Continuing Appropriations Acts: Brief Overview of Recent Practices
This report provides information on the history of continuing resolutions; the nature, scope, and duration of CRs during the last 30 years; the various types of CRs that have been enacted; and an overview of those instances when budget authority has lapsed and a funding gap has resulted.
Preventing Federal Government Shutdowns: Proposals for an Automatic Continuing Resolution
For several decades, difficulties in enacting regular appropriations acts and continuing resolutions in a timely manner periodically have resulted in funding gaps. In 1980 and 1981, revised interpretations of the law governing agency behavior during funding gaps led to more aggressive enforcement of the law, causing the federal government to shut down affected agencies during funding gaps. In an effort to ameliorate the consequences of the tardy enactment of appropriations, some Members have proposed that an automatic continuing resolution be set in place so that funding gaps would not occur and federal government shutdowns would be prevented. Congressional interest in automatic continuing proposals was spurred by two especially troublesome funding gaps that occurred in late 1995 and early 1996. This report examines the concept of the automatic continuing resolution, outlines legislative action on such proposals in the 105 and 106 Congresses, and provides background information on the incidence of continuing resolutions and funding gaps. This report will be updated as developments warrant. (For related information, see CRS Report 98-844: Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Effects, and Process, by Sharon S. Gressle.) Preventing Federal Government Shutdowns: Proposals for an Automatic Continuing Resolution
Facies and microfacies of slope deposits
Abstract This paper reviews the facies and microfacies of the main types of slope deposits. Lamination and sorting, when preserved, are good evidence for overland flow. Features due to deformation (folds, boudins, coatings and tails due to the rotation of clasts) are associated with the early stages of deformation in earth slides. Other mass-movements such as debris flows, rock avalanches, earth flows, and to a certain extent, dry grain flows may be characterised by similar microscopic facies, typically a poorly sorted, porphyric material. Porosity gives evidence for both liquefaction (debris flows) and frost-induced mass-movement (solifluction). However, this criterion is thought to be irrelevant for fossil deposits owing to the rapidity and scale of post-depositional changes (wetting and drying, freezing and thawing, bioturbation). At present, only a detailed analysis of both the macro- and micromorphological characteristics of the deposits allows an accurate identification of past slope dynamics.