The Department of Defense reportedly expects to increase its use of unmanned aerial systems (“drones”) by nearly 50% in the next few years. At the same time, however, the rate of DoD’s procurement of drones is projected to decline sharply from FY2016-2020.
The Congressional Research Service takes note of the seeming contradiction and proposes several possible explanations to resolve it. See How Many UAVs for DoD?, CRS Insights, August 27, 2015.
Other new and updated CRS publications that became public last week include the following.
Policy Implications of the Internet of Things, CRS Insights, August 25, 2015
Health Insurance: Small is the New Large, CRS Insights, August 26, 2015
Gold King Mine Spill May Renew Interest in “Good Samaritan” Legislation, CRS Insights, August 27, 2015
Financial Regulatory Improvement Act Included in Senate Appropriations Bill, CRS Insights, August 27, 2015
Terrorism Victims Sue to Enjoin Sanctions Relief under the Iran Nuclear Agreement, CRS Legal Sidebar, August 27, 2015
District of Columbia: A Brief Review of Provisions in District of Columbia Appropriations Acts Restricting the Funding of Abortion Services, updated August 27, 2015
Drug Testing and Crime-Related Restrictions in TANF, SNAP, and Housing Assistance, updated August 28, 2015
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Essential Health Benefits (EHB), August 27, 2015
Navy Ship Names: Background For Congress, updated August 26, 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.