This report provides a brief overview of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) commitments most relevant for U.S. domestic farm policy.

This report discusses the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program that was enacted in 1975 as a federal-state program (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) to help strengthen families by securing financial support for children from their noncustodial parent on a consistent and continuing basis and by helping some families to remain self-sufficient and off public assistance by providing the requisite CSE services.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To help prevent the sexual abuse of students in public K-12 schools, 46 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia surveyed by GAO required background checks of applicants--such as teachers or bus drivers--seeking public school employment; however, the methods and sources varied widely. Forty-two states established professional standards or codes of conduct for school personnel, and 22 of those included information on appropriate boundaries between personnel and students. Although experts view awareness and prevention training on sexual abuse and misconduct as another key prevention tool, only 18 states reported in the survey that they require school districts to provide this training. However, two of six districts GAO visited provided training to school personnel, volunteers, and students in response to prior allegations of sexual misconduct by school personnel. These trainings covered a variety of topics, including recognizing the signs of abuse and misconduct."

This report provides background on the evolving political, security, and humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR), which began when a fractious rebel coalition seized control of the central government in March 2013. The report also describes U.S. policy responses and analyzes possible issues for Congress, including oversight of U.S. humanitarian assistance and support for international stabilization efforts in CAR.

This report provides a statement on the United States' relationship with Europe.

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This report provides an overview and analysis of two recurring questions surrounding the federal government's role in financing presidential nominating conventions. First, how much public funding supports presidential nominating conventions? Second, what options exist for changing that amount if Congress chooses to do so?

This report provides information on environmental damage and restoration activities related to the Deepwater Horizon spill. An overview of how the RESTORE Act is being implemented and a discussion of multiple funding sources and plans to recover and restore the Gulf Coast environment are discussed. Further, potential issues for Congress related to this restoration initiative are presented.

This report discusses the applicability of the Hague Convention and current U.S. laws, both civil and criminal, which seek to address the quandary of children abducted by parents to foreign nations.

This report provides an overview of Jordanian politics and current issues in U.S.-Jordanian relations. It provides a brief discussion of the nation's government and economy, as well as Jordan's cooperation in promoting Arab-Israeli peace and other U.S. policy objectives in the Middle East.

The Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) Low Activity Waste (LAW) vitrification facility will generate an aqueous condensate recycle stream, LAW Off-Gas Condensate, from the off-gas system. The baseline plan for disposition of this stream is to send it to the WTP Pretreatment Facility, where it will be blended with LAW, concentrated by evaporation and recycled to the LAW vitrification facility again. Alternate disposition of this stream would eliminate recycling of problematic components, and would enable de-coupled operation of the LAW melter and the Pretreatment Facilities. Eliminating this stream from recycling within WTP would also decrease the LAW vitrification mission duration and quantity of canistered glass waste forms. This LAW Off-Gas Condensate stream contains components that are volatile at melter temperatures and are problematic for the glass waste form. Because this stream recycles within WTP, these components accumulate in the Condensate stream, exacerbating their impact on the number of LAW glass containers that must be produced. Approximately 32% of the sodium in Supplemental LAW comes from glass formers used to make the extra glass to dilute the halides to be within acceptable concentration ranges in the LAW glass. Diverting the stream reduces the halides in the recycled Condensate and …

This report provides an overview of the payment and other protections for subcontractors on certain federal prime contracts under the Miller Act, the 1988 amendments to the Prompt Payment Act, and the Small Business Act.

This report discusses the noncontributory military retirement system which includes monthly compensation and benefits after an active or reserve military career, disability retirement for those physically unfit to continue to serve, and survivor benefits for the eligible survivors of deceased retirees.

This report offers a brief background of the salient issues raised by the detainee provisions of the FY2012 NDAA, provides a section-by-section analysis, and discusses executive interpretation and implementation of the act's mandatory military detention provision. It also addresses detainee provisions in the 2013 NDAA and 2014 NDAA.

This report discusses section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), the specific requirements of which must be met in order for the United States to engage in civilian nuclear cooperation with other states. The AEA also provides for exemptions to these requirements, export control licensing procedures, and criteria for terminating cooperation.

This report discusses Omnibus appropriations acts, which have become a significant feature of the legislative process in recent years as Congress and the President have used them more frequently to bring action on the regular appropriations cycle to a close. Following a discussion of pertinent background information, the report reviews the recent enactment of such measures and briefly addresses several issues raised by their use.

This report provides profiles of Senators and Representatives in selected Congresses since 1945. It includes data based on Representatives and Senators serving on the first day of the 79th-113th Congresses for several demographic characteristics such as age (including the oldest and youngest Members of the House and Senate), sex, previous occupation, race and ethnicity, education, religion, and military service.

This report provides an overview of TANF financing and rules for state programs, describing federal TANF grants and state funds under a "maintenance-of-effort" (MOE) requirement; how states may use federal TANF and state MOE funds to help achieve the purpose and goals of the TANF block grant; rules that apply to states when they use TANF or MOE funds to provide cash welfare to needy families with children; rules that apply to states when they use TANF or MOE funds for benefits and services other than cash welfare; certain accountability requirements that apply to states, including requirements that states submit plans and report data to the federal government; and provisions of TANF law not directly related to grants to states, such as competitive grants for promoting healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood, tribal TANF provisions, and research funds.

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, and the Afghan government. It also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai to address corruption within the Afghan government.

SRNL performed analysis on Tanks 38H and 43H surface and subsurface supernate samples to support ECP and CCP. The U-235 mass divided by the total U mass ranged from 0.0059 to 0.0060. Uranium concentration ranged from 53.1 mg/L in the Tank 43H surface sample to the 85.1 mg/L in the Tank 38H subsurface sample. The U-235/U and uranium concentration are in line with the prior 2H-Evaporator System ECP samples.

This report provides an overview of Arctic-related issues for Congress and refers readers to more in-depth CRS reports on specific relevant topics.

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Coast Guard's programs for procuring 8 National Security Cutters (NSCs), 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs), and 58 Fast Response Cutters (FRCs).

This report presents how much the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) ultimately cost (or benefited) the taxpayers based on straightforward cash accounting as reported by the various agencies.

processing strategy for the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The basis of this alternative approach is an empirical model predicting the crystal accumulation in the WTP glass discharge riser and melter bottom as a function of glass composition, time, and temperature. When coupled with an associated operating limit (e.g., the maximum tolerable thickness of an accumulated layer of crystals), this model could then be integrated into the process control algorithms to formulate crystal tolerant high level waste (HLW) glasses targeting higher waste loadings while still meeting process related limits and melter lifetime expectancies. This report provides a review of the scaled melter testing that was completed in support of the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) melter. Testing with scaled melters provided the data to define the DWPF operating limits to avoid bulk (volume) crystallization in the un-agitated DWPF melter and provided the data to distinguish between spinels generated by K-3 refractory corrosion versus spinels that precipitated from the HLW glass melt pool. This report includes a review of the crystallization observed with the scaled melters and the full scale DWPF melters (DWPF Melter 1 and DWPF Melter 2). Examples of actual DWPF melter attainment with Melter 2 …