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Date Dec. 9, 2019 |
Report No. IF11383 |
Title
December 9, 2019 Repurchase Agreements (Repos): A Primer Repurchase agreements (repos) are a major source of shortterm funding for financial institutions. Repos are a policy concern because they have long been identified as a potential source of systemic risk, meaning that problems in that market could lead to broader financial instability. Characteristics Repos are legally arranged as a contract ...
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Date Dec. 9, 2019 |
Report No. IN10997 |
Title
INSIGHTi Activities-Based Regulation and Systemic Risk Updated December 9, 2019 Past financial crises have shown that systemic risk can emanate from financial firms or activities. It can be caused by the failure of a large firm (hence, the moniker too big to fail ) or it can be caused by correlated losses among many small market participants. Although historical financial crises have centered on ...
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Date Dec. 9, 2019 |
Report No. IN11206 |
Title
INSIGHTi Uruguay s 2019 Elections December 9, 2019 On November 24, 2019, Uruguayans narrowly elected Luis Lacalle Pou of the center-right National Party in a presidential runoff election. Lacalle Pou s inauguration, scheduled for March 1, 2020, will end the center-left Broad Front coalition s 15-year hold on power and could usher in several changes to Uruguay s economic and security policies. The ...
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Date Dec. 6, 2019 |
Report No. R44604 |
Title
Trends in the Timing and Size of DHS Appropriations: In Brief Updated December 6, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R44604 Trends in the Timing and Size of DHS Appropriations: In Brief Introduction This report examines trends in the timing and size of homeland security appropriations measures. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was officially established on ...
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Date Dec. 6, 2019 |
Report No. IN11205 |
Title
INSIGHTi Designating Mexican Drug Cartels as Foreign Terrorists: Policy Implications December 6, 2019 In a November 26 interview, President Donald Trump revealed his intention to designate Mexico s drug trafficking organizations (DTOs, commonly referred to as cartels ) as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). His comments follow recent incidents that exemplify how Mexican DTOs use violence to ...
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Date Dec. 6, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10381 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Court Battle for Fintech Bank Charters to Continue December 6, 2019 The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) plans to appeal an October district court judgment holding that the agency lacks the authority to grant national bank charters to financial technology companies (fintechs) that do not take deposits. Fintechs provide the financial services sector with digital and ...
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Date Dec. 6, 2019 |
Report No. R46106 |
Title
Misuse of Government Purchase Cards: Background, Legislation, and Analysis December 6, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46106 SUMMARY Government Charge Card Abuse: Background, Legislation, and Analysis R46106 December 6, 2019 Garrett Hatch Following their introduction in the mid-1990s, the usage of government purchase cards expanded Specialist in American ...
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Date Dec. 5, 2019 |
Report No. R45310 |
Title
Farm Policy: USDA s 2018 Trade Aid Package Updated December 5, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R45310 SUMMARY Farm Policy: USDA s 2018 Trade Aid Package In early 2018, the Trump Administration citing concerns over national security and unfair trade practices imposed increased tariffs on certain imported products in general and on U.S. imports from China in ...
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Date Dec. 5, 2019 |
Report No. R46105 |
Title
Supreme Court Criminal Law Decisions: 2019 December 5, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46105 SUMMARY Supreme Court Criminal Law Decisions: 2019 In 2019, the Supreme Court issued a sizeable number of criminal law decisions, which addressed several topics, including sentencing, pretrial, statutory construction, and ineffective assistance of counsel. This report ...
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Date Dec. 5, 2019 |
Report No. IF11008 |
Title
Updated December 5, 2019 Head Start: Overview and Current Issues Introduction The Head Start program has provided comprehensive early childhood education and development services to lowincome children since 1965. The program seeks to promote school readiness through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services. Most Head Start participants are three or four years ...
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Date Dec. 5, 2019 |
Report No. IF11380 |
Title
December 5, 2019 Turkey, the PKK, and U.S. Involvement: A Chronology Turkey s decades-long struggle with the Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish acronym PKK) has fostered both cooperation and contention between the United States and Turkey. Since 2015, the United States has partnered with militias that include the PKK-linked Syrian Kurdish People s Protection Units (Kurdish acronym YPG) against the ...
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Date Dec. 4, 2019 |
Report No. R46097 |
Title
Military Families and Intimate Partner Violence: Background and Issues for Congress Kristy N. Kamarck Specialist in Military Manpower Alan Ott Analyst in Defense and Intelligence Personnel Policy Lisa N. Sacco Analyst in Illicit Drugs and Crime Policy December 4, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R46097 SUMMARY Military Families and Intimate Partner Violence: Background and ...
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Date Dec. 4, 2019 |
Report No. R46096 |
Title
Leveraged Lending and Collateralized Loan Obligations: Frequently Asked Questions Eva Su Analyst in Financial Economics Marc Labonte Specialist in Macroeconomic Policy David W. Perkins Specialist in Marcoeconomic Policy December 4, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R46096 SUMMARY Leveraged Lending and Collateralized Loan Obligations: Frequently Asked Questions Leveraged ...
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Date Dec. 4, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10374 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Supreme Court to Address No-Appeal Provision for Patent Challenges December 4, 2019 In 2011, Congress enacted major patent reform in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The AIA, among other things, created inter partes review (IPR), an adversarial procedure during which the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office s (PTO s) Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) reviews the validity of ...
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Date Dec. 4, 2019 |
Report No. IF11379 |
Title
December 4, 2019 Medical Product Innovation and Regulation: Benefits and Risks Prior to being marketed in the United States, medical products are reviewed for safety and effectiveness, among other things, by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Medical products regulated by FDA include prescription drugs, medical devices, and biologics. When evaluating a product, FDA weighs the potential ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10373 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Congressional Subpoenas of Presidential Advisers: The Impact of Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn December 3, 2019 The House of Representatives obtained another judicial victory last week in the continued confrontation with the Trump Administration over the scope of Congress s investigative powers. In Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn, the U.S. District Court for the District ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10379 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Tobacco, Opioids, and Global Settlements: Considerations for Congress December 3, 2019 A recent Sidebar provided an overview of the sprawling state and local government opioid litigation pending in state and federal courts and highlighted a number of global settlement proposals that would settle claims across both litigation tracks against certain defendants. Commentators have often ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. R44281 |
Title
Israel and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement Jim Zanotti, Coordinator Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Martin A. Weiss Specialist in International Trade and Finance Valerie C. Brannon Legislative Attorney Jennifer K. Elsea Legislative Attorney Updated December 3, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R44281 SUMMARY Israel and the Boycott, Divestment, and ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. IF11377 |
Title
December 3, 2019 Qualified Charitable Distributions from Individual Retirement Accounts Summary Congress created incentives for charitable giving through qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from individual retirement accounts (IRAs). The 2017 tax law (P.L. 115-97) may promote greater use of QCDs because certain taxpayers who do not itemize their tax return are likely to benefit from the QCD. ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. IF11378 |
Title
December 3, 2019 Veterans Health Administration: Behavioral Health Services Introduction The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides health care and health-related services through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), one of the largest integrated health care systems in the United States. The VHA is divided into 18 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) that comprise over 1,700 ...
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Date Dec. 3, 2019 |
Report No. IN11195 |
Title
Mass protests and state violence against some protestors have shaken Iraq since October 2019, with at least 400 Iraqis reported dead and thousands more injured in Baghdad and several southern Iraqi cities. After security forces and unidentified gunmen killed 45 protestors on November 27 and 28, Prime Minister Adel Abd Al Mahdi publicly stated his intent to resign, which protestors and some ...
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Date Dec. 2, 2019 |
Report No. IN11203 |
Title
INSIGHTi Amazon Protest of the Department of Defense's JEDI Cloud Contract Award to Microsoft Updated December 2, 2019 In September 2017, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum calling for the adoption of a Department of Defense (DOD) enterprise-wide cloud services solution. As part of its ongoing technology modernization efforts, DOD sought to acquire a commercial cloud services ...
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Date Nov. 29, 2019 |
Report No. IF11374 |
Title
November 29, 2019 Industrial Loan Companies and Fintech in Banking Several states offer a type of bank charter for industrial loan companies (ILCs). Certain ILC features of ILCs and their regulation particularly that their parent holding companies can be nonfinancial, commercial firms not supervised by the Federal Reserve have made ILCs the subject of perennial policy debate. Recently, several ...
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Date Nov. 29, 2019 |
Report No. IF11376 |
Title
November 29, 2019 The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission (FCSC or Commission) offers an avenue to provide compensation to Americans who suffered harm due to the acts of foreign governments. U.S. nationals (citizens, individuals who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, and U.S. corporations) that are injured by foreign ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. R46061 |
Title
Voluntary Testimony by Executive Branch Officials: An Introduction Ben Wilhelm Analyst in Government Organization and Management November 27, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R46061 SUMMARY Voluntary Testimony by Executive Branch Officials: An Introduction Executive branch officials testify regularly before congressional committees on both legislative and oversight matters. ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. IF11268 |
Title
Updated November 27, 2019 Zimbabwe: A Continuing Crisis An enduring, six-year economic crisis in Zimbabwe has intensified since national elections in July 2018, won by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The dire economic situation has prompted public discontent, strikes, protests, and, in early 2019, days of riots. In response, state ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. R46067 |
Title
Department of Defense First Agency-wide Financial Audit (FY2018): Background and Issues for Congress Raj Gnanarajah Analyst in Financial Economics November 27, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R46067 SUMMARY Department of Defense First Agency-wide Financial Audit (FY2018): Background and Issues for Congress R46067 November 27, 2019 Raj Gnanarajah Analyst in Financial ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. IF11372 |
Title
November 27, 2019 Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund: Status and Funding Issues Decades of uranium enrichment by the federal government resulted in the contamination of buildings and structures, generated substantial volumes of radioactive and other hazardous wastes, and resulted in environmental contamination of the soil, sediments, surface water, and groundwater at ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10366 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Supreme Court to Review Constitutionality of the CFPB November 27, 2019 Last month the Supreme Court agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to one of the signature agencies Congress created in response to the 2008 financial collapse: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, the Court is to review whether it is permissible for that agency to be ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. IF11373 |
Title
November 27, 2019 Financial Services for Marijuana Businesses A number of states have adopted laws permitting marijuana sales and other marijuana-related activities, even though those same activities remain unlawful under federal drug and financial laws. Because of the legal risks under federal law, many financial institutions reportedly are unwilling to provide state-authorized marijuana ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10372 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Expired Authority?: Federal Court Suggests Some Limits to the President s Authority to Impose Tariffs November 27, 2019 In response to perceived unfair trade practices of other countries, the Trump Administration has imposed tariffs and other trade restrictions on billions of dollars of imported products using authority Congress delegated to the executive branch in various ...
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Date Nov. 27, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10367 |
Title
Legal Sidebari The CASE Act of 2019: Establishing a SmallClaims Process for Copyright Disputes November 27, 2019 On October 22, 2019, the House passed H.R. 2426, the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act of 2019 by a vote of 410-6. Several Members have introduced an identical bill (S. 1273) in the Senate, which the Senate Judiciary Committee reported favorably on September ...
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Date Nov. 26, 2019 |
Report No. R45701 |
Title
Selected Homeland Security Issues in the 116th Congress Updated November 26, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R45701 SUMMARY Selected Homeland Security Issues in the 116th Congress In 2001, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, homeland security went from being a concept discussed among a relatively small cadre of policymakers and strategic ...
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Date Nov. 26, 2019 |
Report No. R45865 |
Title
Farm Policy: USDA s 2019 Trade Aid Package Randy Schnepf Specialist in Agricultural Policy Updated November 26, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R45865 SUMMARY Farm Policy: USDA s 2019 Trade Aid Package On May 23, 2019, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would undertake a second trade aid package in 2019 valued at up ...
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Date Nov. 25, 2019 |
Report No. IF10397 |
Title
Updated November 25, 2019 International Climate Change Assistance: Budget Authority, FY2009-FY2019 The United States committed to providing financial assistance to developing countries for climate-changerelated activities through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The United States ratified the UNFCCC in 1992 with the advice and consent of the Senate (U.S. Treaty ...
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Date Nov. 25, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10365 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Overview of the Opioid Litigation and Related Settlements and Settlement Proposals November 25, 2019 According to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the opioid epidemic has claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people in the United States between 1999 and 2017. As described in an earlier Sidebar, the severity of the epidemic has prompted ...
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Date Nov. 22, 2019 |
Report No. IF11371 |
Title
November 22, 2019 Firearms-Related Appropriations Riders Congress s spending power gives it substantial control over the activities of executive branch agencies. For instance, through appropriations riders, Congress can direct agencies to engage, or to refrain from engaging, in particular activities in order to receive appropriated funds. Over the years, Congress has inserted several firearms- ...
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Date Nov. 22, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10364 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Reducing Harm or Enabling Substance Abuse? Supervised Injection Sites Under Federal Drug Law November 22, 2019 To mitigate the effects of the opioid crisis in Philadelphia, in 2018 a nonprofit called Safehouse announced plans to open a supervised injection site where illicit drug users could consume opioids under the supervision of trained staff, receive medical intervention in case ...
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Date Nov. 21, 2019 |
Report No. R45875 |
Title
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies: Overview of FY2020 Appropriations Carol Hardy Vincent Specialist in Natural Resources Policy Updated November 21, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R45875 SUMMARY Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies: Overview of FY2020 Appropriations The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill contains funding for ...
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Date Nov. 21, 2019 |
Report No. R45725 |
Title
Shipping Under the Jones Act: Legislative and Regulatory Background Updated November 21, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R45725 SUMMARY Shipping Under the Jones Act: Legislative and Regulatory Background R45725 November 21, 2019 John Frittelli The Jones Act, which refers to Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-261), Specialist in Transportation ...
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Date Nov. 21, 2019 |
Report No. IF10762 |
Title
Updated November 21, 2019 Green Climate Fund: Resource Mobilization, Recent Projects Resource Mobilization The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was officially opened for capitalization at the U.N. Climate Summit in September 2014. (See CRS In Focus IF10382, The Green Climate Fund (GCF) for a history and overview of the fund.) The GCF s initial resource mobilization (IRM) lasted from 2015 to 2018. As of ...
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Date Nov. 20, 2019 |
Report No. IF11366 |
Title
November 20, 2019 Health and Pension Benefits for United Mine Workers of America Retirees: Recent Legislation The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is a labor union that primarily represents coal mine workers. Eligible UMWA members receive postretirement health and pension benefits from one of three multiemployer health benefit plans and one multiemployer pension plan. A multiemployer plan is ...
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Date Nov. 20, 2019 |
Report No. IF11370 |
Title
November 20, 2019 Health and Pension Benefits for United Mine Workers of America Retirees: Recent Legislation The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is a labor union that primarily represents coal mine workers. Eligible UMWA members receive postretirement health and pension benefits from one of three multiemployer health benefit plans and one multiemployer pension plan. A multiemployer plan is ...
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Date Nov. 20, 2019 |
Report No. IF11368 |
Title
November 20, 2019 Expansion of Benefits to Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Legislative History The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 (P.L. 116-23) is the most recent action taken by Congress to grant disability compensation benefits to veterans exposed to Agent Orange, a combination of tactical herbicides used by the U.S. military in Vietnam. Earlier legislation directed the Department ...
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Date Nov. 19, 2019 |
Report No. R46012 |
Title
Immigration: Recent Apprehension Trends at the U.S. Southwest Border Audrey Singer Specialist in Immigration Policy William A. Kandel Analyst in Immigration Policy November 19, 2019 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R46012 SUMMARY Immigration: Recent Apprehension Trends at the U.S. Southwest Border Unauthorized migration across the U.S. Southwest border poses considerable ...
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Date Nov. 19, 2019 |
Report No. LSB10363 |
Title
Legal Sidebari Is a TSA Screener a Law Enforcement Officer ? Court Allows Lawsuit Against United States to Proceed November 19, 2019 According to a complaint that air traveler Nadine Pellegrino filed in 2009 against the United States in federal court, several Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) working for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) detained Pellegrino, damaged her ...
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Date Nov. 18, 2019 |
Report No. IN11201 |
Title
INSIGHTi Liquefied Natural Gas by Rail: Policy Issues November 18, 2019 On October 24, 2019, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), published a proposed rule to authorize the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in rail tank cars. This publication was the latest federal action intended to provide ...
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Date Nov. 18, 2019 |
Report No. IN11021 |
Title
Overview In the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) has primary responsibility for establishing, administering, and coordinating research and development (R&D) activities. The Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office (CWMDO) is responsible for R&D relating to detection of nuclear and radiological threats. Several other DHS components, such as ...
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Date Nov. 18, 2019 |
Report No. IN11202 |
Title
On October 24, 2019, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), published a proposed rule to authorize the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in rail tank cars. This publication was the latest federal action intended to provide "greater flexibility in the modes of transportation" of LNG to serve ...
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Date Nov. 15, 2019 |
Report No. IN11199 |
Title
Congress has shown interest in data privacy and security issues in the financial services industry, including an upcoming House Financial Services task force hearing. Recent data breaches at large financial institutions and credit reporting agencies have increased concern about the privacy and security of the large amounts of consumer financial information (known increasingly as big data) that ...
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