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…

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…

Each year, the President determines the maximum number of refugees to be admitted into the United States. The ceiling is 70,000 for the current fiscal year. With Syrians continuing to flee that country’s violence and strife, however, Secretary of State John Kerry pledged that the United States will take in as many as 85,000 refugees, including at least 10,000 from Syria. That ceiling would be raised to 100,000 in 2017. Refugees will also be admitted from parts of Africa that are experiencing similar conflicts. “This step is in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and…

A national survey on drug use and health, conducted in 2013 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found that an estimated 1.9 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription pain medicines and 517,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder. In the last year, Congress has held several hearings on the what is now considered to be a public health epidemic. These included: Two House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearings: one on April 23, titled “Combatting the Opioid Abuse Epidemic: Professional and Academic Perspectives” and one on May…

In December 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, thereby ending one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. Since then, the Administration has opened an embassy in Havana and removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Administration also made it much easier for Americans who fit into one of 12 approved categories to travel to Cuba (including for educational, religious, cultural, journalistic, or family purposes). Longtime restrictions on tourist travel remain in place, however; Cuba is the only country U.S. citizens are barred from visiting as tourists….

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act, enacted in 2012, created a gradual process for integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones, into the national airspace. In addition to military purposes, drones have a variety of applications, from weather monitoring and bridge inspection to border patrol and search-and-rescue operations; however, government agencies and others must first obtain authorization from the FAA for their use. As drone technology has advanced and costs have dropped, private-sector demand for these devices has increased. In February 2015, the FAA proposed new rules that would allow commercial drones to fly during…

On July 16, the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted, 18 to 12, an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill that would direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to seek public comment on a proposed rule relating to the treatment of captive marine mammals. Marine mammal welfare is regulated under the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, and some of the current rules date back to the 1980s. In the mid-1990s, USDA began negotiating with the industry on an updated rule that would set minimum standards for the humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation of such animals. It wasn’t until 2012, however, that…

Although the immigration reform debate has been stalled in Congress for some time, a new discussion has revolved around “sanctuary cities” — generally defined as jurisdictions with policies or laws that limit the extent to which local law enforcement will assist the Federal Government on immigration matters. Currently, more than 200 State and local jurisdictions have policies that do not honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention requests. The sanctuary movement grew out of efforts by churches in the 1980s to provide safe havens for those fleeing violence in Central America. The logic behind sanctuary cities is that encouraging…

Major train accidents occurring earlier this year have prompted Congress to readdress the issue of passenger rail safety. Funding for Amtrak has long been controversial, with many Republicans wanting to privatize the system and many Democrats arguing that the United States has fallen behind other countries, such as Germany and Japan, by not making a greater investment in rail travel. The last time Congress reauthorized funding for Amtrak was through passage of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required the Nation’s busiest railroad operators to implement a technology called positive train control (PTC) and to have it in…

In August 3, the Senate, by a 53-to-46 margin, failed to obtain the 60 votes needed to proceed on S. 1881, to prohibit Federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive, maternal, and child health services, including abortions. The organization operates about 700 clinics that treat 2.7 million patients a year. The organization says that abortions account for approximately 3 percent of its services. Planned Parenthood has been a focus of the abortion debate for some time but recently came under new scrutiny after the release of secretly taped and edited videos showing a…