Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, and More from CRS
The Obama Administration has requested $5 billion to create a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF). The program would “build on existing tools and authorities” to establish a “more sustainable and effective” counterterrorism approach, focusing on building the counterterrorism capacity of partners worldwide through “train-and-equip” and other activities, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“The CTPF proposal raises many questions regarding counterterrorism strategy, roles, responsibilities, authorities, and Congressional oversight,” said CRS in a brief overview of the initiative. See The Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF) Proposal: Questions for Congress, July 14.
In another new publication, CRS summarized current news reporting on Israel and Hamas: Another Round of Conflict, July 15.
The latest Administration funding request, largely for immigration and border security, was discussed by CRS in FY2014 Supplemental Appropriations Request.
Some other newly updated CRS reports include these:
Block Grants: Perspectives and Controversies, July 15, 2014
Membership of the 113th Congress: A Profile, July 14, 2014
Privacy Protection for Customer Financial Information, July 14, 2014
Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, July 11, 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.