CRS Reports

Broadband Loan and Grant Programs in the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service

Jan 23, 2007

Trade Capacity Building: Foreign Assistance for Trade and Development

Jan 23, 2007

Germany’s Relations with Israel: Background and Implications for German Middle East Policy

Most observers agree that moral considerations surrounding the Holocaust continue to compel German leaders to make support for Israel a policy priority. Since 1949, successive German governments have placed this support at the forefront of their Middle East policy and today, Germany, along with the United States, is widely considered one of Israel’s closest allies. Germany ranks as Israel’s second largest trading partner and long-standing defense and scientific cooperation, people-to-people exchanges and cultural ties between the two countries continue to grow. On the other hand, public criticism of Israel in Germany, and particularly of its policies with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, appears to be on the rise. Since the mid-1990s, German policy toward Israel has become progressively influenced by Germany’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Germany has been one of the single largest contributors to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and an increasingly vocal advocate for European Union (EU) engagement in the Middle East. Germany’s September 2006 decision to send a naval contingent to the Lebanese coast as part of an expanded United Nations mission after Israel’s July 2006 war with Hezbollah is considered to have significantly raised German interest in a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sparked widespread debate within Germany regarding the evolution of the German-Israeli relationship and Germany’s role in the region. Stating that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the root of other challenges in the Middle East, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced her intention to revive international engagement in the peace process while Germany holds the EU’s rotating presidency during the first half of 2007. Given Germany’s long-standing support of Israel and close ties to the United States, Israeli and Bush Administration officials have generally welcomed the idea of increased German engagement in the region. For their part, German officials and politicians assert that their commitment to Israel and active U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process remain the paramount drivers of German policy in the Middle East. However, most experts indicate that Germany will be hard-pressed to overcome both U.S. inattention stemming from a perceived preoccupation with Iraq, and diminished support for Israel and the United States among other EU member states, to forge a revived transatlantic approach to the peace process. Furthermore, the presence of German troops in Lebanon, growing public opposition to Israeli policies and Germany’s commitment to a European approach lead others to highlight a growing potential for divergence between German policy on the one hand and Israeli and U.S. policies on the other. This report will be updated as events warrant. For related information, see CRS Report RL31956, European Views and Policies Toward the Middle East, by Kristin Archick; CRS Report RL33476, Israel: Background and Relations with the United States, by Carol Migdalovitz; and CRS Report RL33530, Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy, by Carol Migdalovitz.

Jan 19, 2007

Air Quality Standards and Sound Science: What Role for CASAC?

Jan 19, 2007

Noncitizen Eligibility for Federal Public Assistance: Policy Overview and Trends

Jan 19, 2007

Unauthorized Alien Students: Legislation in the 107th and 108th Congresses

Unauthorized alien students constitute a subpopulation of the total U.S. unauthorized alien population that is of particular congressional interest. These students receive free public primary and secondary education, but often find it difficult to attend college for financial reasons. A provision enacted as part of a 1996 immigration law prohibits states from granting unauthorized aliens certain postsecondary educational benefits on the basis of state residence, unless equal benefits are made available to all U.S. citizens. This prohibition is commonly understood to apply to the granting of “in-state” residency status for tuition purposes. In addition, unauthorized aliens are not eligible for federal student financial aid. More generally, as unauthorized aliens, they are not legally allowed to work in the United States and are subject to being removed from the country at any time. Bills were introduced in the 107th and 108th Congresses to address the educational and immigration circumstances of unauthorized alien students. Most of these bills had two key components. They would have repealed the 1996 provision. They also would have provided immigration relief to certain unauthorized alien students by enabling them to become legal permanent residents of the United States. In both Congresses, bills known as the DREAM Act (S. 1291 in the 107th Congress; S. 1545 in the 108th Congress) containing both types of provisions were reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This report will not be updated.

Jan 17, 2007

Congressional Restrictions on U.S. Military Operations in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, and Kosovo: Funding and Non-Funding Approaches

Jan 16, 2007

Climate Change: Design Approaches for a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program

Jan 16, 2007

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the 110th Congress: Conflicting Values and Difficult Choices

Jan 16, 2007

Grassroots Lobbying: Constitutionality of Disclosure Requirements

This report discusses the constitutional issues that may arise with respect to a federal law that would require disclosures of efforts to stimulate so-called “grassroots” lobbying activities by those entities and persons who are compensated to engage in such activities.

Jan 12, 2007

Possible Indexation of the Federal Minimum Wage: Evolution of Legislative Activity

Jan 10, 2007

Acceptance of Gifts by Members and Employees of the House of Representatives Under New Ethics Rules of the 110th Congress

Jan 9, 2007

Runaway and Homeless Youth: Demographics, Programs, and Emerging Issues

Jan 8, 2007

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant: A Primer on TANF Financing and Federal Requirements

Jan 8, 2007

Power Marketing Administrations: Background and Current Issues

Jan 3, 2007

The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA): A Summary

Jan 3, 2007

Teenage Pregnancy Prevention: Statistics and Programs

Jan 3, 2007

Privatization and the Federal Government: An Introduction

Dec 28, 2006

Primer on Disability Benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

Dec 26, 2006

Trends in U.S. Global AIDS Spending: FY2000-FY2007

Dec 26, 2006

International Crises and Disasters: U.S. Humanitarian Assistance, Budget Trends, and Issues for Congress

Dec 21, 2006

The HUD Homeless Assistance Grants: Distribution of Funds

Four programs, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), were created to provide temporary and permanent housing to the homeless, along with supportive services.This report describes how HUD distributes the four homeless assistance grants.

Dec 21, 2006

Federal Income Tax Treatment of the Family

The first section summarizes the major features of the tax law affecting families and family choices, and how they developed over time, including the relatively recent introduction of large benefits for children at low and moderate income levels, a reversal of a trend in the past that tended to reduce these benefits through the erosion of the real value of the personal exemptions. It also summarizes the origin of the marriage penalty and marriage bonus. The following two sections first discuss general equity issues, and then apply the ability-to-pay standard to examine how tax burdens vary by family size, across the income spectrum. The final section examines the marriage penalties and bonuses.

Dec 19, 2006

Cleanup at Abandoned Hardrock Mines: Issues Raised by “Good Samaritan” Legislation in the 109th Congress

In the 109th Congress, several bills were introduced to address the legacy of pollution from inactive and abandoned hardrock mines (IAMs) that degrades the environment throughout the United States, particularly in the West. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that 40% of headwaters in the West have been adversely impacted by acidic and other types of drainage from abandoned sites where gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron ore were mined. The core concept underlying the bills is that, in order to address the problem of pollution from IAM sites, it is appropriate to encourage cleanup by so-called “Good Samaritan” entities. To do so, the bills proposed to establish a process for issuing permits to Good Samaritans and to provide incentives in the form of reduced liability from environmental laws and less stringent environmental cleanup standards. This report discusses four bills introduced in the 109th Congress: H.R. 1266 (M. Udall), S. 1848 (Salazar), S. 2780 (Inhofe), and H.R. 5404 (Duncan). S. 2780 and H.R. 5404 were identical bills, introduced at the request of the Administration. Three House and Senate committees held hearings during the 109th Congress on issues raised by the legislation. In September, an amended version of S. 1848 was reported to the Senate, but no further action occurred on any of the proposals. This report discusses several key issues in these bills: eligibility for a Good Samaritan permit (especially at issue is whether Good Samaritans should be limited to government entities or may also include the private sector); standards applicable to a Good Samaritan cleanup (defining what standards to apply to a remediation project is often a challenge); scope of liability protection (at issue is whether and to what extent the liability and other requirements of Superfund, the Clean Water Act, and other laws should be waived for Good Samaritans); treatment of revenues from cleanup (one particularly controversial issue is whether Good Samaritans should be allowed to benefit economically from minerals that are recovered during a cleanup); enforcement and judicial review; role for states and Indian tribes; funding (none of the bills proposed a comprehensive mechanism to fund hardrock remediation activities); terminating a permit; and sunsetting the permit program. Reviewing testimony from congressional hearings on these issues, it is evident that, except for witnesses testifying in support of their own bills, no witness endorsed any of the specific legislative approaches in total. For example, some stakeholders want an expanded definition of who may be a remediating party and favor elimination of additional regulatory and legal disincentives. But every effort to broaden the proposals’ scope seemingly enlarges the complexity of the legislation and raises stronger opposition from groups who prefer a narrower approach.

Dec 15, 2006

Softwood Lumber Imports from Canada: Issues and Events

U.S. lumber producers have long raised concerns about softwood imports from Canada. They argue that Canada subsidizes its lumber producers with low provincial stumpage fees (for the right to harvest trees). In Canada, the provinces own 90% of the timberlands, which contrasts with the United States, where 42% of timberlands are publicly owned and where government timber is often sold competitively; these differences in land tenure make comparisons difficult. U.S. producers also argue that Canadian log export restrictions subsidize producers by preventing others from getting access to Canadian timber; U.S. log exports from federal and state lands are also restricted, but logs are exported from U.S. private lands. Finally, U.S. producers argue that they have been injured by imports of Canadian lumber. They point to the growth in Canadian exports and market share, from less than 3 billion board feet (BBF) and 7% of the U.S. market in 1952 to more than 18 BBF per year and a market share of more than 33% since the late 1990s. Canadians counter these arguments, asserting that their stumpage fees are based on markets, that the WTO prohibits treating export restrictions as subsidies, and that the U.S. industry has been unable to satisfy the growth in U.S. lumber demand for homebuilding and other uses. The United States initiated investigations of Canadian subsidies—a prerequisite for establishing countervailing duties (CVDs)—in 1982, 1986, and 1991. Subsidy findings led to a 15% Canadian tax on lumber exports in 1986 and a 6.51% CVD in 1992. Canada challenged the CVD, which was revoked in 1994. A 1996 Softwood Lumber Agreement restricted Canadian exports until March 31, 2001. U.S. producers filed antidumping (AD) and CVD petitions immediately after the 1996 agreement expired. U.S. agencies determined that Canadian lumber was subsidized and was being dumped and that the imports threatened to injure U.S. industry. Final AD and CV duties of 27% were imposed in May 2002, although lumber duties were later lowered as a result of annual Commerce Department reviews. Canada filed NAFTA and WTO cases and, with Canadian producers, suits in U.S. federal court challenging U.S. agency actions in the AD and CVD investigations. Canadian companies also filed claims against the United States under the NAFTA investment chapter. On July 1, 2006, the United States and Canada signed a Softwood Lumber Agreement (2006 SLA) to end the dispute. A finalized version was signed September 12, 2006, and, with subsequent amendments, entered into force October 12, 2006. Among other things, the seven-year agreement provides for the settlement of pending litigation and establishes Canadian export charges, varying by weighted average lumber prices and lower if the Canadian exporting region also accepts volume restraints. The United States has revoked the AD and CVD orders, with at least 80% of the duty deposits being returned to the importers of record. The remaining 20% is being used to fund lumber-related entities and initiatives provided for in the agreement.

Dec 15, 2006

House Offset Amendments to Appropriations Bills: Procedural Considerations

Dec 13, 2006

Ocean Dumping Act: A Summary of the Law

This report presents a summary of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (MPRSA, P.L. 92-532), describing the essence of the statute. The law has two basic aims: to regulate intentional ocean disposal of materials, and to authorize related research.

Dec 13, 2006

The Role of the House Minority Leader: An Overview

This report discusses the role of the House minority leader. The primary goal of the minority leader is to recapture majority control of the house. The minority leader performs important institutional and party functions.

Dec 12, 2006

The Older Americans Act: Programs, Funding, and 2006 Reauthorization (P.L. 109-365)

Dec 11, 2006

Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense — Background and Issues for Congress

Dec 11, 2006

Debate, Motions, and Other Actions in the Committee of the Whole

Dec 8, 2006

Older Americans Act: Funding Formulas

Dec 8, 2006

Trade Promotion Authority (TPA): Issues, Options, and Prospects for Renewal

Dec 5, 2006

Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress

Nov 30, 2006

Generalized System of Preferences Renewal: Agricultural Imports

Nov 29, 2006

Courts Narrow McCarran-Ferguson Antitrust Exemption for “Business of Insurance”; Possible Congressional Response

Nov 13, 2006

U.S. International Borders: Brief Facts

Nov 9, 2006

Oil Spills in U.S. Coastal Waters: Background, Governance, and Issues for Congress

Oct 25, 2006

Potential Challenges to U.S. Farm Subsidies in the WTO: A Brief Overview

This report examines U.S. commodity subsidy programs, which have changing criteria due to the expiration of the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) so-called "Peace Clause." This change appears to have made U.S. export and domestic support programs more vulnerable to legal challenge under WTO rules.

Oct 25, 2006

Surplus Lines Insurance: Background and Current Legislation

Oct 19, 2006

Animal Waste and Hazardous Substances: Current Laws and Legislative Issues

Oct 17, 2006

The Endangered Species Act and "Sound Science"

This report provides a context for evaluating legislative proposals through examples of how science has been used in selected cases, a discussion of the nature and role of science in general, and its role in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) process in particular, together with general and agency information quality requirements and policies, and a review of how the courts have viewed agency use of science.

Oct 5, 2006

Lame Duck Sessions of Congress, 1935-2004 (74th-108th Congresses)

Oct 2, 2006

Military Technology and Conventional Weapons Export Controls: The Wassenaar Arrangement

This report provides background on the Wassenaar Arrangement, which was formally established in July 1996 as a multilateral arrangement aimed at controlling exports of conventional weapons and related dual-use goods and military technology. It is the successor to the expired Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM). This report focuses on the current status, features, and issues raised by the establishment and functioning of the Wassenaar Arrangement. It will be updated only if warranted by notable events related to the Arrangement.

Sep 29, 2006

Crime Victims’ Rights Act: A Summary and Legal Analysis of 18 U.S.C. 3771

Sep 29, 2006

Crime Victims’ Rights Act: A Sketch of 18 U.S.C. 3771

Sep 29, 2006

Generalized System of Preferences: Background and Renewal Debate

Sep 26, 2006

Even Start Family Literacy Programs: An Overview

The Even Start program provides education and related services jointly to parents lacking a high school diploma (or equivalent) and their young children. Even Start services include basic academic instruction and parenting skills training for the adults, and early childhood education for their children, along with necessary supplementary services such as child care or transportation. Generally, Even Start programs do not directly provide all of these services; rather, they establish networks of service providers, including Head Start programs and grantees under the Adult Education Act (AEA). Even Start is the only federal program specifically dedicated to providing services to both disadvantaged young children and their parents. The families served by Even Start programs are highly disadvantaged, with very low levels of education and income, and increasing proportions of them have limited English language skills. The Even Start program was reauthorized in the 106th Congress, in P.L. 106-554, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY2001. ESEA Title I, Part B was renamed the William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy Programs and was reauthorized for five years beginning with an authorization of $250 million for FY2001. The reauthorizing language is largely the same as language contained in the Literacy Involves Families Together Act, H.R. 3222 (Goodling), which was passed by the full House on September 12, 2000. However, language in H.R. 3222 specifying that religious organizations should be treated the same as other nongovernmental organizations in the awarding of subgrants was not included in the final reauthorization language. P.L. 107-110 (the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization legislation, which was signed into law on January 8, 2002, moved the William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy Programs from Title I Part B of the ESEA to Subpart 3 of Title I Part B of the No Child Left Behind Act and extended the authorization period through FY2007. The only change to the program was an amendment allowing states to use funds for state-level activities to improve the quality of family literacy services provided (in addition to other previously authorized uses). The Even Start program’s funding was reduced to $99 million for FY2006 (including the FY2006 across-the-board reduction). For FY2007, the Administration has requested no funding for the program, the House Committee on Appropriations has recommended $70 million in funding for the program, and the Senate Committee on Appropriations has recommended no funding for the program.

Sep 25, 2006

The Proposed U.S.-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement

Sep 21, 2006

Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border

Congress has been considering expanding the barriers currently deployed along the U.S. international land border. Currently, the United States Border Patrol (USBP) deploys fencing, which aims to impede the illegal entry of individuals, and vehicle barriers, which aim to impede the illegal entry of vehicles (but not individuals) along the border. A number of policy issues concerning border barriers generally and fencing specifically may be of interest to Congress, including, but not limited to: their effectiveness; their costs versus their benefits; their location; their design; and their potential diplomatic ramifications. Prominent bills include House-passed H.R. 4437 and H.R. 6061, and Senate-passed S. 2611, and H.R. 5631.

Sep 21, 2006