The Role of Inspectors General, and More from CRS
Noteworthy new reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following.
Federal Inspectors General: History, Characteristics, and Recent Congressional Actions, December 8, 2014
Attorney General Nominations Since the Reagan Administration, CRS Insights, December 4, 2014
Army Active Component (AC)/Reserve Component (RC) Force Mix: Considerations and Options for Congress, December 5, 2014
Nuclear Energy Cooperation with Foreign Countries: Issues for Congress, December 8, 2014
Hospital-Based Emergency Departments: Background and Policy Considerations, December 8, 2014
Federal Lands and Natural Resources: Overview and Selected Issues for the 113th Congress, December 8, 2014
Preventing the Introduction and Spread of Ebola in the United States: Frequently Asked Questions, December 5, 2014
Closing a Congressional Office: Overview of House and Senate Practices, December 5, 2014
Selected Privileges and Courtesies Extended to Former Members of Congress, December 5, 2014
The Tibetan Policy Act of 2002: Background and Implementation, November 5, 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.