The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa has infected and killed more people than all previous outbreaks combined.
A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides detailed background on the spread of the disease, the weaknesses of the health care infrastructure in the affected countries, and related policy issues for congressional consideration. See The 2014 Ebola Outbreak: International and U.S. Responses, August 26, 2014.
Next week, NATO leaders will hold their first meeting since Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. A new CRS report offers a preview of the meeting’s anticipated agenda and objectives. See NATO’s Wales Summit: Expected Outcomes and Key Challenges, August 26, 2014.
Some other CRS products that have been recently updated include the following.
Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues, August 26, 2014
Membership of the 113th Congress: A Profile, August 26, 2014
Bills of Attainder: The Constitutional Implications of Congress Legislating Narrowly, August 26, 2014
Time out: Secrecy News will be back the week of September 8.
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.