The Federal government's high-level waste disposal program is designed to build a permanent repository for highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and defense facilities. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) created an office in the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop this repository, to be paid for by a fee on nuclear-generated electricity.

This report discusses the issues of the U.S.-Japanese trade relations of the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and the Clinton Administration.

This report provides an An Historical Overview about The Executive Office of the President. It consists of a group of federal agencies immediately serving the President.

Most economists believe that the main economic benefit of NAFTA will be that, over time, it will increase productivity and incomes in the United States, Mexico and Canada. In this view, living standards of all three countries will be higher than without a NAFTA. In the near term, some reallocation of resources will occur within each country, generating gains for some producers and costs for others. New industries emerge, some industries expand, some contract, and some die. Since the Mexican and Canadian economies are small relative to the U.S. economy, it is expected that both the aggregate benefits and costs of the NAFTA to the United States will be relatively small.

As a result of an initiative by Australia in 1989, the United States joined with eleven other Asia/Pacific nations in creating APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation organization. This report discusses the annual Ministerial Meeting of APEC in Seattle, held from November 17 - 19, 1993.

Japan, as an issue, has entered the debate over U.S. approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in several ways. The Clinton Administration has argued that Americans should support NAFTA because if it fails to pass Congress, Japan will rush to negotiate a similar arrangement with Mexico. Proponents of NAFTA also have argued that since Japan opposes NAFTA (because of its presumed protectionism and the benefits it provides to North American businesses), it must be "good for America." Opponents of NAFTA argue that the agreement would provide opportunities for Japanese manufacturers to invest in Mexico and export unfettered to the American market. Also, they assert that NAFTA would be like previous trade agreements, particularly with Japan, that have ended up hurting the U.S. economy. In either case, the effects of NAFTA on Japan would likely be small.

Numerous indicators are used to make international comparisons of health spending. The two most often used show: 1) health spending as a share of a nation's overall economy percent of GDP); and 2) a nation's real (adjusted for inflation and exchange rates) per capita spending.

On May 25, 1989, President Bush proposed that the United States undertake the Structural Impediments Initiative (SII), a series of discussions with Japan to address certain fundamental Japanese economic policies and business practices that the United States claims impede U.S. exports and investments. The SII was, in part, a Bush Administration response to the stubborn U.S. trade deficit and other problems that have caused friction in the U.S. trading relationship with Japan. It was also a response to congressional pressure to deal more aggressively with Japanese unfair trade practices and to calls from critics to adopt a "managed" trade policy toward Japan.