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This report discusses state and federal legislative power generally and focus on a number of these "federalism" cases.

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This report discusses about energy tax policy. U.S energy tax policy promoted the supply of oil and gas but witnessed significant cutback, imposition of new excise taxes on oil and introduction of numerous tax preferences for energy conservation.

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The primary focus of this issue brief is legislative action with respect to abortion. However, discussion of those legislative proposals necessarily involves a brief discussion of the leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate her pregnancy. For a more detailed discussion of the relevant case law, see CRS Report 95-724, Abortion Law Development: A Brief Overview.

This report is about the construction of the water resources for environmental purposes in 109th congress .

This report includes information regarding energy efficiency. This information includes efficiency goals for federal buildings, Omnibus Energy Bills, and energy security.

This report focuses on trends in personal health care spending, which includes spending on health care goods and services provided to individuals and excludes expenditures for administrative costs, research, and public health activities. Personal health care expenditures have grown considerably over the past 40 years. Between 1960 and 2003 (the most recent year available), personal health care spending increased from $23.4 billion to $1.4 trillion.

U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic and economic relations remained essentially frozen for more than a decade after the 1975 communist victory in South Vietnam. Relations took major steps forward in the mid-1990s, particularly in 1995, when the two sides opened embassies in each other’s capitals. Since then, the normalization process has accelerated and bilateral ties have expanded. Congress has played a significant role in the normalization process.

The House passed H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, on April 21, 2005 (249-183). The legislation includes a “safe harbor” provision to protect methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) refiners from product liability suits, which was retained after a close vote on an amendment to drop the language (213-219). In the 108th Congress, there was opposition to this provision in the Senate. It is unclear how its inclusion may affect Senate passage of an energy bill in the 109th Congress. House Republicans have indicated that a compromise will be sought to satisfy the other body. Language in the House-passed bill would also authorize opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and development. An amendment to delete the ANWR provisions from H.R. 6 was defeated (200-231).

This report details the information related to gasoline prices and discusses on policies and proposals.

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In early 2001, an eight-month conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgent forces and Macedonian police and security forces threatened to derail the country’s fragile stability and lead to another extended conflict in the Balkans. Later that year, the U.S. and European intervention led to the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which outlined a package of political reforms to expand the rights of the ethnic Albanian minority while rebel forces were disarmed and disbanded under NATO supervision. Implementation of the Ohrid agreement proceeded slowly at first but has progressed in recent years. Numerous challenges in 2004, including the accidental death of President Trajkovski and violent inter-ethnic incidents in neighboring Kosovo, threatened to increase political instability. However, an opposition-sponsored referendum on November 7, 2004, which sought to halt plans for decentralization and local government reforms called for under the Ohrid accords, failed due to low turnout. Municipal elections under the new redistricting plan took place in March 2005. The multi-ethnic coalition government that was elected after the 2001 conflict looks likely to complete its term until 2006.

This report details information such as history and analyses of renewable energy tax credit, budget, and electricity production issues.

Under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Agreement on Agriculture (AA), member countries agreed to general rules regarding disciplines on domestic and export subsidies, and concessions on market access. This report focuses solely on the commitments made by WTO member countries concerning government outlays in support of domestic agricultural production. The three sections of the report provide a brief overview of WTO domestic policy commitments; background information on WTO member requirements for reporting on domestic subsidy outlays; WTO member outlays made to support agricultural production; and U.S. agricultural support outlays compared against spending limits. In addition, the report briefly discusses the implications for U.S. agricultural policy of continued adherence to existing WTO commitments.

This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense. It summarizes the status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related congressional activity, and is updated as events warrant. The report lists the key CRS staff relevant to the issues covered and related CRS products.

U.S.-Vietnam diplomatic and economic relations were non-existent for more then fifteen years following communist North Vietnam’s victory in 1975 over the U.S. ally South Vietnam. Normalization of relations, particularly in the economic sphere, between the United States and unified Vietnam began in earnest in the 1990s. As the normalization process has proceeded, the U.S. has eliminated most of the Cold Warera restrictions on U.S. aid to Vietnam, and U.S. assistance has increased markedly from around $1 million when assistance was resumed in 1991 to nearly $50 million in FY2004.