Congressional Digest

PRO&CON® Extras


    Antonin Scalia’s Career and Legacy

March 03, 2016

Justice Antonin Scalia died in his sleep while on vacation at a ranch resort near Marfa, Texas, on February 13, 2016. Although the cause of death was not announced, the 79-year-old jurist had battled health problems, including heart disease, for a number of years. “Nino” Scalia, as he was referred to by friends, was nominated to be an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 26, 1986. He became the first Italian American to serve on the Court. With nearly 30 years on the bench, he was the…

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    Flint Water Crisis

February 29, 2016
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The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, resulted from a 2014 decision by the city to switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The change was made without adding chemicals to prevent pipe corrosion, so lead leaked into residents’ water, creating a serious public health problem. As the crisis gained national attention in the fall of 2015, Michigan’s congressional representatives called for action. On February 10, the House passed, 416 to 2, H.R. 4470, introduced by Representative Dan Kildee (MI-D), to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public within 15 days after discovering…

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    Expanding Broadband

February 10, 2016

One issue that is uniting Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, the Obama Administration, and the technology industry is the need to expand high-speed Internet access nationwide, especially for rural and other underserved communities. According to a Brookings Institution study, 75.1 percent of American households had a broadband Internet subscription in 2014; however, there remains “enormous variation in U.S. digital connectivity across demographic groups and between metropolitan areas.” In September 2015, the White House released a report by the Administration’s Broadband Opportunity Council, created last March to develop a broadband expansion strategy. The report contained recommendations for both expanding broadband…

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    Women in Combat

January 22, 2016
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Saying that America’s armed forces must draw from “the broadest possible pool of talent,” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, on December 3, 2015, ordered the U.S. military to open all combat jobs to women, with “no exceptions.” Prior to this announcement, women were not precluded by law from serving in any military unit or specialty; however, a 1994 Department of Defense policy barred them from serving in combat. In January 2013, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta directed each branch of the armed services to assess the impact of opening combat positions to women and to develop plans for integrating them…

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    Obama’s Gun Proposals

January 22, 2016
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On January 5, in a ceremony at the White House, President Obama announced a series of proposals to tighten Federal gun laws, calling them “common-sense steps to save lies and protect more of our children.” The initiative includes both legislative proposals that Congress would have to act on and executive actions that the President can take on his own. Major provisions include: Requiring more gun sellers — especially those who do business on the Internet and at gun shows — to be licensed and to conduct background checks on potential buyers. Hiring more than 230 additional FBI personnel to help…

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    Paris Climate Talks

December 01, 2015
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On October 19, the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy held a hearing on the upcoming United Nations Conference on Climate Change. Senator John Barrasso (WYR) led the hearing to examine the economic and environmental impacts of the negotiations. The goal of the talks, which are taking place from November 30 to December 11, 2015, in Paris, is to achieve a universal agreement on climate. Nations responsible for about two-thirds of global pollution have come up with greenhouse emissions targets — known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The United States…

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    Fantasy Sports

November 29, 2015
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The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 made transactions from financial companies to online gambling sites illegal, but carved out an exception for fantasy sports, classifying it as a game of skill. Since then, however, daily fantasy sports websites have exploded in popularity and are now worth billions of dollars because of a surge of investors, including national sports organizations, television networks, and team owners. Fantasy sports recently came under scrutiny after an employee of one of the sites admitted to having released confidential information. The same employee then won $350,000 in a competition on a rival site. The…

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    For-Profit Colleges

November 24, 2015
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Over the past six years, the U.S. Department of Education has established tougher regulations targeting for-profit, or career colleges — institutions that operate as a business, often have shareholders, and derive most of their revenue from taxpayer-funded student financial aid. Among other actions, the Department has issued “gainful employment” regulations (also applied to community colleges and public universities), intended to help ensure that students at career colleges don’t end up with debt they cannot repay. The rule requires colleges to track their graduates’ performance in the workforce and eventually will cut off Federal funding for career training programs that fall…

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    Sharing Economy

November 04, 2015
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On September 29, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade held a hearing titled “The Disrupter Series: How the Sharing Economy Creates Jobs, Benefits Consumers, and Raises Policy Questions.” The Background Memo on the hearing stated, “The sharing economy typically is described as the facilitation of peer-to-peer transactions, many of which would be impossible or too costly without sharing platforms.” It also cited a study estimating that the sharing economy generated $15 billion in revenues in 2013, and is projected to generate $335 billion in 10 years. The hearing looked at the influence the sharing economy and its emerging…

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    Gun Violence Research

October 29, 2015
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The Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 1997 contained language stating that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Although the bill did not explicitly ban research on gun violence, Congress took the money previously appropriated for firearm injury research and earmarked it for another purpose. The ban on CDC research on gun deaths and injuries, which has remained in place ever since, was prompted by the results of a 1993 study, published in the New England…

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