The U.S. Government reached the statutory debt limit today, exhausting its normal ability to borrow money. In order to meet the government’s financial obligations, the Secretary of the Treasury must now take certain extraordinary measures. A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service provides background on federal debt policy and explains the current state of affairs. See The Debt Limit Since 2011, March 9, 2015.
Other new or newly updated CRS reports that Congress has withheld from public distribution include the following.
Internet Domain Names: Background and Policy Issues, March 6, 2015
Internet Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress, March 6, 2015
Access to Broadband Networks: The Net Neutrality Debate, March 9, 2015
The Federal Budget: Overview and Issues for FY2016 and Beyond, March 6, 2015
OSC Rule Seemingly Expands Federal Contractor Whistleblower Rights, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 11, 2015
Scientific Basis of Environmental Protection Agency Actions: H.R. 1029 and H.R. 1030, CRS Insights, March 11, 2015
Prevalence of Mental Illness in the United States: Data Sources and Estimates, March 9, 2015
Health Care for Veterans: Traumatic Brain Injury, March 9, 2015
Federal Grants to State and Local Governments: A Historical Perspective on Contemporary Issues, March 5, 2015
The European Capital Markets Union, CRS Insights, March 11, 2015
Cyprus: Reunification Proving Elusive, March 6, 2015
Northern Ireland: The Peace Process, March 11, 2015
China-U.S. Trade Issues, March 9, 2015
Navy Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism Operations: Background and Issues for Congress, March 4, 2015
Iran Sanctions, March 9, 2015
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.