On January 6, 2013 Congress will convene to count electoral votes and to formally certify the results of the last presidential election. The process was detailed by the Congressional Research Service in Counting Electoral Votes: An Overview of Procedures at the Joint Session, Including Objections by Members of Congress, November 30, 2012.
The declining economic condition of many state governments is examined by CRS in State Government Fiscal Stress and Federal Assistance, December 3, 2012.
And for members of Congress who never had civics class, CRS explains how a bill becomes a law in Introduction to the Legislative Process in the U.S. Congress, November 30, 2012. See also the elementary Introduction to the Federal Budget Process, December 3, 2012.
Other new and updated CRS reports that Congress has not made publicly available include the following.
Congressional Salaries and Allowances, December 4, 2012
Alternative Minimum Taxpayers by State: 2009, 2010, and Projections for 2012, December 4, 2012
Offsets, Supplemental Appropriations, and the Disaster Relief Fund: FY1990-FY2012, December 4, 2012
The Bayh-Dole Act: Selected Issues in Patent Policy and the Commercialization of Technology, December 3, 2012
Technology Transfer: Use of Federally Funded Research and Development, December 3, 2012
Industrial Competitiveness and Technological Advancement: Debate Over Government Policy, December 3, 2012
Cooperative R&D: Federal Efforts to Promote Industrial Competitiveness, December 3, 2012
IMF Reforms: Issues for Congress, December 4, 2012
China’s Economic Conditions, December 4, 2012
Federal Emergency Management: A Brief Introduction, November 30, 2012
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.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.