Banking, Data Privacy, and Cybersecurity Regulation
Financial data contains significant amounts of sensitive information, and ensuring the privacy of such data among financial institutions is a goal of many policymakers. In particular, Congress has dem...
Capital Markets: Overview and Selected Policy Issues in the 118th Congress
Capital markets are part of the financial system where entities raise funding from investors by dealing in stocks, bonds, digital asset securities, and other investments. As a main segment of the fina...
Overview of FY2023 Appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS)
This report describes actions taken to provide FY2023 appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) accounts. The annual CJS appropriations act provides funding for the Dep...
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): An Overview
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides workers with minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor protections. The FLSA covers most, but not all, private and public sector employees. In addition, ...
Bureau of Land Management: FY2023 Appropriations
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in the Department of the Interior (DOI), manages 244 million acres of federal land, nearly all in the West. Under its multiple-use mission, BLM manages lands for d...
Federal Statutory Bankruptcy Alternatives: A Roadmap
In most cases, a bankrupt entity will either liquidate or reorganize under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, and the U.S. bankruptcy courts will administer those proceedings. There are, however, certain entit...
SBA Disaster Loan Interest Rates: Overview and Policy Options
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is authorized to provide low-interest, long-term disaster loans, either on a direct basis or in partnership with private lenders, to eligible individuals, busin...
COVID-19 Relief Assistance to Small Businesses: Issues and Policy Options
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) administers several types of programs to support small businesses, including direct disaster loan programs for businesses, homeowners, and renters; loan gu...
SEC-Proposed Regulations to Reform Stock Trading
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates capital markets, announced four proposed rules on December 14, 2022, to reform the market structure for trading. The proposed regulation a...
The Federal Patient-Provider Dispute Resolution Process
Introduction
The No Surprises Act, part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260), established various consumer protections, including the prohibition of balance billing consumers in...
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) FY2023 Budget Request and Appropriations
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an agency of the Department of Commerce whose mission is to understand and predict changes in weather, climate, oceans, and coasts; to sha...
Preventing Improper Payments: Lessons from Using Data Matching in Pandemic Relief Program Oversight
For the past several decades, data matching has enabled the use of government data to identify fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in benefit programs. Data matching is the comparison of different ...