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This report provides information about the House Rules Committee Hearings on Special Rules where the committee has two purposes on mind: to make it in order for the house to remember a measure that was reported by another committee and to establish the terms under while the white house will debate, amend and vote for the measure.

This report provides a quantitative framework for policy considerations dealing with U.S. trade with China. It provides basic data and analysis of China’s international trade with the United States and other countries. Since Chinese data differ considerably from those of its trading partners (because of how entrepot trade through Hong Kong is counted), data from both PRC sources and those of its trading partners are presented. Charts showing import trends by sector for the United States highlight China’s growing market shares in many industries and also show import shares for Japan, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN ).

The 2000 and 2002 fire seasons were, by most standards, among the worst in the past 50 years. Many argue that the threat of severe wildfires has grown in recent years because of unnaturally high fuel loads (e.g., dense undergrowth and dead trees), raising concerns about damage to property and homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — forests near or surrounding homes. Debates about fire control and protection, including funding and fuel treatments (e.g., thinning and prescribed burning), have focused on national forests and other federal lands, but nonfederal lands are also at risk.

Animal protection activists in the United States have long sought legislation to modify or curtail some practices considered by U.S. agriculture to be both acceptable and necessary to animal health. Some Members of Congress over the years have offered various bills that would affect animal care on the farm, during transport, or at slaughter. The House and Senate Agriculture Committees from time to time have held hearings on farm animal welfare issues, but their members generally express a preference for voluntary rather than regulatory approaches to humane methods of care. This report briefly provides an overview of the subject.

This report provides information relevant to the U.S. agricultural sector on energy use, emerging issues, and related legislation. This report provides background on the relationship between energy and agriculture in the United States. The first section provides background information on current and historical energy use in the U.S. agricultural sector and how this fits into the national energy-use picture. Energy’s role in agriculture’s overall cost structure is detailed both for present circumstances and for changes over time. Finally, this section examines how agriculture’s energy-use pattern varies across activities and regions.