The latest updates from the Congressional Research Service include the following items.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): An Overview, June 4, 2013
International Climate Change Financing: The Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), June 3, 2013
International Environmental Financing: The Global Environment Facility (GEF), June 3, 2013
Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights, June 3, 2013
Crime and Forfeiture, May 13, 2013
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.