relevant to a value-added tax (VAT).

This report examines the nascent battery manufacturing industry and considers efforts to strengthen U.S. capacity to manufacture batteries and battery components for hybrid and electric vehicles. It addresses the concern about an electric vehicle supply chain in the United States since manufacturers have brought hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fully-electric vehicles to market.

This report examines how conflicts of interest may arise regarding derivatives clearing and analyzes the measures that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed to address them. It discusses what effect, if any, ownership and control limits may have on derivatives clearing; and whether such limits effectively address the types of conflicts of interest that are of concern to some in the 112th Congress. These rulemakings may interest the 112th Congress as part of its oversight authority for the CFTC and SEC. Trends in clearing and trading derivatives, and the ownership of swap clearinghouses, are discussed in the Appendix.

This report discusses the Supreme Court's decision in Snyder vs. Phelps, which deals with the question of Westboro Baptist Church's tort liability, a church that has protested military funerals for a number of years. It analyzes the constitutional issues facing federal laws that create funeral protest buffer zones and examines legislative options for amending the federal laws restricting funeral protests, including H.R. 961.

This report examines the impact on the federal budget of the President’s proposals, specifically the proposed freeze in non-security discretionary spending and how the freeze might change the fiscal outlook over the 10-year budget window.

This report discusses the levying of a value-added tax (VAT), a broad-based consumption tax, to potentially assist in resolving United States fiscal problems. It considers the experiences of the 29 nations with value-added taxes (VATs) in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which are relevant to the feasibility and operation of a possible U.S. VAT.

This report looks at the history and current status of sequestration at it relates to Congress, including how it is enacted and special rules that can apply.

This report describes and analyzes U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) role in the U.S. import process. (The report does not cover CBP's role in the U.S. export control system.)

This report first describes cloud computing and how it differs from traditional computing. It then describes how the Fourth Amendment and federal electronic privacy statutes apply to communications in the physical world, to Internet communications generally, and specifically to the cloud. Finally, this report surveys recent legislation and other various proposals designed to update the existing statutory framework.

This report summarizes congressional authorization and appropriations processes for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It also discusses agency activities under general authorities.

This report summarizes the proposed changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance as described in H.Con.Res. 25, the accompanying committee report, and Chairman Ryan's Path to Prosperity report. Additionally, it briefly examines the potential impact of the proposed changes on health care spending and coverage.

This report examines Member adoption and use of two social networking services: Twitter and Facebook. The report analyzes data on Member use of Twitter and Facebook collected by an academic institution in collaboration with the Congressional Research Service during a two-month period between August and October 2011 and the adoption of both platforms as of January 2012.

This report provides a historical perspective on contemporary federalism issues in surface transportation policy that are likely to be addressed by Congress during the 111th Congress, including possible devolution of programmatic responsibility to states and proposals to change state maintenance-of-effort requirements and state cost matching requirements.

This report provides a summary and analysis of judicial opinions that have developed the current state of trademark law governing keyword-triggered advertising. It discusses background of the issue, keyword advertising, and litigation related to keyword advertising.

This report begins with a brief discussion of the Russian oil and gas industries, including their efforts to purchase energy infrastructure in central and eastern Europe and reduce energy subsidies to neighboring countries. A second section deals with the impact of Russian energy policy on neighboring countries, all of them formerly part of the Soviet Union, de facto or de jure, and all heavily dependent on Russian energy imports. Many of these countries are concerned about what they see as Russian efforts to manipulate that dependency to achieve political goals. A final section deals with U.S. efforts to promote the energy security of these countries and on Congress's response to the issue.