Auction-Rate Securities (open access)

Auction-Rate Securities

This report discusses auction-rate securities (ARSs), which most are long-term bonds, although some ARS are structured as preferred shares and so have no maturities.
Date: September 17, 2008
Creator: Austin, D. Andrew
System: The UNT Digital Library
Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy: The CAFE Standards (open access)

Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy: The CAFE Standards

This report is about Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy.
Date: September 17, 2004
Creator: Bamberger, Robert
System: The UNT Digital Library
Defense Cleanup and Environmental Programs: Authorization and Appropriations for FY2005 (open access)

Defense Cleanup and Environmental Programs: Authorization and Appropriations for FY2005

This report provides background information on each defense-related environmental program, discusses key funding issues, and examines relevant provisions in authorization legislation and appropriations for FY2005.
Date: September 17, 2004
Creator: Bearden, David M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Livestock Feed Costs: Concerns and Options (open access)

Livestock Feed Costs: Concerns and Options

This report discusses higher livestock feed costs. The authors argue the current public policies, including financial incentives that divert corn from feed uses into ethanol production.
Date: September 17, 2008
Creator: Becker, Geoffrey S.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Landsat and the Data Continuity Mission (open access)

Landsat and the Data Continuity Mission

This report discusses the U.S. Landsat Mission, which has collected remotely sensed imagery of the Earth's surface for more than 35 years. The two satellites currently in orbit are operating beyond their designed life and may fail at any time. Most Landsat data is used by federal agencies. Efforts to commercialize Landsat operations have not been successful. This report discusses issues facing Congress regarding funding for new Landsat satellites.
Date: September 17, 2010
Creator: Behrens, Carl E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Landsat and the Data Continuity Mission (open access)

Landsat and the Data Continuity Mission

This report discusses the U.S. Landsat Mission, which has collected remotely sensed imagery of the Earth's surface for more than 35 years. The two satellites currently in orbit are operating beyond their designed life and may fail at any time. Most Landsat data is used by federal agencies. Efforts to commercialize Landsat operations have not been successful. This report discusses issues facing Congress regarding funding for new Landsat satellites.
Date: September 17, 2010
Creator: Behrens, Carl E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Nuclear Power Plants: Vulnerability to Terrorist Attack (open access)

Nuclear Power Plants: Vulnerability to Terrorist Attack

None
Date: September 17, 2004
Creator: Behrens, Carl E. & Holt, Mark
System: The UNT Digital Library
Department of Energy: Programs and Reorganization Proposals (open access)

Department of Energy: Programs and Reorganization Proposals

This report, a revision of an earlier CRS review of DOE programs, consists of an introductory discussion of the agency and its mission as a whole, and a description of its major programs as independent entities. Many of DOE's original energy-related missions have disappeared or changed radically. In addition, with the end of the Cold War, DOE's nuclear weapons-related programs, almost two-thirds of the total budget, are undergoing modification. However, regardless of the outcome of the debate on DOE's future, many of its present functions will continue in one location or another.
Date: September 17, 1999
Creator: Behrens, Carl E. & Rowberg, Richard E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Intelligence Issues for Congress (open access)

Intelligence Issues for Congress

The U.S. Intelligence Community continues to adjust to the post-Cold War environment. Congressional and executive branch initiatives have emphasized enhancing cooperation among the different agencies that comprise the Community by giving greater managerial authority to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).
Date: September 17, 2002
Creator: Best, Richard A., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Libya: Background and U.S. Relations. September 2008 (open access)

Libya: Background and U.S. Relations. September 2008

This report provides background information on Libya and U.S.-Libyan relations.
Date: September 17, 2008
Creator: Blanchard, Christopher M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response (open access)

Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response

This report discusses the continuing conflict in Syria including recent regime losses in confrontations with forces of the Islamic State (IS, aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL/ISIS) in northeastern Syria. The report also covers Syrian chemical weapons disarmament and U.S. policy.
Date: September 17, 2014
Creator: Blanchard, Christopher M.; Humud, Carla E. & Nikitin, Mary Beth D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations (open access)

Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations

This report outlines U.S. military operations in Bosnia and discusses issues such as U.S. and Allied Participation in Bosnia Peacekeeping (IFOR/SFOR), duration, cost, arms control and military assistance. This report also includes most recent development, background analysis, and legislation.
Date: September 17, 2002
Creator: Bowman, Steven R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Chemical Weapons Convention: Issues for Congress (open access)

Chemical Weapons Convention: Issues for Congress

The Convention provides the most extensive and intrusive verification regime of any arms control treaty, extending its coverage to not only governmental but also civilian facilities. The Convention also requires export controls and reporting requirements on chemicals that can be used as warfare agents and their precursors. The CWC establishes the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to oversee the Convention's implementation. Chemical Weapons Convention implementing legislation, as S. 610, passed the Senate unanimously on May 23, 1997. This legislation, which was an amendment in the nature of a substitute reported from the Judiciary Committee, provides the statutory authority for domestic compliance with the Convention's provisions. It sets criminal and civil penalties for the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, possession, or use of chemical weapons.
Date: September 17, 2002
Creator: Bowman, Steven R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Kosovo and Macedonia: U.S. and Allied Military Operations (open access)

Kosovo and Macedonia: U.S. and Allied Military Operations

None
Date: September 17, 2002
Creator: Bowman, Steven R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Methane Capture: Options for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction (open access)

Methane Capture: Options for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction

This report discusses legislative alternatives for addressing methane capture, sources of methane, opportunities and challenges for methane capture, and current federal programs that support methane recovery.
Date: September 17, 2009
Creator: Bracmort, Kelsi; Ramseur, Jonathan L.; McCarthy, James E.; Folger, Peter & Marples, Donald J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Salaries of Members of Congress: Recent Actions and Historical Tables (open access)

Salaries of Members of Congress: Recent Actions and Historical Tables

This report provides historical tables on the rate of pay for Members of Congress since 1789; details on enacted legislation with language prohibiting the automatic annual pay adjustment since the most recent adjustment; the adjustments projected by the Ethics Reform Act as compared with actual adjustments in Member pay; and Member pay in constant and current dollars since 1992.
Date: September 17, 2015
Creator: Brudnick, Ida A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The FY2008 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Policy Issues (open access)

The FY2008 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Policy Issues

None
Date: September 17, 2007
Creator: Burrelli, David F.; Best, Richard A., Jr.; Henning, Charles A. & Kapp, Lawrence
System: The UNT Digital Library
Agricultural Disaster Assistance (open access)

Agricultural Disaster Assistance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers several permanently authorized programs to help farmers recover financially from a natural disaster, including federal crop insurance, the non-insured assistance program and emergency disaster loans. In recent years, Congress frequently has made supplemental financial assistance available to farmers and ranchers on an ad-hoc basis, most notably in the form of direct crop disaster payments and emergency livestock assistance. Congress provided an estimated $3.1 billion of such assistance in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-7) for 2001 and 2002 crop and livestock losses. Some farm groups would like to see similar assistance provided for 2003 losses, particularly in regions of the Midwest and West that have experienced prolonged drought conditions. To date, no ad-hoc assistance has been made available for 2003 losses.
Date: September 17, 2003
Creator: Chite, Ralph M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Medical Malpractice Liability Reform: Legal Issues and Fifty-State Survey of Caps on Punitive Damages and Noneconomic Damages (open access)
Clean Water Act: Legislation Concerning Discharges from Recreational Boats (open access)

Clean Water Act: Legislation Concerning Discharges from Recreational Boats

This report discusses background of the Clean Water Act; bills introduced in response, two of which were passed by Congress on July 22 (S. 2766 and S. 3298); and draft permits proposed by EPA on June 17.
Date: September 17, 2008
Creator: Copeland, Claudia
System: The UNT Digital Library
Clean Water Act: Legislation Concerning Discharges from Recreational Boats (open access)

Clean Water Act: Legislation Concerning Discharges from Recreational Boats

The Environmental Protection Agency is attempting to develop a regulatory response to a 2006 federal court ruling that vacated a long-standing rule that exempts discharges associated with the normal operation of vessels from permit requirements of the Clean Water Act. Concern that this ruling could require millions of recreational boaters to obtain permits has led to the introduction of legislation to exempt these and other types of vessels from water quality regulation. This report discusses background to the issue; bills introduced in response, two of which were passed by Congress on July 22; and draft permits proposed by EPA on June 17.
Date: September 17, 2008
Creator: Copeland, Claudia
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Information Quality Act: OMB’s Guidance and Initial Implementation (open access)

The Information Quality Act: OMB’s Guidance and Initial Implementation

This report describes the IQA and OMB's and the agencies' information quality guidelines, noting how several key terms are defined, how risk-related information is to be treated, and how agencies' correction processes should be established. The report also reviews OMB's report on the first year of the IQA's implementation, focusing on the correction requests received during that period and how they were resolved. It also describes a critical comment on that report by a nongovernmental organization. Finally, this report examines the issue of judicial review and the IQA, and explores some suggested improvements and modifications to the act's implementation.
Date: September 17, 2004
Creator: Copeland, Curtis W. & Simpson, Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
AIDS in Africa (open access)

AIDS in Africa

This report discusses the AIDS issues in Africa and the Bush administration call to double U.S. international funding for AIDS.
Date: September 17, 2004
Creator: Copson, Raymond W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
HIV/AIDS International Programs: Appropriations, FY2002-FY2004 (open access)

HIV/AIDS International Programs: Appropriations, FY2002-FY2004

None
Date: September 17, 2003
Creator: Copson, Raymond W.
System: The UNT Digital Library