Detention of U.S. Persons as Enemy Belligerents, Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, February 1, 2012.

News release: "The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury today released the January edition of the Obama Administration's Housing Scorecard – a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market. Data in the January Housing Scorecard underscore fragility as the overall outlook remains mixed. Inventories of existing homes for sale and the overhang of homes held off market improved over the last two quarters and foreclosure starts continued to fall in December. However, data on new home sales and home prices offered mixed signals, while foreclosure completions ticked upward. The full report is available online here."

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission warned marketers of six mobile applications that provide background screening apps that they may be violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FTC warned the apps marketers that, if they have reason to believe the background reports they provide are being used for employment screening, housing, credit, or other similar purposes, they must comply with the Act. According to the FTC, some of the apps include criminal record histories, which bear on an individual's character and general reputation and are precisely the type of information that is typically used in employment and tenant screening."

OMB: The President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2012 - "Having emerged from the worst recession in generations, the President has put forward a plan to rebuild our economy and win the future by out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building our global competitors and creating the jobs and industries of tomorrow. But we cannot rebuild our economy and win the future if we pass on a mountain of debt to our children and grandchildren. We must restore fiscal responsibility, and reform our government to make it more effective, efficient, and open to the American people. The President’s 2012 Budget is a responsible approach that puts the nation on a path to live within our means so we can invest in our future – by cutting wasteful spending and making tough choices on some things we cannot afford, while keeping the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs. It targets scarce federal resources to the areas critical to winning the future: education, innovation, clean energy, and infrastructure. And it proposes to reform how Washington does business, putting more federal funding up for competition, cutting waste, and reorganizing government so that it better serves the American people."

Distributional Effects of Individual Income Tax Expenditures: An Update, Eric Toder and Daniel Baneman, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, February 2, 2012

News release: "The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has published the Notice of Availability (NOA) of the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) and Possible Land Use Amendments for Allocation of Oil Shale and Tar Sands Resources on Lands Administered by the BLM in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The publication opens a 90-day public review and comment period. The Draft PEIS analyzes several alternatives for land allocation and resource management. Under the BLM’s Preferred Alternative identified in the Draft PEIS, the BLM would continue to support the research and development of hydrocarbon deposits in an environmentally responsible way that protects scarce water supplies in the arid West."

• Read the BLM’s Federal Register Notice of Availability
• Read the Draft PEIS

News release: "Following President Obama’s State of the Union Address in which he proposed a blueprint for an American economy built to last, the U.S. Departments of the Treasury and Labor today announced two executive actions designed to help enhance security for millions of Americans saving for retirement. The measures announced today will expand transparency in the 401(k) plan marketplace and broaden the availability of retirement plan options so Americans can maximize their ability to save responsibly and securely. The Treasury Department’s proposal will reduce regulatory burdens and make it easier for retirees to choose to receive their benefits as a stream of income in regular payments for as long as they live. These flexible “lifetime income” options can provide greater certainty in retirement and minimize the risk of retirees outliving or underutilizing their retirement savings. The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration today issued a final rule that will provide employers sponsoring pension and 401(k) plans with information about the administrative and investment costs associated with providing such plans to their workers. The department also announced a three-month extension in the effective date of this rule, meaning service providers must be in compliance by July 1, 2012, for new and existing contracts or arrangements between ERISA-covered plans and service providers."

News release:" "The U.S. Census Bureau today released its 2010 Service Annual Survey, which shows that of the nation's 11 service sector, 10 showed an increase in revenues for employer firms between 2009 and 2010. Only the finance and insurance sector (NAICS 52) showed a loss ($27.2 billion, a loss of 0.8 percent). These figures are the first findings from this survey to track the revenues of services after the December 2007 to June 2009 recession. Accompanying these figures is a webinar that will examine the revenues of selected industries for the years 2005 to 2010, covering before and after the latest recession. The Service Annual Survey provides the most comprehensive national statistics available annually on service activity in the United States. Since 2009, the survey was expanded to collect data for all service industries, capturing 55 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Previously, the survey accounted for only 30 percent of GDP."

"The UK Home Affairs Committee publishes its report into The Roots of Violent Radicalisation today, the result of a wide-ranging inquiry that began in May 2011. The Committee concludes that the internet is one of the most significant vehicles for promoting violent radicalism - more so than prisons, universities or places of worship, although direct, personal contact with radicals is in many cases also a significant factor. Witnesses told the Committee that the internet played a part in most, if not all, cases of violent radicalisation.

• Report: Roots of violent radicalisation
  
• Inquiry: Roots of violent radicalisation
  
• Home Affairs Committee

EPA launches improved website for beach advisories and closures : "The website, called BEACON, has the capability to update as frequently as every two hours based on new data provided by states, territories and tribes. Users will have access to mapped location data for beaches and water monitoring stations, monitoring results for various pollutants such as bacteria and algae, and data on public notification of beach water quality advisories and closures. For the first time, users can also access reports that combine notifications and water quality monitoring data. The enhanced system also uses enhanced map navigation and report display tools. The majority of beach advisories and closures in the United States are due to water test results indicating bacterial contamination, which can make people sick. Bacterial contamination comes from a variety of sources. Some examples are sewer overflows, untreated stormwater runoff, boating wastes, wildlife and pet waste, and malfunctioning septic systems."

News release: "The total lifetime estimated financial costs associated with just one year of confirmed cases of child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect) is approximately $124 billion, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in Child Abuse and Neglect, The International Journal. This study looked at confirmed child maltreatment cases, 1,740 fatal and 579,000 non–fatal, for a 12–month period. The lifetime cost for each victim of child maltreatment who lived was $210,012, which is comparable to other costly health conditions, such as stroke with a lifetime cost per person estimated at $159,846 or type 2 diabetes, which is estimated between $181,000 and $253,000. The costs of each death due to child maltreatment are even higher."

"Since 2007, the American Psychological Association has commissioned an annual nationwide survey as part of its Mind/Body Health campaign to examine the state of stress across the country and understand its impact. The Stress in America™ survey measures attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public and identifies leading sources of stress, common behaviors used to manage stress and the impact of stress on our lives. The results of the survey draw attention to the serious physical and emotional implications of stress and the inextricable link between the mind and body."

European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) - "The ESMA has set up a central repository (CEREP) for publishing the rating performance activity statistics of credit rating agencies. The CEREP allows users to search, filter, download and print statistics for individual CRAs for time periods of varying lengths and different rating types.

• About the CEREP - General principles
  
• About the CEREP - How to interpret the statistics
  
• Guidelines - Implementation of the Central Repository (CEREP)
  
• Amending Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on credit rating agencies - Publication date: 31 May 2011
  
• Related postings on financial system

List of Expiring Federal Tax Provisions, 2011-2022. Joint Committee on Taxation.

News release: "The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank today launched enviacentroamerica.org, a free online tool to compare and make transparent the costs of remittances from the United States to six Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. The website provides detailed and updated monthly information on how much it costs to send money from the U.S. to Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Costs are calculated based on amounts of US$200 and US$500...Enviacentroamerica.org provides information on the costs that different operators charge in five major remittance-sending hubs in the United States (California, Florida, New York, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts) to Central America and the Dominican Republic as well as on the costs to wire money from Costa Rica to Nicaragua."