Random Excerpts

Revise general implementing regulations for existing source regulatory authority under CAA § 111(d)* to ensure that EPA gives full meaning to Congress’s direction, including source-specific application, and that the state planning program is flexible, federalist, and deferential to the states.

Information Technology. Despite the investment of billions of dollars for at least two decades, IRS information technology (IT) systems remain deficient.*° The IRS inadequately protects taxpayer information, its IT systems do not adequately support operations or taxpayer services, and its matching and detection algorithms are antiquated.

fact that Americans are denied access to an otherwise widely available entitlement benefit if the institution “elects” to not be accredited makes accreditation anything but voluntary. Today, accreditation determines whether Americans can access federal student aid benefits, transfer academic credits, enroll in higher-level degree programs, and even qualify for federal employment.

Currently, CS manages staff spread over 106 domestic offices in 77 countries around the world. Abroad, several “partner posts” utilize interagency staff and regionally located CS officials to offer services without a permanent physical in-country CS presence. Given the rapidly rising costs imposed by the State Department on CS posts overseas, a drastic expansion of this model is likely needed.

Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 400-410. For a book-length treatment of Smoot-Hawley, see Douglas A. Irwin, Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).

OCFO formulates and manages EPA’s annual budget and performance plan, coordinates EPA’s strategic planning efforts, develops EPA’s annual Performance and Accountability Report, and implements the Government Performance and Results Act.*”

Inthe production, employment, and control of maritime forces, the USN must consider the scope and rate of technological change and, where appropriate, adapt its processes and workforce development. In balancing the necessary long-term industrial model of naval platforms against emerging short-term opportunities, the USN must take account of advances that may present vulnerabilities and risks as well as what is assured and secure.

An effective diplomatic corps is central to defending our interests and influencing world events. Whereas most military personnel have had leftist priorities imposed from above, the problem at State comes largely from within. Former State Department director of policy planning Kiron Skinner writes in Chapter 6, “[L]arge swaths of the State Department’s workforce are left-wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative President’s policy agenda and vision.” She adds that the department possesses a “belief that it is an independent institution that knows what is best for the United States, sets its own foreign policy, and does not need direction from an elected President”—a view that does not align with the Constitution.

General. The next Administration should reexamine this policy and determine whether it might be more efficient or more appropriate for communication to occur through additional channels. The White House Counsel also works closely with the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel to seek opinions on, for example, matters of policy development and the constitutionality of presidential power and privileges and with OLA and the DOJ Office of Legal Policy on presidential judicial nominees.

Opposing the bank, de Rugy writes, “EXIM operates in effect as a protectionist agency that picks winners and losers in the market by providing political privileges to firms that are already well-financed.” She denies it promotes exports and argues it hurts small businesses, which often have to compete against large businesses that are able to get the loans. She writes that it also helps foreign companies, such as state-run China Air, that buy U.S. exports from American companies such as Boeing. The bottom line, she says, “is that the Bank should be abolished.”