The 2019 budget request for U.S. Special Operations Command — $13.6 billion — is 10% higher than the 2018 level and is the largest budget request ever submitted by US SOCOM.
U.S. special operations forces, which are currently deployed in 90 countries, have more than doubled in size from 33,000 personnel in 2001 to around 70,000 personnel in early 2018. Next year’s budget, if approved, would make them larger still.
For a newly updated overview from the Congressional Research Service, see U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress, April 13, 2018.
Other recent CRS reports that have not otherwise been made publicly available include the following.
Federal Election Commission: Membership and Policymaking Quorum, In Brief, April 12, 2018
Regulatory Reform 10 Years After the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk Regulation of Non-Bank Financial Institutions, April 12, 2018
Abortion At or Over 20 Weeks’ Gestation: Frequently Asked Questions, April 11, 2018
Millennium Challenge Corporation, updated April 12, 2018
Latin America and the Caribbean: Fact Sheet on Leaders and Elections, updated April 11, 2018
Softwood Lumber Imports From Canada: Current Issues, updated April 12, 2018
Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention, updated April 12, 2018
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 4420, the Cool Corridors Act of 2025, which would reauthorize the Healthy Streets program through 2030 and seeks to increase green and other shade infrastructure in high-heat areas.
The current lack of public trust in AI risks inhibiting innovation and adoption of AI systems, meaning new methods will not be discovered and new benefits won’t be felt. A failure to uphold high standards in the technology we deploy will also place our nation at a strategic disadvantage compared to our competitors.
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.
The federal government can support more proactive, efficient, and cost-effective resiliency planning by certifying predictive models to validate and publicly indicate their quality.