The Navy in February 2006 proposed to maintain in coming years a fleet of 313 ships, including, among other things, 11 aircraft carriers, 48 attack submarines (SSNs), 88 cruisers and destroyers, 55 Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs), 31 amphibious ships, and a Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F), squadron with 12 new-construction amphibious and sealift-type ships. The Navy says that for its shipbuilding plans to be affordable and executable, the Navy needs to control certain non-shipbuilding expenditures and build ships within estimated costs. The Navy's shipbuilding plans raise potential issues regarding the shipbuilding industrial base, particularly in the areas of the submarine design and engineering base, and the surface combatant construction base.

The Navy wants to procure three new classes of surface combatants -- the DDG-1000 (formerly DD(X)) destroyer, the CG(X) cruiser, and a smaller surface combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The Navy wants to procure 7 DDG-1000s, 19 CG(X)s, and 55 LCSs. The Senate Appropriations Committee, in its report (S.Rept. 109-292 of July 25, 2006) on H.R. 5631, recommends approving the Navy's request for FY2007 procurement funding for the first two DDG-1000s and increasing the Navy's request for FY2007 DDG-1000 research and development funding by a net $1 million. This CRS report explains the above as well as other budgetary recommendations made by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

This report discusses the Coast Guard, which is the lead federal agency for maritime homeland security. For FY2007, the Coast Guard is requesting a total of about $4.5 billion for missions defined in The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) as the Coast Guard’s homeland security missions. This equates to about 54% of the Coast Guard’s total requested FY2007 budget. The Coast Guard’s homeland security operations pose several potential issues for Congress, including adequacy of Coast Guard resources for performing both homeland security and non-homeland security missions, and Coast Guard coordination with other agencies involved in maritime homeland security.

This report reviews the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 109th Congress. Action in the second session has focused on appropriations bills; the first session focused on omnibus energy policy bill H.R. 6 and several appropriations bills. this report describes several major pieces of legislation, including the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Transportation Equity Act. For each bill listed in this report, a brief description and a summary of action are given, including references to committee hearings and reports. Also, a selected list of hearings on renewable energy is included.

The Navy in February 2006 proposed to maintain in coming years a fleet of 313 ships, including, among other things, 11 aircraft carriers, 48 attack submarines (SSNs), 88 cruisers and destroyers, 55 Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs), 31 amphibious ships, and a Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F), squadron with 12 new-construction amphibious and sealift-type ships. In conjunction with this proposed 313-ship fleet, the Navy submitted a 5-year (FY2007-FY2011) shipbuilding plan as part of the FY2007-FY2011 Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP), and a 30- year (FY2007-FY2036) shipbuilding plan that the Navy is required by law to submit each year.

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On May 3, 2006, the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) data analyst was burglarized, resulting in the theft of a laptop computer and an external data storage device that was reported to contain personal information on more than 26 million veterans and United States military personnel. The VA Secretary testified that he was not informed of the incident until May 16, 2006, almost two weeks after the data had been stolen. VA publicly announced the theft on May 22. On June 29, VA announced that the stolen laptop computer and external hard drive had been recovered intact and that, based on a forensic examination conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the files on the external hard drive had not been compromised.

This report discusses the Coast Guard, which is the lead federal agency for maritime homeland security. For FY2007, the Coast Guard is requesting a total of about $4.5 billion for missions defined in The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) as the Coast Guard’s homeland security missions. This equates to about 54% of the Coast Guard’s total requested FY2007 budget. The Coast Guard’s homeland security operations pose several potential issues for Congress, including adequacy of Coast Guard resources for performing both homeland security and non-homeland security missions, and Coast Guard coordination with other agencies involved in maritime homeland security.

This report examines the opinions of the district court and court of appeals in National Treasury Employees Union (“NTEU”) v. Chertof.

This report reviews the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 109th Congress. Action in the second session has focused on appropriations bills; the first session focused on omnibus energy policy bill H.R. 6 and several appropriations bills. this report describes several major pieces of legislation, including the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Transportation Equity Act. For each bill listed in this report, a brief description and a summary of action are given, including references to committee hearings and reports. Also, a selected list of hearings on renewable energy is included.

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The Navy wants to procure three new classes of surface combatants — the DDG-1000 (formerly DD(X)) destroyer, the CG(X) cruiser, and a smaller surface combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The Navy wants to procure 7 DDG-1000s, 19 CG(X)s, and 55 LCSs.

The purpose of this report is to review the status of the Democratic Republic of the Congo peace process, provide background on recent conflicts in the Congo; briefly summarize the political history that led to these conflicts; and assess prospects for the future. U.S. Congo policy and congressional involvement are also described.

Trade agreements such asthe NAFTA and the GATT Uruguay Round agreements have been approved by a majority vote of each House of Congress rather than by twothirds vote of the Senate — that is, they have been treated as congressional-executive agreements rather than treaties. The congressional-executive agreement has been the vehicle for implementing ingress' long-standing policy of seeking trade benefits for the United States through reciprocal trade negotiations. In a succession of statutes, Congress has authorized the President to negotiate and enter into tariff and nontariff barrier (NTB) agreements for limited periods, while mandating that NTB and free trade area agreements negotiated under this authority could enter into force for the United States only if approved by both Houses in a bill enacted into public law and other statutory conditions were met.

Both H.R. 5005 and S. 2452 propose a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which would have a number of responsibilities relating to state and local preparedness for potential terrorist attacks. This report discusses selected state and local preparedness issues that specifically pertain to the proposed Emergency Preparedness and Response Division of the new department.1 The report does not, however, discuss certain issues, such as the impact of integrating selected offices from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) into a new DHS,2 and the degree of authority the DHS would need to effectively evaluate state and local assistance programs.

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This report discuss issues that received congressional attention in the 107th Congress, such as The impact of air quality regulations, key water quality issues, superfund, solid/hazardous wastes, multibillion dollar cleanup and compliance programs, climate change, pesticides, EPA budget, and Science and Technology.

More than 20 years of Federal pollution control programs notwithstanding, growing perception that minority and low-income communities remain at disproportionately high risk of exposure to toxic pollutants is focusing attention on "environmental equity" issues. Federal legislation has been introduced to ensure equal protection of environmental quality and public health. Equity legislation is opposed by people who are skeptical of its long-term prospects and believe that there is insufficient evidence of discrimination and that some inequities are inevitable in a free-market economy. Both sides agree there is a need to collect and analyze data on public health and exposure to environmental hazards and to compare health risks among racial and socio-economic groups.

This report provides a selection of information gateways for businesses, state and local governments, research organizations, and others that wish to pursue homeland security related business opportunities or grants from the federal government.

Legislation has been proposed in the 107th Congress to combat the use and abuse of Ecstasy (MDMA) and other “club drugs.” In a 2001 survey, 12% of 12th graders reported ever having taken the drug. The Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000, enacted by the 106th Congress, directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to increase penalties for Ecstasy offenses. As of March 2001, MDMA penalties became more severe than for powder cocaine but less severe than for heroin.

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This report examines various legislative issues regarding Head Start, which is a federal program that has provided comprehensive early childhood development services to low income children since 1965. The program is administered by the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).