New or newly updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues, January 5, 2015
China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress, December 23, 2014
Marine Corps Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) and Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC): Background and Issues for Congress, January 6, 2015
Coast Guard Cutter Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, January 5, 2015
Terrorism Risk Insurance Legislation in the 114th Congress: Issue Summary and Side-by-Side Analysis, January 7, 2015
Keystone XL Pipeline: Overview and Recent Developments, January 5, 2015
U.S. Crude Oil Export Policy: Background and Considerations, December 31, 2014
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.
We need a new agency that specializes in uncovering funding opportunities that were overlooked elsewhere. Judging from the history of scientific breakthroughs, the benefits could be quite substantial.
The cost of inaction is not merely economic; it is measured in preventable illness, deaths and diminished livelihoods.