A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report discusses constitutional and other legal issues related to the creation and implementation of location-based preferences in federal contracting, as well as summarizes key authorities requiring or allowing federal agencies to "favor" contractors located in specific places. The report does not address federal preferences for domestic products or provisions of federal law that could, depending upon their implementation, effectively prefer local contractors, such as project labor agreements.

In July 2008, a new temporary unemployment benefit, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program, began. The most recent legislation, P.L. 111-205, extended the authorization of the EUC08 program, but did not change the structure of the program or augment benefits. This temporary unemployment insurance program provides up to 20 additional weeks of unemployment benefits to certain workers who have exhausted their rights to regular unemployment compensation (UC) benefits. This report discusses the various tiers of the EUC08 program, as well as related legislation. This report will be updated to reflect current congressional action or programmatic changes.

This report provides an overview of the various contract types (e.g., fixed-price, cost-reimbursement) used in federal procurement and the legal requirements and issues pertaining to each. Current congressional and public interest in contract types is, in part, an outgrowth of the reported increase in the use of cost-reimbursement contracts during the George W. Bush Administration1 and the Obama Administration's proposal to reduce by at least 10% the funds obligated in FY2010 by "high risk-contracting authorities," such as cost-reimbursement, time-and-materials, and labor-hour contracts.

This report discusses the President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget request for the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, which provides funding for the planning, design, construction, alteration, and improvement of facilities used by active and reserve military components worldwide.

On March 31, 2010, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed policy letter on inherently governmental functions and other "work reserved for performance by federal government employees." While not final, the policy letter represents the Obama Administration's proposed guidance for agencies determining (1) whether particular functions are inherently governmental and (2) when functions closely associated with the performance of inherently governmental functions and critical functions should be performed by government personnel. The proposed policy letter raises several legal and policy issues of potential interest to Congress, given recently enacted and proposed legislation regarding inherently governmental functions and other limitations upon contracting out.

This report discusses the standards and procedures that federal agencies use in making responsibility determinations under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). It discusses (1) how responsibility determinations relate to other mechanisms that the government relies upon to ensure that contractors are responsible and otherwise eligible for federal contracts; (2) the performance-related and collateral standards used in making responsibility determinations; (3) the procedures for making responsibility determinations; and (4) recently enacted or proposed amendments to the standards or procedures for responsibility determinations.

"Interagency contracting" is the term used to describe several procurement relationships between government agencies. This report provides an overview of the federal procurement and appropriations laws governing interagency contracting. It defines key terms used in discussing interagency contracting; surveys the various interagency contracting vehicles; and describes recently enacted and proposed amendments to the laws governing interagency contracting.

This report provides a broad, but by no means exhaustive, survey of federal statutes that specifically refer to race, gender, or ethnicity as factors to be considered in the administration of any federal program.

Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

This report discusses federal statutes of limitations on crimes with a list of circumstances that can suspend those limits. A list of federal statutes of limitation in criminal cases and a rough chart of comparable state provisions are provided in this report.

This report discusses the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25), which established new budget enforcement mechanisms for reducing the federal deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over the 10-year period FY2012-FY2021. The BCA places statutory limits, or caps, on discretionary spending for each of those 10 fiscal years, which will save an estimated $0.9 trillion during that period. In addition, it creates a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (Joint Committee), which is instructed to develop legislation to reduce the federal deficit by at least another $1.5 trillion through FY2021.

This report summarizes budgetary decisions relating to research and development funding for FY2013.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill includes funding for all components and functions of the Department of Homeland Security. This report looks at the requested FY2013 budget for these bills, and programs that the budget would fund.

This report describes the FY2013 appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Administration requested $39.510 billion in adjusted net discretionary budget authority for DHS for FY2013, as part of an overall budget of $59.501 billion (including fees, trust funds, and other funding that is not appropriated or does not score against the budget caps). The request amounts to a $90 million, or a 0.2%, decrease from the $39.600 billion enacted for FY2012 through the consolidated appropriations act (P.L. 112-174).

Annual financial report of the Texas Legislative Council documenting income, expenditures, and other relevant financial information for fiscal year 2011.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner of Texas, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Texas Department of Banking, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

Annual report for the Texas Statewide Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Program, which documents minority- and woman-owned businesses. It discusses HUB status and information about the program as well as expenditures and spending trends for fiscal year 2012 and previous years for comparison.

Annual financial report of the Texas Commission on Fire Protection including statements about net assets, governmental funds, revenues, expenditures, and other balance information, along with accompanying notes.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied extensively on contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements for a wide range of services in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, as GAO previously reported, the agencies have faced challenges in obtaining sufficient information to manage these contracts and assistance instruments. As part of our third review under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, as amended, GAO assessed the implementation of the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) and data reported by the three agencies for Afghanistan and Iraq for FY 2009 and the first half of FY 2010 on the (1) number of contractor and assistance personnel, including those providing security; (2) number of personnel killed or wounded; and (3) number and value of contracts and assistance instruments and extent of competition for new awards. GAO compared agency data to other available sources to assess reliability."