Political Unrest in Pakistan, and More from CRS
As Congress plumbs new depths of futility and irrelevance, analysts at the Congressional Research Service continue to churn out policy-relevant studies that are informative and free of partisan embellishment. How long can it be until they are punished?
The latest CRS products that Congress has withheld from online public access include the following.
Pakistan Political Unrest: In Brief, September 3, 2014
The “1033 Program,” Department of Defense Support to Law Enforcement, August 28, 2014
Special Immigrant Juveniles: In Brief, August 29, 2014
Unaccompanied Children from Central America: Foreign Policy Considerations, August 28, 2014
The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq: A Possible Threat to Jordan?, CRS Insights, August 28, 2014
The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), August 27, 2014
U.S. Textile Manufacturing and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations, August 28, 2014
A Primer on the Reviewability of Agency Delay and Enforcement Discretion, September 4, 2014
Congressional Participation in Article III Courts: Standing to Sue, September 4, 2014
The Elder Justice Act: Background and Issues for Congress, September 3, 2014
Common Core State Standards and Assessments: Background and Issues, September 2, 2014
Designating Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), CRS Insights, August 28, 2014
Social Security: What Would Happen If the Trust Funds Ran Out?, August 28, 2014
The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP): Issues in Brief, August 27, 2014
“Dark Pools” In Equity Trading: Significance and Recent Developments, CRS Insights, August 27, 2014
Can Body Worn Cameras Serve as a Deterrent to Police Misconduct?, CRS Insights, August 28, 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.