The National Flood Insurance Program: Factors Affecting Actuarial Soundness

Congressional Budget Office
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10620/11-04-FloodInsurance.pdf
[From the Director's Blog] “In 2005, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), experienced an unprecedented volume of claims resulting from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Total payments on those claims were greater than the total for all of the program’s previous years combined and led [...]

Energy Projects on Federal Lands : Leasing and Authorization

Congressional Research Service
http://opencrs.com/document/R40806/
[Abstract] A variety of statutes and agency regulations govern leasing and permitting for energy projects, including oil and natural gas development as well as alternative energy projects, on federal lands. This report explains the legal framework for energy leasing and development on federal lands. The report reviews laws and regulations affecting leasing of [...]

Phytosanitary Regulation of the Entry of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables into the United States

Economic Research Service, USDA
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FruitVegPhyto/#2009-8-24
[Overview] Increased trade in fresh fruits and vegetables provides U.S. consumers with a variety of benefits including the possibility of improved nutrition by making these products available year-round. Imports of these products are regulated by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service (APHIS) to reduce the risk of inadvertent entry of [...]

Fishery Management Plan for Fish Resources of the Arctic Management Area

North Pacific Fishery Management Council
http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/npfmc/fmp/arctic/ArcticFMP.pdf
[Announcement]  This plan dated August 2009 prepared by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and approved by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce will prohibit the expansion of commercial fishing in federal Arctic waters until researchers gather sufficient information on fish and the Arctic marine environment to prevent adverse impacts of commercial [...]

Why Clean Energy Public Investment Makes Economic Sense – The Evidence Base

Management Information Services
http://sev.prnewswire.com/oil-energy/20080923/DC3467323092008-1.html 
[From press release]  The main beneficiaries of more than $700 billion of federal energy incentives over the past five decades have been the oil and natural gas industries, a new study reveals. The oil and natural gas industries together garnered 60 percent of federal incentives between 1950 and 2006, with 46 percent of the [...]

Peer Review Lifecycle Analysis under EISA Questions and Answers

US EPA, Renewable Fuel Standard Program
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/420f09032.htm
[From E&E News PM article by Allison Winter, subscription required] U.S. EPA released a peer review of the analysis that underlies its controversial rules for the expanded U.S. biofuels mandate, sparking more debate over how the agency should measure ethanol’s impacts on climate change.
The peer review of EPA’s “lifecycle analysis” [...]

Public Transportation : Better Data Needed to Assess Length of New Starts Process, and Options Exist to Expedite Project Development

General Acccountability Office
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09784.pdf
[Summary] The New Starts program is an important source of new capital investment in mass transportation. To be eligible for federal funding, a project must advance through the different project development phases of the New Starts program, including alternatives analysis, preliminary engineering, and final design. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) evaluates projects as [...]

Nutrient Control Actions for Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico

National Research Council
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12544&utm_source=feeds&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new_from_nap_rss
[Description] A large area of coastal waters in the northern Gulf of Mexico experiences seasonal conditions of low levels of dissolved oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia. Excess discharge of nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers causes nutrient overenrichment in the gulf’s coastal waters and stimulates the [...]

The Manhattan Project, the Apollo Program, and Federal Energy Technology R&D Programs : A Comparative Analysis

Congressional Research Service
http://opencrs.com/document/RL34645/
[Summary]  Some policymakers have concluded that the energy challenges facing the United States are so critical that a concentrated investment in energy research and development (R&D) should be undertaken. The Manhattan project, which produced the atomic bomb, and the Apollo program, which landed American men on the moon, have been cited as examples [...]

FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program : Overview and Issues

Congressional Research Service
http://opencrs.com/document/RL34537/
[From summary]  Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM), as federal law and a program activity, began in 1997. Congress established a pilot program, which FEMA named “Project Impact,” to test the concept of investing prior to disasters to reduce the vulnerability of communities to future disasters. P.L. 106-390, the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, authorized the PDM [...]