United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Debt Cancellation for the New Millennium Act - Amends the International Financial Institutions Act to urge the President to commence immediately efforts within the Paris Club of Official Creditors, as well as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other appropriate multilateral development institutions, to accomplish certain modifications in the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, including requiring that: (1) the amount of debt relief provided by the IMF and the World Bank under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative for a HIPC be sufficient to completely cancel 100 percent of the HIPC's debt owed to such institutions; (2) no provision of debt relief under the Initiative be conditioned on any country's implementing a structural adjustment or stabilization program of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility of the IMF or any other such program operated solely or jointly by the IMF or the World Bank; (3) all HIPCs that are working in good faith to develop and implement their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) pursuant to the Initiative not be required to make service payments on their debts (ensuring that the savings from such debt relief will be invested in HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, health care, education, and poverty reduction programs); and (4) the eligibility requirements of the Initiative be revised to make Bangladesh, Haiti, and Nigeria eligible. Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to provide, upon request, for technical assistance to HIPCs regarding compliance with the conditions for debt relief pursuant to the Initiative, including the development and implementation of their PSRPs.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Commemorative Coin Act - Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to mint and issue five-dollar gold coins, one-dollar silver coins, and half-dollar clad coins emblematic of the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Medicare Fairness for Organ Transplant Recipients Act of 2003 - Amends title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to provide for coverage under the Medicare program of immunosuppressive drugs for Medicare beneficiaries who receive an organ transplant without regard to whether Medicare paid for the transplant (or when the transplant was received).
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Fair Care for the Uninsured Act of 2003 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow an individual a tax credit in an amount equal to the amount paid for qualified health insurance, subject to stated limitations. Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to make payments to the provider of an individual's qualified health insurance equal to such individual's qualified health insurance credit advance amount (the Secretary's estimate of the amount of credit allowable) with respect to such provider. Requires each health insurer, health maintenance organization, and health service organization to participate in a health insurance safety net which shall assure the availability of health insurance to uninsurable individuals. Funds such safety nets through assessments against such insurers and organizations. Permits such insurers and organizations to add the costs of such assessments to the costs of its insurance or coverage. Amends the Public Health Service Act to allow health benefits coverage through individual membership associations (IMAs). Sets forth IMA requirements, including that the IMA be an organization operated under the direction of an association and that IMA health benefits coverage only be provided through contracts with health insurance issuers. Requires IMAs to include a minimum of two health insurance coverage options.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Authorizes the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims of the Ukrainian famine-genocide of 1932-1933. Prohibits the U.S. Government from paying any expense for the establishment of the memorial or its maintenance.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Nutrient Removal Assistance Act - Amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to provide grants to States and municipalities to upgrade municipal wastewater treatment plants of a specified capacity and located within the Chesapeake Bay watershed with nutrient removal technologies.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Firefighting Research and Coordination Act - Amends the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 to direct the Administrator of the United States Fire Administration (Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)) to: (1) develop new, and utilize existing, measurement techniques and testing methodologies for evaluating new firefighting technologies; (2) evaluate the compatibility of new equipment and technology with existing technology; and (3) support the development of new standards through national voluntary consensus standards organizations for new firefighting technologies based on specified techniques and methodologies. Directs the Administrator to: (1) provide technical assistance and training to State and local fire service officials to establish nationwide and State mutual aid systems for dealing with national emergencies; and (2) develop and make model mutual aid plans for both intrastate and interstate assistance available to State and local fire service officials. Requires the Director of FEMA to revise FEMA's Federal Response Plan to incorporate plans for responding to terrorist attacks, particularly in urban areas. Authorizes the Superintendent of the National Academy for Fire Prevention and Control to train fire service personnel in: (1) strategies for building collapse rescue; (2) the use of technology in response to fires; (3) response, tactics, and strategies for dealing with terrorist-caused national catastrophes; (4) use of and familiarity with the national plan; (5) leadership and strategic skills, including integrated management systems operations and integrated response; (6) strategies and tactics for fighting forest fires; (7) integration of terrorism response agencies into the national terrorism incident response system; and (8) response tactics and strategies for fighting fires at U.S. ports, including fires on the water and aboard vessels.
United States · United States Congress · 5 February 2003
Recognizes the accomplishments of Ignacy Jan Paderewski as a musician, composer, statesman, and philanthropist, and acknowledges his invaluable efforts in forging close Polish-American ties, on the 11th anniversary of the return of his remains to Poland.
United States · United States Congress · 4 February 2003
Steel Industry National Historic Site Act - Establishes the Steel Industry National Historic Site in Pennsylvania as a unit of the National Park System. Authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by donation specified property for inclusion within such Site. Requires the Secretary to prepare and submit to specified congressional committees a general management plan for the Site.
United States · United States Congress · 4 February 2003
Authorizes the President to award a gold medal to each of the seven crew members who perished aboard the space shuttle Columbia: Rick D. Husband; Michael P. Anderson; Laurel Clark; David M. Brown; William C. McCool; Kapana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon.
United States · United States Congress · 29 January 2003
Amends the Internal Revenue Code respecting the Hope Scholarship Credit to: (1) extend coverage to fees, books, supplies, and equipment, and exempt such expenses from information reporting requirements; and (2) not reduce such Credit by Federal Pell Grant and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant amounts.
United States · United States Congress · 29 January 2003
Amends Federal law to authorize the Secretary of State to initiate a U.S. plan to endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan at the annual week-long summit of the World Health Assembly in May 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland, and to instruct the U.S. delegation there to implement such plan.
United States · United States Congress · 29 January 2003
Amends the Federal Law Enforcement Pay Reform Act of 1990 to revise the special pay adjustments for (percentage differentials payable to) Federal law enforcement officers in specified consolidated metropolitan statistical areas. Includes Capitol Police as law enforcement officers under such Act. Eliminates the limitation on the aggregate of basic pay and premium pay with respect to availability pay for Federal criminal investigators.
United States · United States Congress · 29 January 2003
Instructional Materials Accessibility Act of 2003 - Directs Secretary of Education to: (1) develop and publish instructional materials accessibility standards for the national electronic file format to be used by publishers of instructional materials in the preparation of electronic files suitable for efficient conversion into specialized formats; (2) establish a National Instructional Materials Accessibility Advisory Committee to provide technical expertise and guidance in creating such national electronic file format; (3) periodically review and amend such standards to reflect technological advances or changes; and (4) establish a National Instructional Materials Access Center. Requires State educational agencies, as a condition for receiving Federal financial assistance under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to develop and implement statewide plans and make contracts with publishers to ensure that instructional materials for classroom use in elementary and secondary schools are made available in specialized formats to individuals who are blind or have other print disabilities at the same time such materials are provided to individuals without such disabilities. Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to eligible entities to provide or improve their capacity to prepare or obtain instructional materials in specialized formats, including the national electronic format. Provides for enforcement of rights of children and parents under this Act.
United States · United States Congress · 28 January 2003
Violence Against Women Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2003 - Rewrites provisions of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 regarding remedies for civil rights violations. Makes a person who commits a crime of violence motivated by gender and thus deprives another of a prescribed right liable to the injured party where: (1) in connection with the offense, the defendant or the victim travels in interstate or foreign commerce, the defendant or the victim uses a facility or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, or the defendant employs a weapon, a narcotic or drug listed under the Controlled Substances Act, or other noxious or dangerous substances that have traveled in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) the offense interferes with commercial or other economic activity in which the victim is engaged; or (3) the offense was committed with intent to interfere with the victim's commercial or other economic activity. Authorizes the Attorney General, whenever there is reasonable cause to believe that any State, political subdivision, official, employee, or agent thereof has discriminated on the basis of gender in the investigation or prosecution of gender-based crimes and that discrimination is pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to investigating or prosecuting gender-based crimes, to institute a civil action in U.S. district court for appropriate equitable relief.
United States · United States Congress · 28 January 2003
National AMBER Alert Network Act of 2003 - Requires the Attorney General to assign an AMBER Alert Coordinator of the Department of Justice to act as the national Coordinator of the AMBER Alert communications network regarding abducted children. Requires the coordinator to: (1) seek to eliminate gaps in the network; (2) work with States to encourage the development of additional network elements and to ensure regional coordination; and (3) act as the nationwide point of contact for network development and for regional coordination of alerts on abducted children through the network. Directs the Coordinator to: (1) notify and consult with the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning each child abduction for which an AMBER Alert is issued; and (2) establish minimum standards for the issuance of alerts and for the extent of their dissemination (limited to the geographic areas most likely to facilitate the recovery of the abducted child). Requires the Secretary of Transportation to provide grants to States for the development or enhancement of notification or communications systems along highways for alerts and other information for the recovery of abducted children. Includes among permissible activities the development or enhancement of electronic message boards, and the placement of additional signage, along highways. Directs the Attorney General to provide grants to States for the development or enhancement of programs and activities for the support of AMBER Alert communications plans.
United States · United States Congress · 28 January 2003
Koby Mandell Act of 2003 - Directs the President to establish within the Department of Justice an office which shall assume responsibility for administration of the Rewards for Justice program and its website to ensure that rewards are offered to capture all terrorists involved in harming American citizens overseas, regardless of the terrorists' country of origin or residence. Directs the office to take specified steps, including: (1) establishing a program which will update American victims of overseas terrorism or their families on the status of efforts to capture the terrorists; (2) undertaking a comprehensive assessment to determine the reasons for the absence of indictments of terrorists residing in some regions; (3) monitoring public actions pertaining to terrorists by governments and regimes overseas, such as naming schools, streets, or other public institutions or sites after terrorists who have harmed American citizens; (4) initiating negotiations to secure financial compensation for American citizens (or their families) who were harmed by terrorist acts overseas by an organization that subsequently became part of a governing regime with which the U.S. Government maintains diplomatic or official contacts; and (5) coordinating with other Government agencies to seek the transfer to the United States of terrorists released from incarceration abroad who are eligible for further prosecution in the United States.
United States · United States Congress · 28 January 2003
Expresses the sense of Congress that rates of compensation for U.S. civilian employees should be adjusted at the same time, and in the same proportion, as are such rates for members of the uniformed services.
United States · United States Congress · 28 January 2003
Calls on: (1) the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) in a sign of good faith to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to return to North Korea, reinstall surveillance cameras, and reseal the country's plutonium reprocessing plant while a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement can be negotiated with the United States; (2) the United States in a sign of good faith to resume monthly fuel oil shipments to North Korea while such agreement is worked out; (3) both countries to begin diplomatic talks and negotiations until a mutually acceptable binding treaty to resolve the current crisis has been agreed to by both parties; and (4) members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Canada, and other concerned nations to support all diplomatic attempts by the United States and North Korea to achieve a peaceful resolution to the current crisis. Commends the IAEA for its efforts and calls on it to continue its negotiations with North Korea to allow its inspectors to return to the country.
United States · United States Congress · 27 January 2003
Prisoner of War Benefits Act of 2003 - Amends Federal veterans' benefits provisions with respect to former prisoners of war to repeal the currently required: (1) 30-day minimum period of internment prior to the presumption of service connection for certain listed diseases, for purposes of the payment of veterans' disability compensation; and (2) 90-day minimum period of internment prior to eligibility for dental care furnished through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Adds the following to the listed diseases under (1), above: heart disease, stroke, liver disease, diabetes (type 2), and osteoporosis. Requires: (1) such presumption also with respect to any disease that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs determines warrants such presumption by reason of having a positive association with the experience of being a prisoner of war; and (2) the Secretary to make such a determination within 60 days after a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of War that such presumption be established for a non-listed disease.
United States · United States Congress · 27 January 2003
National AMBER Alert Network Act of 2003 - Requires the Attorney General to assign an AMBER Alert Coordinator of the Department of Justice to act as the national Coordinator of the AMBER Alert communications network regarding abducted children. Requires the coordinator to: (1) seek to eliminate gaps in the network; (2) work with States to encourage the development of additional network elements and to ensure regional coordination; and (3) act as the nationwide point of contact for network development and for regional coordination of alerts on abducted children through the network. Directs the Coordinator to: (1) notify and consult with the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning each child abduction for which an AMBER Alert is issued; and (2) establish minimum standards for the issuance of alerts and for the extent of their dissemination (limited to the geographic areas most likely to facilitate the recovery of the abducted child). Requires the Secretary of Transportation to provide grants to States for the development or enhancement of notification or communications systems along highways for alerts and other information for the recovery of abducted children. Includes among permissible activities the development or enhancement of electronic message boards, and the placement of additional signage, along highways. Directs the Attorney General to provide grants to States for the development or enhancement of programs and activities for the support of AMBER Alert communications plans.
United States · United States Congress · 27 January 2003
Commends India on its celebration of Republic Day. Reiterates congressional support for continued strong relations between the United States and India.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2003 - Permits retired members of the armed forces with service-connected disabilities to be paid both military retired pay and veterans' disability compensation. Repeals provisions providing for special compensation for certain severely disabled military retirees and certain combat-related disabled uniformed services retirees.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Act - Requires the Director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to expand activities addressing inflammatory bowel disease, emphasizing genetic, animal model, and clinical research. Requires the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a national program of prevention and epidemiology concerning such disease, addressing its prevalence and public and professional awareness. Directs the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science to study public and private insurance standards for coverage of inflammatory bowel therapies. Directs the General Accounting Office to study problems inflammatory bowel disease patients have applying for disability insurance benefits under the Social Security Act.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Housing Bond and Credit Modernization and Fairness Act of 2003 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) repeal the required use of certain principal repayments on mortgage subsidy bond financings to redeem bonds; (2) modify the purchase price limitation under mortgage subsidy bond rules based on median family income; and (3) define the term "area median gross income" for low-income housing credit projects.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Advisory Board Act of 2003 - Establishes the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Advisory Board which shall: (1) operate in coordination with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and (2) provide advice to the President and the National Science and Technology Council on research investment policy, strategy, program goals, and management processes relating to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Directs the President to establish a National Nanotechnology Coordination Office to provide necessary technical and administrative support to the Advisory Board and to coordinate Federal nanotechnology activities between Federal agencies, private sector industry, and academia. Requires the Advisory Board to: (1) advise the President and the Council, and inform the Congress, on matters relating to the National Nanotechnology Program; (2) consult with academic industrial entities, State and local governments and agencies, and other appropriate entities conducting research on and using nanotechnology; (3) ensure that such Program considers fully the societal implications of nanoscale science and technology; and (4) transmit an annual report, which shall include a technology transition study, to the President, the head of each agency involved in the Program, and specified congressional committees.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Treatment of Children's Deformities Act of 2003 - Amends the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code to set standards requiring that group and individual health insurance and group health plans provide coverage for treatment of a minor child's congenital or developmental deformity or disorder due to trauma, infection, tumor, or disease.
United States · United States Congress · 8 January 2003
Student Bill of Rights - Directs the Secretary of Education to make annual determinations as to whether each State's public school system provides all its students with educational resources to succeed academically and in life. Requires such education to enable students to: (1) acquire knowledge and skills necessary for responsible citizenship; (2) meet challenging academic achievement standards; and (3) compete and succeed in a global economy. Requires each system to do so through: (1) providing specified fundamentals of educational opportunity to students at each public elementary and secondary school; (2) providing educational services in school districts that receive funds for disadvantaged students that are, taken as a whole, at least comparable to educational services provided in school districts not receiving such funds; and (3) complying with any final Federal or State court order in any matter concerning the adequacy or equitableness of the system. Requires withholding of specified portions of its Federal funding for administrative expenses if a system: (1) fails to meet a yearly interim goal; (2) does not remedy, after two school years, a failure to provide comparable educational services to schools that receive funds for disadvantaged children; or (3) does not comply with a court order. Allows students or parents aggrieved by violations of this Act to bring civil actions for enforcement in Federal district courts. Directs the Commissioner of Education Statistics to study the effects of educational disparities on economic growth and on national defense.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2003 - Amends the Federal criminal code to authorize qualified law enforcement officers (including certain qualified retired officers) carrying the photographic identification issued by their governmental agency, notwithstanding State or local laws, to carry a concealed firearm. Provides that such authorization shall not supersede State laws that: (1) permit private entities to prohibit the possession of concealed firearms on their property; or (2) prohibit the possession of firearms on State or local government property. Excludes from the definition of "firearm" any machine gun, firearm silencer, or destructive device.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Amends the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act of 2000 to make as one of its purposes that in implementation of this Act at least 50 percent of all microenterprise assistance be targeted to the very poor, that is, those persons living either in the bottom 50 percent below the poverty line or on less than the equivalent of one dollar per day. Amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1964 to authorize the President to provide assistance to increase the availability of financial services (not just credit) to microenterprise households lacking full access to credit, including through: (1) loans and guarantees to microfinance institutions to expand the availability of savings and credit to poor and low-income households; (2) training programs to enable such institutions to better meet the financial services needs of their clients; and (3) training programs to enable clients to make better use of credit, increase their financial literacy, and to better manage their enterprises to improve their quality of life. Declares that, in order to maximize the sustainable development impact of microenterprise development grant assistance authorized under the Act, the Administrator of the agency primarily responsible for administering such assistance shall establish a monitoring system that, among other things, adopts the widespread use of proven and effective poverty assessment tools to identify the poorest of the poor and ensure that they receive needed microenterprise credits, loans, and assistance. Requires the Administrator of the Agency for International Development to develop and certify no fewer than two low-cost methods for measuring the poverty levels of the current or prospective clients of microenterprise organizations for purposes of the provision of microenterprise development grant assistance.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Blind Empowerment Act of 2003 - Amends title II (Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance) (OASDI) of the Social Security Act to increase, by specified increments over five years, the level of earnings demonstrating the ability of a blind person to engage in substantial gainful activity for purposes of determining disability insurance benefit payments.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2003 - Amends title II (Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance) of the Social Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit using a social security account number for various purposes, except for specified social security and tax purposes. Prohibits the Social Security Administration from divulging the social security account number issued to any individual to any agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government, to any State, political subdivision of a State, or agency or instrumentality of a State or political subdivision thereof, or to any other individual. Amends the Privacy Act of 1974 to prohibit any Federal, State, or local government agency or instrumentality from requesting an individual to disclose his social security account number on either a mandatory or a voluntary basis. Prohibits: (1) any two Federal agencies or instrumentalities from implementing the same identifying number with respect to any individual (except as authorized by specified Federal law); or (2) any Federal agency from establishing or mandating a uniform standard for identification of an individual that is required to be used by any other Federal agency, a State agency, or a private person for any purpose other than the purpose of conducting the authorized activities of the Federal agency establishing or mandating the standard, or conditioning receipt of any Federal grant or contract or other Federal funding on the adoption, by a State, a State agency, or a political subdivision of a State, of a uniform standard for identification of an individual.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act - Includes as an employee, for purposes of Federal provisions authorizing enrollment under the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program: (1) a member of the armed forces who began service before June 7, 1956, and retired after a minimum of 20 years of such service or by reason of a service-connected disability; and (2) the surviving widow or widower of such member. Directs the Secretary of Defense to enter into an agreement with the Office of Personnel Management to provide FEHB coverage to the following eligible beneficiaries: (1) a member or former member entitled to military retired or retainer pay; (2) an unremarried former spouse who was married to a member for at least 20 years, during which such member performed at least 20 years of retirement-creditable military service; (3) a dependent of a deceased qualifying member or former member; (4) a dependent of a living member or former member; and (5) a family member.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Community Choice in Real Estate Act - Amends the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, and the Revised Statutes of the United States, to prohibit the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Secretary of the Treasury, respectively, from determining that real estate brokerage activity or real estate management activity is financial in nature, is incidental to any financial activity, or is complementary to a financial activity. (In effect, prohibits financial holding companies and national banks from engaging, directly or indirectly, in real estate brokerage or real estate management activities.) Exempts from such prohibition: (1) activities of a bank holding company (or any affiliate) that directly relate to managing any real property owned by national banks or their affiliates; and (2) the right, power, or ability of any financial holding company to engage in any activity, or acquire or retain the shares of any company engaged in an activity authorized for financial holding companies on December 6, 2001 ("grandfather clause").
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Book Stamp Act - Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a grant program (based on certain State allocations under the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990) to promote child literacy and improve children's access to books at home and in early learning, child care, literacy and nutrition programs, by making books available through such programs. Requires State agencies to use such grants to enter into contracts with local child care resource and referral agencies to provide payments for eligible early learning program and other child care providers, on the basis of local needs, to make books available, promote child literacy, and improve children's access to books at home. Amends Federal law relating to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to require USPS to establish special postage stamps for child literacy, at the regular first-class rate plus a differential amount, for voluntary use by patrons. Requires USPS to pay certain amounts raised by stamp sales to HHS for child literacy promotion activities.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Renames the Technology Assessment Act of 1972 as the Office of Technology Assessment Reestablishment Act of 2003. Authorizes appropriations for the Office of Technology Assessment for FY 2004 through 2009.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Threat Reduction Implementation Act of 2003 - Amends specified Federal laws to make permanent the President's authority to waive certain prohibitions on the use of Cooperative Threat Reduction funds: (1) to assist the independent states of the former Soviet Union in the demilitarization of the former Soviet Union; and (2) for a chemical weapons destruction facility in Russia.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2003 - Amends the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002 (TEUCA, which is title II of the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002, PL107-147) to extend the TEUCA program through weeks of unemployment ending before July 1, 2003. Provides for a transition period of continuing payments to individuals with amounts remaining in their TEUC account after June 30, 2003, for weeks beginning before December 31, 2003. Entitles eligible individuals in all States to a total of 26 weeks of TEUCA compensation (13 weeks beyond the current 13 weeks). Provides an additional seven weeks of TEUCA benefits for workers in high unemployment States (entitling them to a total of 33, which is 20 weeks beyond the current 13). Applies a revised adjusted insured unemployment rate State trigger. Sets an additional TEUCA benefit period State trigger based on total unemployment rate.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Economic Security Act of 2003 - Provides for a program of temporary enhanced unemployment compensation which may add the greater of 15 percent or $25 to the amount of weekly regular compensation (including dependents' allowances) for which an individual is eligible under the Federal-State Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 1970. Modifies eligibility requirements for regular compensation, where applicable for purposes of benefits under this Act, to: (1) set an alternative base period ending at the close of the most recently completed calendar quarter; and (2) allow individuals to seek less than full-time work or not accept full-time work. Sets forth program requirements for Federal-State agreements, formulas for determining weekly benefits, nonreduction and coordination rules, payments to States, and financing. Applies program agreements to weeks of unemployment: (1) beginning after the date on which such an agreement is entered into; and (2) ending before July 1, 2004. Makes a modification relating to alternative base periods applicable only to initial claims filed after September 11, 2001. Makes a modification relating to part-time employment and increased benefits applicable to weeks of unemployment in such agreement period, regardless of the date on which an individual's claim for benefits is filed.
United States · United States Congress · 7 January 2003
Expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that: (1) the full realization of the rights of women is vital to the development and well-being of people of all nations; and (2) the Senate should, therefore, give its advice and consent to the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
United States · United States Congress · 15 October 2002
Recognizes and congratulates former President Jimmy Carter for his receipt of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, and commends him for his tireless work for and dedication to peace.
United States · United States Congress · 2 October 2002
Stealth Lobbyist Disclosure Act of 2002 - Amends the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to redefine the term "client" with respect to coalitions and associations on whose behalf a lobbyist must file a registration. Provides that, in the case of a coalition or association that employs or retains other persons to conduct lobbying activities, each of the individual members of the coalition or association, and not the coalition or association itself as under current law, is the client for whom a registration must be filed. Makes an exception for certain tax-exempt associations and for certain members of a coalition or association if the amount reasonably expected to be contributed by such member toward specific legislation-influencing activities of the coalition or association is less than $1,000 per any semiannual period.
United States · United States Congress · 2 October 2002
Stealth Lobbyist Disclosure Act of 2002 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to treat certain associations or coalitions as political organizations and thus require disclosure of their lobbying activities. Sets forth disclosure requirements, including notice requirements. Exempts certain tax-exempt organizations from such provisions.
United States · United States Congress · 30 September 2002
Restoring Budget Disciplines Act of 2002 - Amends the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 to extend Pay-As-You-Go provisions through FY 2007. Expresses the sense of Congress that the President should agree upon an extension of the discretionary spending limits by establishing caps for FY 2003 through 2007. Extends discretionary spending limits.
United States · United States Congress · 26 September 2002
Diabetes Prevention Access and Care Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Director of the National Institutes of Health to expand, intensify, conduct, coordinate, and support research and other activities with respect to pre-diabetes and diabetes, particularly type 2, in minority populations. Directs that the activities shall include research on the causes and effects of health care access disparities and racial discrimination. Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to: (1) expand the National Diabetes Education Program; and (2) through the Indian Health Service, conduct research on attention by health care professionals to the American Indian population with regard to diabetes. Directs the Diabetes Mellitus Interagency Coordinating Committee to develop a Federal plan to address diabetes mellitus within communities of color. Requires the Secretary to conduct and support programs to treat diabetes in minority populations, including, through the National Institute of Mental Health, to provide for comprehensive mental health services and treatment to certain individuals. Directs the Secretary, acting through the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, to make grants to expand Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program internships and mentoring opportunities for recruitment of minorities in diabetes-focused health fields. Provides for Federal and State loan repayment programs for health profession students of color. Requires the Secretary, acting through the CDC, to: (1) expand the Diabetes Control Program; and (2) fund education and community outreach on diabetes.