Some recent reports of the Congressional Research Service that have not previously been made readily available in the public domain include the following (all pdf).
“Climate Change: Science and Policy Implications,” January 25, 2007.
“Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force,” updated January 12, 2007.
“U.S. Military Dispositions: Fact Sheet,” updated January 30, 2007.
“Navy Ship Names: Background For Congress,” updated January 17, 2007.
“Latin America: Terrorism Issues,” updated January 22, 2007.
“U.S. National Science Foundation: An Overview,” updated January 24, 2007.
“War Powers Resolution: Presidential Compliance,” updated January 16, 2007.
“Laos: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated February 5, 2007.
“Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Crisis: Context and Implications for U.S. Interests,” updated January 5, 2007.
At the conclusion of a widely cited article on U.S. policy towards Iran in the latest issue of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh referred to a November 2006 report by CRS “on what it depicted as the Administration’s blurring of the line between C.I.A. activities and strictly military ones.”
The referenced report is “Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions,” November 2, 2006.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
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.