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This report contains the 2001 Congressional debate on emergency supplemental allocations in combating terrorism, after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

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This report provides background information on the Davis-Bacon Act, and discusses the possible effect of section 194 on construction projects undertaken by agencies or related to programs transferred to the proposed Department of Homeland Security.

This report provides background on the issue(including state voluntary cleanup programs), surveys the Environmental Protection Agency's current program, and reviews congressional action, including a description of the new law.

This report provides a selection of materials for locating information on foreign countries and international organizations.

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This report provides a financial outlook for social security and medicare programs.

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The Homeland Security Act of 2002, P.L. 107-296 (H.R. 5005), contains the following provisions that limit tort liability, and this report examines each of them 1) Section 304,863,8901201,1402,1714-1717.

The Act establishes a new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board which is to be supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Act restricts accounting firms from performing a number of other services for the companies which they audit. The Act also requires new disclosures for public companies and the officers and directors of those companies.

This report provides a framework for understanding the paper-based and electronic components of the current U.S. payments system. It begins with a basic overview of the payments system, explaining the relative size and growth of various methods of payment. The report discusses paper-based payments and then examines the operations of wholesale and retail electronic payments. Finally, the report discusses some of the major policy issues concerning the regulation and supervision of electronic payments.

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At the second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile (April 1998), 34 Western Hemisphere nations agreed to initiate formal negotiations to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005. The negotiating groups completed a draft agreement in January 2001, which was presented at the third Summit of the Americas held in Quebec City on April 20-22, 2001. President Bush expressed strong support for the FTAA and concrete progress has been made in moving it forward. Yet, differences in priorities among the negotiating countries are still evident, suggesting that the FTAA faces many policy hurdles in both the U.S. Congress and the hemisphere.

This report discusses the reasons for the U.S. current account deficit, popularly known as the trade deficit, and which is on the rise.

Trade remedies are government measures to minimize the adverse impact of imports on domestic industries. Antidumping duties are used to counter the effects of importssold at unfairly low prices on the domestic market. Countervailing duties are used to counter the price effects of imports that benefit from government subsidies in the exporting countries. Safeguard remedies (also called Section 201 and escape clause remedies) are used to reduce the injurious impact of surges in fairly trade imports.