This report discusses income maintenance programs and various proposals to reform the system.

This report discusses how the Federal Reserve (Fed) handles monetary policy, including background information about the execution of monetary policy, the recent and current stance of monetary policy, and current legislation and Congressional oversight that would affect the Fed's practices.

This report provides background information regarding the prison population in the United States that has been growing steadily for more than 30 years. The report presents correctional system statistics and discusses the federal government's involvement in offender reentry programs and the Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199) that was enacted on April 9, 2008.

This report discusses the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that receives virtually all of its funding through federal appropriations; overall, about 15% of public television and 10% of radio broadcasting funding comes from the federal appropriations that CPB distributes.

Report that is divided into two segments. The first section provides the most recent information on the Fiscal Year 2011 continuing resolution (or CRs). The second segment focuses on: the history and recent trends, including the nature, scope, and duration of CRs during the past 35 years; CR types by duration; major substantive legislative provisions included in some CRs; and funding gaps.

This report is categorized into three categories: (I) The Relationship Between Growth and Unemployment, (II) The Unemployment Rate During Postwar Recoveries and (III) The Outlook for the Unemployment Rate in the Next Few Years.

The Senate publishes its rules, precedents, and other related information so that Senators and their staff have convenient access to the Senate’s legislative procedures and can gauge how those procedures are likely to apply in various situations. Information about the Senate’s legislative procedures is published in four official documents. This report discusses these documents.

This report highlights major international trade and finance issues Congress may address this year.

This report discusses alternatives for addressing methane capture, sources of methane, opportunities and challenges for methane capture, and current federal programs that support methane recovery.

This report discusses the Wilderness Act generally prohibits commercial activities, motorized uses, and infrastructure developments in congressionally designated wilderness areas. However, the Wilderness Act and many subsequent laws designating wilderness areas also contain provisions authorizing activities that do not conform with these general prohibitions. The general prohibitions and the authorized uses are important because controversies persist over permissible and prohibited activities in wilderness areas, and because bills often seek to modify existing areas or activities.

This report examines characteristics of both the insured and the uninsured populations in the United States.

This report summarizes the court decisions on whether particular government actions based on the ESA "take" private property under the fifth amendment.

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This report describes wave, tidal, and in-stream energy generation technologies -- also referred to as hydrokinetic or marine energy. It discusses the recent changes in law aimed to clarify the federal role in ocean wave and renewable energy.

The recruitment and retention of a high-quality teaching force is critical to the future success of our nation's school system. To address this issue, a wide range of programs have been put into place at the federal, state, and local levels in recent years. This report is to review the range of these efforts nationwide and provide a context for the issues that may yet arise during HEA reauthorization.

This report discusses the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill that provides funding for the Department of the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President (EOP), the judiciary, the District of Columbia, and more than two dozen independent agencies.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) addresses how banking institutions meet credit needs in low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods. This report informs the congressional debate concerning the CRA's effectiveness in incentivizing bank lending and investment activity to LMI borrowers. After a discussion of the CRA's origins, it presents the CRA's examination process and bank activities that are eligible for consideration of CRA credits. Next, it discusses the difficulty of determining the CRA's influence on bank behavior.

This report briefly outlines the issues involved with terrorism insurance, summarizes extension legislation, and includes a side-by-side comparison of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA) and the bills introduced in the 114th and 113th Congresses.

This report tracks the status of ongoing legislative action and debate related to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization. It is organized into six major program areas: aviation system finance; airport financing; FAA management and organizational issues; system capacity and safety; environmental issues; and airline industry issues. In several cases, provisions that appear in various unrelated sections of proposed legislation have been rearranged in this report in an effort to group and discuss related items in an issue-driven or programmatic context. Since this report is primarily written as a means of communicating key legislative provisions under consideration in the ongoing FAA reauthorization process, it does not go into detail regarding the specific policy issues behind these legislative proposals.

This report summarizes the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) January 15, 2013, final and June 2012 proposed changes to the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) and includes comparisons with previous (1997 and 2006) promulgated and proposed standards. Key actions leading up to the agency's determination, and potential issues and concerns associated with changing the Particulate Matter annual standard, are also highlighted.

This report provides data on elections of the Speaker in each Congress since 1913, when the House first reached its present size of 435 Members. During that period (63rd through 114th Congresses), a Speaker was elected five times with the votes of less than a majority of the full membership.

This report contains a table which provides access to names and contact information for CRS experts on policy concerns relating to critical infrastructure security. Policy areas identified include: mission; security services; and specific sectors: assessing vulnerabilities, planning and implementation.

This report provides an overview of the importance of honey bee pollination to U.S. agricultural production, especially specialty crops. It describes the extent and symptoms of Colony Colapse Disorder (CCD) and how it differs from previous honey bee colony losses, describing some of the reasons why scientists believe honey bee colonies are being affected by CCD. Finally, the report discusses policy options and actions that Congress has taken to address this issue.

This report discusses the federal government funding for mental illness and surrounding issues, such as mental health courts and mental health collaboration programs.