If the 103rd Congress embarks upon an effort to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it will run into an old acquaintance: the property rights issue. As now written, the ESA has at least the potential to curtail property rights (whatever its actual impact as implemented may be). This report explores the legal repercussions of those impacts, especially whether they constitute takings of property under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

For at least 15 years Members of Congress have continued to ask: How many U.S. manufacturing plants have closed? For at least 15 years they have continued to ask: How many U.S. manufacturing plants have relocated abroad, and where have they gone? For at least 15 years the answer has been: For the most part, those questions can't be answered, based on Government data. How many plants are moving to Mexico? What industries and what States are the plants from? How many U.S. workers are losing their jobs as a result? It appears that still, after two legislative attempts to mandate collection of these data, the Government publishes no counts of U.S. plant closings, and almost no information on plant relocations. Options for strengthening the data systems include addressing three main weaknesses: inadequate data program design, a plant closing definition that misses its mark, and publication of partial instead of complete survey results.

There are ten categories of courts (including the local courts of the District of Columbia) to which the President nominates judges. The report provides background and statistics concerning President Bush's judicial nominations in each court category as well as actions taken on those nominations by the United States Senate. Each of the report's ten sections discusses the composition and jurisdiction of the court in question and notes the committee to which nominations to this court were referred when received by the Senate. Also, statistics on judicial nominations received by the Senate during the four years of the Bush Presidency are presented.

On August 27, 1993, Israel and the Palestinians announced that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) had initialed a landmark agreement on August 19 in Oslo, Norway on a Declaration of Principles on interim self-government for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On September 9, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin exchanged letters unprecedented mutual recognition. On September 10, President Clinton welcomed the agreement, thanked Congress for its support, and announced that the United States would resume its dialog with the PLO. The Declaration was signed at the White House on September 13. This report provides summaries of the Declaration and the letters.

This report provides background information on the violent and authoritarian traditions that have characterized Haiti's political dynamics since Haiti attained independence in 1804. It examines Haiti's difficult path toward democracy after the fall of the Duvalier regime, from numerous short-lived governments until the election of Aristide. Finally, the report also surveys Aristide's rule and his subsequent overthrow by the Haitian military.

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This report discusses various selected scientific research studies that have explores possible causes of homosexuality. Some investigations examining biological factors are described, as well as studies that consider possible environmental influences.

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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.

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This report highlights the contentions surrounding the release of health care information when it is meant to be confidential. In addition, the report summarizes the federal laws that govern how this information is distributed and when it is to be distributed. Finally, the report discusses the tension between the federal government and state governments in implementing a uniform standard for this type of law.

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This report surveys U.S. automobile policy in the 1980s in order to clarify the effects of foreign lobbying. The conclusion is that the success of Japanese and other foreign lobbying on automobile policy has been mixed. Some decisions have gone their way; others have not. Their success is partly because they have aligned their efforts with those of powerful domestic interests.

Some indirect measures of Japan's import barriers indicate that Japan's import behavior is unusual, but some do not. Japan's trade surplus is large, but the United States exports as much to that market as it does to other major industrialized nations. Japan's imports of manufactures, however, are low relative to levels in other industrialized nations.

President Clinton proposed to Prime Minister Miyazawa the idea of a framework for U.S.-Japanese negotiations during their April 13, 1993 meeting in Washington. The two leaders agreed to instruct subordinates to prepare details of such a framework in time for presentation in July in Tokyo when the President would meet with the Prime Minister and the other G-7 leaders at the annual economic summit.

ave Japan's trade concessions resulted in more U.S. exports? One premise of the more results-oriented trade policy toward Japan now being pursued is that past concessions have not caused U.S. exports to Japan to rise. The only success story seems to be that of semiconductors in which a specific goal of 20 percent of the Japanese market was set and attained.

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With Japan the United States has had one of its most important and most difficult trading relationships. Japan ranks second to Canada as the largest U.S. export market. It is also the second largest single source of imports to the United States. Trade issues are likely to become even more important as the whole U.S.-Japanese relationship changes in the post-Cold War period. How each country views and reacts to the other is changing as economic issues replace foreign policy and national security issues as the driving force of the relationship.

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's global current account surplus is expected to reach $150 billion in 1993, up substantially from a modest $36 billion in 1990. The movement of Japan's current account surplus in this period is, perhaps, more dramatic as a share of GDP, going from a substantial 3.6 percent in 1987, down to a modest 1.2 percent in 1990, and up again to about 3.1 percent in 1992. Japan's growing surplus is criticized as a consequence of that country's barriers to trade, and as a drag on the economic recovery of the world economy.

On June 4, 1991, the United States and Japan agreed to a five-year arrangement to open Japan,s market to U.S.-origin semiconductor devices, replacing a 1986 agreement that was due to expire. Unlike other U.S.-Japanese trade agreement, the U.S.-Japanese Semiconductor Arrangement stipulates a quantifiable objective (20 percent of the Japanese market for foreign-produced semiconductors). It is often identified by those who want the United States to undertake a "results-oriented" trade policy toward Japan as a model for future US.-Japanese trade agreements. The semiconductor arrangement raises several questions for U.S.- Japanese trade and U.S. trade policy: Has its achieved its objectives? Should the agreement be used as a model for resolving other U.S.- Japanese market access disputes?