One of the most difficult issues of constitutional law concerns the extent to which the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment imposes constraints on the provision of public aid to private sectarian schools. This report gives a brief overview of the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of the establishment clause in this area and itemizes the categories of aid that have been addressed by the Court and held to be constitutionally permissible or impermissible, both at the elementary and secondary school level and at the college level.

This report summarizes each of the Supreme Courts decisions in regard to instances of prayer and religion in public schools. The report gives a detailed overview of what has been held to be constitutionally permissible and constitutionally forbidden, and describes two issues as yet unsettled.

President Clinton created a number of new national monuments, using authority given the President under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Many of the designations were controversial and renewed discussion of that Act and whether a President can modify or eliminate a Presidentially created national monument. This report examines that question.

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The Department of Defense operates six environmental programs: cleanup of past contamination at military facilities, acceleration of cleanup at military bases designated for closure, compliance with environmental laws and regulations that apply to ongoing military operations, pollution prevention, natural resource conservation, and environmental technology. In addition to these activities, the Department of Energy is responsible for managing defense nuclear waste and remediating contaminated sites. This report discusses the federal laws that established these programs, describes their scope and purpose, provides a history of appropriations, indicates the President’s budget request for FY2001, examines authorization and appropriations legislation for FY2001, and discusses other relevant legislation considered in the 106th Congress.

Preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons is a longstanding goal of U.S. national security policy. Five countries are recognized as having legal status as nuclear weapons states: United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France. All five signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which recognizes only these five that tested nuclear weapons before 1968 as de jure nuclear weapons states. Three more: India, Israel, and Pakistan, have significant nuclear capabilities, but are not members of the NPT. India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998.

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This report summarizes current housing issues, cites legislative proposals, and in some cases, presents brief pro/con discussions.

The Clinton Administration is scheduled to decide by Fall 2000 whether the United States should begin deploying a National Missile Defense (NMD) system.This system could achieve initial operational capability by 2005 and would be designed to protect the United States from a limited attack by intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). As currently envisioned, the NMD system would operate as an integrated system that would rely on a variety of sensors to detect and track incoming missiles. One key program element is to upgrade the existing Early Warning Radars (EWR) so that they can detect and track the incoming missiles sooner. This report provides background information and technical details of these planned upgrades as well as their cost and schedule.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Agriculture Appropriations.

Three major dairy policy issues captured the attention of the 106th Congress, and are expected to remain issues of concern to the 107th Congress-- federal financial assistance for dairy farmers; implementation by USDA of changes to federal farm milk pricing regulations; and regional debates over the market effects of dairy compacts.

Precision agriculture (PA) is a suite of information technologies that can support a farm-based and site-specific crop management system in agricultural production. PA is not a single technology or farming system, but rather a cluster of different techniques. PA uses advanced information technologies to identify and to evaluate temporal and spatial variation in cropland

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittees.

This report begins with a brief analysis of French political and economic developments, followed by a sketch of French views of Frances' role in the world and of the United States.

This memorandum responds to the request for both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the assertion that the decline in timber harvesting from the national forests over the past 10 years is a significant factor contributing to the current severe fire season in the West. Table 1 and Figure 1, below, present 20 years of national forest timber harvest volumes and acres burned on Forest Service protected areas. (Because of several cooperative agreements, the Forest Service protects some non-federal lands, while other organizations protect some national forest lands. However, the total acres protected by the Forest Service roughly equals the National Forest System acres. Thus, the difference in lands seems likely to be insignificant.)

This report is prepared annually to provide unclassified quantitative data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations by the United States and foreign countries for the preceding eight calendar years. Some general data are provided on worldwide conventional arms transfers, but the principal focus is the level of arms transfers by major weapons suppliers to nations in the developing world. The data in the report illustrate how global patterns of conventional arms transfers have changed in the post-Cold War and post-Persian Gulf War years.

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Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

This report discusses the status and current developments of China's missile programs.

This CRS report contains three parts. The first part discusses ballistic missiles of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The second discusses the PRC’s cruise missiles. The last section offers concluding observations. Two tables summarize the discussion on current ballistic and cruise missiles in service or under development. The appendix, prepared by Robert Shuey, discusses China’s reported application of global positioning system (GPS) technology to improve the accuracy of its missiles. This report focuses on the status and current developments of China’s missile programs, rather than their history.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the Subcommittees on Transportation of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations.

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This report discusses China’s Internet Industry.