Category «Congress»

Social Security Administration (SSA): FY2017 Appropriations and Recent Trends

CRS Report via FAS – Social Security Administration (SSA): FY2017 Appropriations and Recent Trends, William R. Morton, Analyst in Income Security, October 5, 2016. “The Social Security Administration (SSA) is responsible for administering a number of federal entitlement programs that provide income support (cash benefits) to qualified individuals. These programs are Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI), commonly known …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect

CRS report via FAS – Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect, Thomas H. Neale, Specialist in American National Government. October 6, 2016. “What would happen in 2016 if a candidate for President or Vice President were to die or leave the ticket any time between the national party conventions and the November 8 …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research

New on LLRX – Info Today columnist recs National Digital Library Endowment idea to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

Via LLRX.com – Info Today columnist recs National Digital Library Endowment idea to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden – David H. Rothman is a consistent, expert advocate for funding a national digital library endowment, and his enthusiasm has been strengthened with the appointment of Dr. Carla Hayden as the new librarian of Congress.

Subjects: Congress, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Libraries

CRS – How Big Should the Army Be? Considerations for Congress

How Big Should the Army Be? Considerations for Congress. Lawrence Kapp, Coordinator, Specialist in Military Manpower Policy; Andrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces; Kathleen J. McInnis, Analyst in International Security; Lynn M. Williams, Analyst in U.S. Defense Budget Policy. September 2, 2016. “Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution vests Congress with broad …

Subjects: Congress, Defense, Economy

CRS – Human-Induced Earthquakes from Deep-Well Injection: A Brief Overview

Human-Induced Earthquakes from Deep-Well Injection: A Brief Overview. Peter Folger, Acting Section Research Manager, Mary Tiemann, Specialist in Environmental Policy. September 30, 2016. “The development of unconventional oil and natural gas resources using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has created new demand for disposal wells that inject waste fluids into deep geologic formations. Deep-well injection …

Subjects: Congress, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research

CRS – Encryption: Frequently Asked Questions

Encryption: Frequently Asked Questions, Chris Jaikaran, Analyst in Cybersecurity Policy. September 28, 2016. “Encryption is a process to secure information from unwanted access or use. Encryption uses the art of cryptography to change information which can be read (plaintext) and make it so that it cannot be read (ciphertext). Decryption uses the same art of …

Subjects: Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Government Documents, Internet

Agencies Post Public Sections of “Targeted Submissions” for Eight Firms

“The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on Tuesday posted the public portions of the required “targeted submissions” for the eight systemically important, domestic banking institutions. To foster transparency, the agencies required all of the firms to file a public portion of their targeted submissions. In April of this year, the …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Paper – Learning Distributed Representations of Institutions and Their Legal Text

Gov2Vec: Learning Distributed Representations of Institutions and Their Legal Text – John J. Nay (Submitted on 21 Sep 2016 (v1), last revised 25 Sep 2016 (this version, v2)) “We compare policy differences across institutions by embedding representations of the entire legal corpus of each institution and the vocabulary shared across all corpora into a continuous …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

GAO Report – Actions Are Needed to Help Ensure the Completeness of Political Conversion Data

Office of Personnel Management: Actions Are Needed to Help Ensure the Completeness of Political Conversion Data and Adherence to Policy, GAO-16-859: Published: Sep 30, 2016. Publicly Released: Sep 30, 2016. “When a new president takes office in January, scores of new political appointees will join the federal workforce. What happens to the old appointees? Some …

Subjects: Congress, E-Government, E-Records, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

CRS – Iran Sanctions

Iran Sanctions, Kenneth Katzman, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs. September 21, 2016. “The comprehensive nuclear accord (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), finalized on July 14, 2015, provides Iran broad relief from U.S., U.N., and multilateral sanctions on Iran’s energy, financial, shipping, automotive, and other sectors. Sanctions were suspended or lifted upon the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certification on …

Subjects: Congress, Energy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research, Transportation

Will FAA take over non-military control of space traffic control

FCW.com: “The Federal Aviation Administration might be extending its commercial air traffic control responsibilities into space. The House passed a bill Sept. 22 by a vote of 425-0 to investigate what role the FAA might play in directing commercial and foreign space traffic. The bill would authorize a study of the impact such a shift …

Subjects: Congress, Legislation, Transportation

The Atlantic – What Congress Is Actually Good at

Michelle Cottle is a contributing editor at The Atlantic: “Because while some of Congress’s flashier oversight crusades reek of politics, the committees are in many ways doing the Lord’s work. It’s just that no one hears much about the not-so-sexy, not-so-partisan probes that actually seek to improve government. “No doubt there have been some abuses …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legislation

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