Congressional Research Reports

[Politics] Reuben @ Jun 30 2005

This site makes available research reports which have been written for Congress. In their own words:

American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a “think tank” that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.

Here’s a sample from one recent report on fuel economy standards:

One issue over the years has been the test procedures that measure vehicle fuel economy. During House debate on H.R. 6, an amendment that would require the fuel economy stickers on new cars to better reflect in-use fuel economy was passed (259-172), while an amendment to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard to 33 miles per gallon by model year (MY) 2015 was rejected (177-254). On April 27, 2005, Senator Domenici, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, indicated that discussions about Senate legislation had been initiated and were continuing.

Some policymakers also argue that the CAFE standards and program should be restructured. Among the issues here are the definitions and regulations for passenger cars and light duty trucks, and whether CAFE requirements should apply to a larger universe of vehicles. One bill introduced in the House (H.R. 705) would require that CAFE standards gradually apply to vehicles of up to 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (GVW).

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If you find any incredibly juicy reports, please post the urls in the comments section.

Related Comments (1)

1 Comment »

Comment by Reuben

2005-06-30 09:59:45

Here’s an interesting one:

U.S. housing prices increased by 6.9% in 2002 and 38.3% in the past 5 years. These increases look small in comparison to the behavior of house prices in certain regions of the country: prices in New England increased by 10.6% in 2002 and 62.9% in the past 5 years, while prices in California increased by 11.5% in 2002 and 67% in the past 5 years. In a number of local markets in those areas, prices have risen by more than 70% in the past 5 years. Recalling the behavior of the stock market in late 1990s, some analysts fear that the recent appreciation in housing prices points to a bubble, or a rise in house prices that cannot be explained by fundamentals. (”Fundamental” explanations for a rise in housing prices include falling interest rates, inflation, and rising incomes.) Recent changes in a few economic factors suggest reasons why house prices could be rising without a bubble being present. Yet statistical simulations performed in this report predict housing prices to be 12.722.9% lower than actual prices in 2002, indicating that a bubble may be present. But when the data are examined at a regional level, the major cause for concern is the large price increases in California and New England. House price appreciation in the rest of the country has been much more moderate. The problem with bubbles is that they cannot be identified with any confidence. If bubbles could be accurately identified, they would never develop in the first place because people would respond to the emergence of a bubble by selling the asset to avoid future losses, thereby eliminating the bubble.

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