prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Report 1: T he unemployment insurance (UI) system has two primary objectives: (1) to provide temporary, partial wage replacement for involuntarily unemployed workers and (2) to stabilize the economy during recessions  In support of these goals, several UI programs provide benefits for eligible unemployed workers  In general, when eligible workers lose their jobs, the joint federal-state Unemployment Compensation (UC) program may provide up to 26 weeks of income support through regular UC benefit payments  UC benefits may be extended for up to 13 weeks or 20 weeks by the Extended Benefit (EB) program if certain economic situations exist within the state  As of the date of this publication, although both the UC and EB programs are authorized, no state is in an active EB period  For an overview of EB, see the Appendix   The Social Security Act of 1935 (P L  74-271) authorizes the joint federal-state UC program to provide unemployment benefits  Most states provide up to a maximum of 26 weeks of UC benefits  Former federal workers may be eligible for unemployment benefits through the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program  Former U S  military servicemembers may be eligible for unemployment benefits through the Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemembers (UCX) program  The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1991 ( P L  102-164 ) provides that ex-servicemembers be treated the same as other unemployed workers with respect to benefit levels, the waiting period for benefits, and benefit duration  Although federal laws and regulations provide broad guidelines on UC benefit coverage, eligibility, and determination, the specifics regarding UC benefits are determined by each state  This results in essentially 53 different programs  Generally, UC eligibility is based on attaining qualified wages and employment in covered work over a 12-month period (called a base period) prior to unemployment  All states require a worker to have earned a certain amount of wages or to have worked for a certain period of time (or both) within the base period to be eligible to receive any UC benefits  The methods states use to determine eligibility vary greatly  Most state benefit formulas replace approximately half of a claimant's average weekly wage up to a weekly maximum  Additionally, each state's UC law requires individuals to have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and recipients must be able to work, available for work, and actively seeking work  These eligibility requirements help ensure that UC benefits are directed toward workers with significant labor market experience and who are unemployed because of economic conditions  The UC program is financed by federal taxes under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and by state payroll taxes under each state's State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA)  The 0 6% effective net FUTA tax paid by employers on the first $7,000 of each employee's earnings (equaling no more than $42 per worker per year) funds federal and state administrative costs, loans to insolvent state UC accounts, the federal share (50%) of EB payments, and state employment services  SUTA taxes on employers are limited by federal law to funding regular UC benefits and the state share (50%) of EB payments  Federal law requires that the state tax be on at least the first $7,000 of each employee's earnings and that the maximum state tax rate be at least 5 4%  Federal law also requires each employer's state tax rate to be based on the amount of UC paid to former employees (known as "experience rating")  Within these broad requirements, each state has great flexibility in determining its SUTA structure  Generally, the more UC benefits paid out to its former employees, the higher the tax rate of the employer, up to a maximum established by state law  Funds from FUTA and SUTA are deposited in the appropriate accounts within the Unemployment Trust Fund (UTF)  The sequester order required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P L  112-25 ) and implemented on March 1, 2013 (after being delayed by P L  112-240 ), affected some but not all types of UI expenditures  Regular UC, UCX, and UCFE payments are not subject to the sequester reductions  EB and most forms of administrative funding are subject to the sequester reductions  The FY2019 sequestration order requires a 6 2% reduction in all nonexempt nondefense mandatory expenditures, but no sequestration reductions are applicable to discretionary programs, projects, and activities  As a result, EB expenditures are required to be reduced 6 2% (only on the federal share of EB benefits) for weeks of unemployment during FY2019  As of January 22, 2019, EB has not been activated in any state during FY2019  The lapse in federal appropriations that occurred from December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019, caused a partial government shutdown  As a result, during this lapse in appropriations, agencies without funding furloughed federal employees, and many federal employees excepted from furlough were working without pay  Furloughed federal employees may be eligible for UCFE benefits  States are required to operate the UCFE program under the same terms and conditions that apply to regular state UC  Therefore, UCFE eligibility is determined under the laws of the state in which an individual's official duty station in federal civilian service is located  Federal employees who are in furlough status on account of a government shutdown are generally treated by state law as laid off with an expectation of recall  Depending on state laws and regulations, the state may have an option to not require federal employees to search for work given an expected recall  However, according to guidance from U S  Department of Labor (DOL), excepted federal employees who are performing services (but working without pay) would generally be ineligible for UCFE benefits based on states' definitions of "unemployment " Private-sector workers who are furloughed or laid off due to the partial government shutdown because they were employed by government contractors or other businesses may be eligible for regular UC benefits  UC eligibility for these workers would be based on the requirements set out under the state laws in the state where they had worked  In this climate, there has been congressional interest in assisting furloughed and excepted federal employees through the UI system  For example, as described below in the section on " Unemployment Compensation for Excepted Federal Employees During a Government Shutdown ," there are proposals to provide new authority to pay UCFE benefits to excepted federal workers who are working without pay  The most recent lapse in federal appropriations began December 22, 2018, and ended on January 25, 2019, with the enactment of H J Res  28   Because retroactive pay for furloughed and excepted federal employees was authorized under S  24 , the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 (enacted January 16, 2019), UCFE payments made to federal employee claimants during this lapse in appropriations may be deemed an overpayment, subject to state UC laws regarding overpayment recovery  According to guidance from the Office of Personnel Management on this issue The state UI agency will determine whether or not an overpayment exists and, generally, the recovery of the UCFE overpayment is a matter for state action under its law; however, some state UI laws require the employer to recover such overpayment by collecting the overpayment amount from the employee  The Federal and state agencies will need to coordinate to determine the required action in accordance with the individual state UI law  Federal agencies are encouraged to develop lists or spreadsheets that can be provided to the state(s) containing the employees' names, social security numbers, and the amounts and periods of time covered by the retroactive payment  If a recession is deep enough and if state unemployment tax (SUTA) revenue is inadequate for long periods of time, states may have insufficient funds to pay for UC benefits  Federal law, which requires states to pay these benefits, provides a loan mechanism within the UTF framework that an insolvent state may use to meet its UC benefit payment obligations  States must pay back these loans  If the loans are not paid back quickly (depending on the timing of the beginning of the loan period), states may face interest charges, and states' employers may face increased net FUTA rates until the loans are repaid  The U S  Virgin Islands is the only jurisdiction with an outstanding loan  As of January 18, 2019, it had an outstanding loan of $68 4 million from the federal accounts within the UTF  At the end of 2017, fewer than half of states (24) had accrued enough funds in their accounts to meet or exceed the minimally solvent standard of an average high cost multiple (AHCM) of 1 0 in order to be prepared for a recession  Beginning in FY2015, DOL funded state efforts "addressing individual reemployment needs of UI claimants, and working to prevent and detect UI overpayments" through the voluntary Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program  RESEA provides funding to states to conduct in-person interviews with selected UI claimants to (1) assure that claimants are complying with the eligibility rules, (2) determine if reemployment services are needed for the claimant to secure future employment, (3) refer the individual to reemployment services as necessary, and (4) provide labor market information that addresses the claimant's specific needs  Section 30206 of P L  115-123 codified the authority for DOL to administer a RESEA program  It also set out various requirements for states to use certain types of evidence-based interventions for UI claimants under RESEA and allocated discretionary funding for RESEA across three categories (base funding, outcome payments, and research and technical assistance)  State RESEA programs must include reasonable notice and accommodations to participating UI beneficiaries  On April 4, 2019, DOL published a proposed methodology to allocate base RESEA funds and outcome payments  DOL requested state and public comments on this proposal by May 6, 2019  The President's budget for FY2020 proposes changes to several aspects of the UI system  It would create a new required standard for state account balances within the UTF and a new benefit entitlement for paid parental leave financed through state unemployment taxes  The President's FY2020 budget also proposes a set of additional integrity measures, including the required use of certain databases to confirm UC eligibility and requiring Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits offset UI benefits  The President's budget proposal for FY2020 would require states to maintain a minimum level of solvency in their UTF account balances to be at least half (0 5) of the state's AHCM  The proposal would alter the rules for calculating the net FUTA rate, requiring a higher net FUTA rate on a state's employers if that state maintained an AHCM of less than 0 5 on January 1 of two or more consecutive years  The additional FUTA revenue would be deposited into the state UTF account and would be terminated once the state met the 0 5 AHCM criteria  The President's budget proposal for FY2020 would require states to establish a paid parental leave benefit by 2020, using the UC program as its base for an administrative framework  States would be required to provide six weeks of benefits to a worker on leave or otherwise absent from work for the birth or adoption of the worker's child  States would have discretion to determine the parameters of eligibility and financing for this new paid parental leave benefit  The President's 2020 budget would require states to use three specific data sources to confirm an individual's eligibility for UC benefits: the State Information Data Exchange System (SIDES, administered by Information Technology Support Center [ITSC] and DOL); the National Directory for New Hires (NDNH, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services); and the Prisoner Update Processing System (PUPS, administered by the Social Security Administration)  The proposal would create several additional integrity measures, including giving the Secretary of Labor the authority to implement new corrective action measures in response to poor state administrative performance within the program; allowing states to retain a percentage of UC overpayments for program integrity use; requiring states to deposit all UC penalty and interest payments into a special state fund, with these funds required to be used for improving state UI administration as well as providing reemployment services for UI claimants; and offsetting SSDI benefits to account for concurrent receipt of UI benefits  Section 2105 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 ( P L  112-96 ; February 22, 2012) amended federal law to allow states to conduct two types of drug testing  First, it expanded the long-standing state option to disqualify UC applicants who were discharged from employment with their most recent employer (as defined under state law) for unlawful drug use by allowing states to drug test these applicants to determine UC benefit eligibility or disqualification  Second, it allowed states to drug test UC applicants for whom suitable work (as defined under state law) is available only in an occupation that regularly conducts drug testing, to be determined under new regulations issued by the Secretary of Labor  As required by  P L  112-96 , on August 1, 2016, DOL promulgated  20 C F R  Part 620 ,  a new rule to implement the provisions of the law relating to the drug testing of UC applicants for whom suitable work (as defined under state law) is available only in an occupation that regularly conducts drug testing  Amid concerns voiced by stakeholders about the 2016 DOL rule, Congress repealed this UC drug testing rule using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) via H J Res  42 / P L  115-17   On November 5, 2018, DOL published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to reissue the rule identifying occupations that regularly conduct drug testing for purposes of Section 2105 of  P L  112-96   The CRA prohibits an agency from reissuing the rule in "substantially the same form" or issuing a "new rule that is substantially the same" as the disapproved rule, "unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule " Notably, this is the first time an agency has proposed to reissue a rule after the original version was disapproved under the CRA  According to the 2018 NPRM, DOL has addressed the reissue requirements of the CRA by proposing a substantially different and more flexible approach to the statutory requirements than the 2016 Rule, enabling states to enact legislation to require drug testing for a far larger group of UC applicants than the previous rule permitted  This flexibility is intended to respect the diversity of states' economies and the different roles played by employment drug testing in those economies  Comments on the proposed 2018 rule were required to be submitted by January 4, 2019  On January 16, 2019, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced S  165 , the Federal Unemployment Compensation Equity Act of 2019  This proposal would amend UCFE law and create a new permanent UCFE eligibility category for excepted federal employees who are unpaid but required to work during a government shutdown due to a lapse in appropriations  During any shutdown beginning on or after December 22, 2018, all excepted federal workers would be deemed eligible for UCFE benefits  Additionally, these employees would not be subject to a one-week waiting period (otherwise often required under state laws) before UCFE benefits were to be paid  On January 23, 2019, Representative Debbie Dingell introduced H R  725 , the Pay Federal Workers Act  This proposal would also provide UCFE benefits in a similar manner to S  165 , including permanently amending 5 U S C  Chapter 85 to provide federal authority for these benefits  On January 23, 2019, Representative Anthony Brown introduced H R  720   This proposal would deem excepted federal employees during a government shutdown to be eligible for UCFE during FY2019  The authority to provide UCFE to these excepted workers would expire at the end of FY2019  On February 8, 2019, Representative Katie Hill introduced H R  1117 , the Shutdown Fairness Act of 2019  This proposal would deem excepted federal employees and unpaid military servicemembers during a government shutdown to be eligible for UCFE or UCX during FY2019  The authority to provide UCFE to these excepted workers would expire at the end of FY2019  On January 15, 2019, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Danny Davis introduced S  136 and H R  556 , the Economic Ladders to End Volatility and Advance Training and Employment Act of 2019 (the ELEVATE Act)   Among other provisions, this proposal would establish new self-employment and relocation assistance benefits for unemployed workers to be administered by the Social Security Administration, in consultation with DOL  The self-employment assistance benefits would provide weekly income replacement (half of prior earnings up to the maximum weekly benefit amount in the state) for up to of 26 weeks to individuals  They would be available to individuals who are (1) eligible for any type of UI benefit; or ineligible for any type of UI benefit, but became involuntarily unemployed over the previous 12 weeks; or were previously self-employed, but lost a hiring contract, and (2) have a viable business plan approved by their state department of labor, workforce board, or the Small Business Administration  Additionally, Section 3 of S  136 and H R  556 would provide up to $2,000 (or more, depending on family size) to fund to up to 90% of certain relocation expenses for eligible individuals and their families  In order to be eligible for this relocation assistance, an individual must be a (1) dislocated worker, (2) long-term unemployed individual, or (3) underemployed individual and also have filed a claim for relocation assistance and obtained suitable work with an expectation of obtaining such work in a new geographic region  On March 7, 2019, Representative Karen Bass introduced H R  1585 , the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019  Among many other provisions, Section 703 of H R  1585 would require states to consider an individual who quit employment because of sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking to be eligible for UC benefits  The House passed H R  1585 on April 4, 2019  On March 14, 2019, Representative Stephanie Murphy introduced H R  1759 , the Building on Reemployment Improvements to Deliver Good Employment (BRIDGE) for Workers Act  This proposal would extend eligibility to any claimant of unemployment benefits, including those profiled as likely to exhaust benefits (rather than limiting eligibility to those who were profiled as likely to exhaust benefits)  The House passed H R  1759 on April 9, 2019  The Extended Benefit (EB) program was established by the Federal-State Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 1970 (EUCA; P L  91-373) (26 U S C  §3304, note)  EUCA may extend receipt of unemployment benefits (extended benefits) at the state level if certain economic conditions exist within the state  As of the date of this publication, EB is not active in any state  Extended Benefit Triggers The EB program is triggered when a state's insured unemployment rate (IUR) or total unemployment rate (TUR) reaches certain levels  All states must pay up to 13 weeks of EB if the IUR for the previous 13 weeks is at least 5% and is 120% of the average of the rates for the same 13-week period in each of the two previous years  States may choose to enact two other optional thresholds  (States may choose one, two, or none ) If the state has chosen one or more of the EB trigger options, it would provide the following: Option 1—up to an additional 13 weeks of benefits if the state's IUR is at least 6%, regardless of previous years' averages  Option 2—up to an additional 13 weeks of benefits if the state's TUR is at least 6 5% and is at least 110% of the state's average TUR for the same 13 weeks in either of the previous two years; up to an additional 20 weeks of benefits if the state's TUR is at least 8% and is at least 110% of the state's average TUR for the same 13 weeks in either of the previous two years  EB benefits are not "grandfathered" (phased out) when a state triggers "off" the program  When a state triggers "off" of an EB period, all EB benefit payments in the state cease immediately regardless of individual entitlement  The EB benefit amount is equal to the eligible individual's weekly regular UC benefits  Under permanent law, FUTA finances half (50%) of the EB payments and 100% of EB administrative costs  States fund the other half (50%) of EB benefit costs through their SUTA  On March 7, 2019, Representative Karen Bass introduced H R  1585 , the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019  Among many other provisions, Section 703 of H R  1585 would require states to consider an individual who quit employment because of sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking to be eligible for UC benefits  The House passed H R  1585 on April 4, 2019  On March 14, 2019, Representative Stephanie Murphy introduced H R  1759 , the Building on Reemployment Improvements to Deliver Good Employment (BRIDGE) for Workers Act  This proposal would extend eligibility to any claimant of unemployment benefits, including those profiled as likely to exhaust benefits (rather than limiting eligibility to those who were profiled as likely to exhaust benefits)  The House passed H R  1759 on April 9, 2019 


Report 2: The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act of 1965 was enacted to "assist in preserving, developing, and assuring accessibility to     outdoor recreation resources " Two main goals of the law were to facilitate participation in recreation and "to strengthen the health and vitality" of U S  citizens  To accomplish these goals, purposes of the law included "providing funds" for federal land acquisition and for federal assistance to states generally related to outdoor recreation  The fund is authorized to receive $900 million in revenues annually under the LWCF Act  Each year the fund accrues revenues at this level  The fund accumulates the majority of its revenues from oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)  It also accumulates revenues from the federal motorboat fuel tax and surplus property sales  However, revenues that accrue under the LWCF Act are available only if appropriated by Congress through the discretionary appropriations process  The LWCF receives additional revenue (beyond the $900 million) from OCS leasing under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (GOMESA)  Unlike revenues under the LWCF Act, GOMESA revenues are mandatory appropriations (and thus are not subject to annual appropriation by Congress)  They can be used only for grants to states for outdoor recreation purposes  The overall level of annual appropriations (discretionary and mandatory combined) has varied widely since the fund's origin in FY1965  Of the total revenues that have accrued throughout the program's history ($40 9 billion), less than half have been appropriated ($18 9 billion) through FY2019  Thus, the unappropriated balance in the fund is estimated at $22 0 billion through FY2019  The LWCF Act outlines uses of the fund for federal and state purposes  It states that of the total made available to the fund, not less than 40% is to be used for "federal purposes" and not less than 40% is to be used to provide "financial assistance to states " The act lists the federal purposes for which the President is to allot LWCF funds "unless otherwise allotted in the appropriation Act making them available " These purposes primarily relate to the acquisition of lands and waters (and interests therein) by the federal government  With regard to state purposes, the act authorizes a matching grant program to states for outdoor recreation purposes  In practice, over the history of the LWCF, appropriations acts have provided funding for three general purposes  First, for each year since FY1965, appropriations for land acquisition have been provided to some or all of the major federal land management agencies—the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Park Service (NPS), and Forest Service (FS)  Second, for nearly every year since FY1965, appropriations have funded the outdoor recreation matching grant program, to assist states in recreational planning, acquiring recreational lands and waters, and developing outdoor recreational facilities  Third, beginning in FY1998, appropriations from the LWCF have been provided each year, except FY1999, to fund other federal programs with related natural resource purposes  Hereinafter, the third type of appropriations is referred to as funding other purposes   The $18 9 billion appropriated from the fund through FY2019 has been allocated in different proportions among federal land acquisition, the state grant program, and other purposes  The largest portion of the total—$11 4 billion—has been appropriated for federal land acquisition  The state grant program has received the second-largest portion, $4 8 billion  Other purposes have received the remaining $2 7 billion  Appendix A shows the total LWCF appropriation for other purposes  Congress continues to consider the extent to which the LWCF should fund purposes other than federal land acquisition and outdoor recreation grants to states  Some traditional LWCF advocates and beneficiaries have expressed concern about expanding the use of the funds, particularly if such expansion results in lower appropriations for land acquisition and outdoor recreation grants to states  Some Members of Congress, Presidents, and stakeholders have supported funding other purposes in order to draw on the balance in the fund for policy priorities, to shift the focus of the fund from land acquisition, or to achieve other goals  A number of measures introduced in recent Congresses sought to authorize funding from the LWCF for various other purposes  These measures were not enacted  They included proposals to specify an amount or percentage of funding for two programs that are currently funded by the LWCF—the Forest Legacy Program and Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation grants—although the LWCF Act does not specifically authorize this funding  Other proposals sought to authorize programs or activities that have not been funded by LWCF in the past, or that have been rarely funded by LWCF in the past  For instance, one 115 th Congress bill would have authorized LWCF funding for certain programs and activities of the major land management agencies, including deferred maintenance, critical infrastructure, visitor services, and clean-up efforts; the Payments in Lieu of Taxes Program; and certain offshore energy exploration, innovation, and education activities  As another example, one 115 th Congress bill proposed to authorize LWCF funding for financial assistance from the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for park and recreation infrastructure projects  The balance of this report discusses the other purposes for which LWCF appropriations have been provided throughout the fund's history  It identifies the amount of funding contained in annual appropriations laws for other purposes and the types of purposes for which funds have been appropriated  A total of $72 0 million was appropriated from the LWCF for other purposes in FY1998, the first year in which LWCF was used to fund other purposes  The total included $60 0 million for maintenance needs of the four land management agencies and $12 0 million for rehabilitation and maintenance of the Beartooth Highway (in Wyoming and Montana)  In FY1998, total LWCF appropriations had spiked to approximately $969 million from the FY1997 level of about $159 million  Both the dollar amounts and the percentages of annual LWCF appropriations for other purposes have varied widely since FY1998  (See Appendix B  ) Over the most recent 10 years, LWCF appropriations for other purposes fluctuated, declining overall from $132 5 million in FY2010 to $93 3 million in FY2019 (in current dollars)  However, the FY2019 level was the highest appropriation since FY2010  Beginning in FY2011, appropriations for other purposes in each year have been less than $100 million, as was the case for FY1998-FY2000  Appropriations for other purposes were at their lowest dollar amount in FY1999, when no funds for other purposes were appropriated  The next-lowest dollar value was provided for FY2000, when a total of $20 0 million was appropriated for three purposes: Elwha River Ecosystem restoration (in Washington), deferred maintenance of the NPS, and the FS Forest Legacy program  By contrast, from FY2001 to FY2010, appropriations for other purposes exceeded $100 million in each year  In fact, during four of these years (FY2004-FY2007), the annual appropriation was between $200 million and $225 million  The appropriation surpassed $400 million in another year during the period  Specifically, the $456 0 million appropriation in FY2001 was more than double the amount provided for other purposes in any other year  These appropriations were used to fund more than a dozen programs in the Clinton Administration's Lands Legacy Initiative  In that year, total LWCF appropriations exceeded the annual authorization level, totaling nearly $1 billion  This record level of funding was provided partly in response to President Clinton's Lands Legacy Initiative, which sought $1 4 billion for about two dozen resource-protection programs, including the LWCF  It also was provided partly in response to some congressional interest in securing increased and more certain funding for the LWCF  The highest percentage of annual funds provided for other purposes occurred in FY2006 and FY2007 (59% in both years), in response to President George W  Bush's request for funding for an array of programs  For instance, in FY2007 the Bush Administration sought funding from the LWCF for 15 programs in addition to land acquisition and state grants  For that year, the appropriation for five other purposes was $216 1 million, out of a total LWCF appropriation of $366 1 million  In some years, the appropriation for other purposes was significantly less than the Administration requested  For example, for FY2008 the Bush Administration sought $313 1 million for other purposes, or 83% of the total request of $378 7 million  The FY2008 appropriation for other purposes was $101 3 million, or 40% of the LWCF total of $255 1 million  The $2 7 billion appropriated from the LWCF from FY1998 to FY2019 for other purposes represents 27% of the $10 0 billion total appropriations from LWCF during the period  FWS and FS have received the largest shares of the appropriations for other purposes, about $1 4 billion (53%) and $1 0 billion (38%), respectively  BLM, NPS, the U S  Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have shared the remaining $0 2 billion (9%) of the appropriations for other purposes  (See Figure 1  ) Because there is no set of other purposes specified in the LWCF Act to be funded from the LWCF, presidents have sought funds for a variety of purposes  Congress has chosen which of these requests to fund from the LWCF, and whether to fund any additional programs from the LWCF not suggested by the President  Appropriations for other purposes have been provided for more than a dozen diverse natural resource-related programs, including facility maintenance of the land management agencies, ecosystem restoration, the Historic Preservation Fund, the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, the FS Forest Legacy program, FWS State and Tribal Wildlife Grants, the FWS Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, U S  Geological Survey science and cooperative programs, and Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Land and Water Claim Settlements  (See Appendix A  ) Although in earlier years several other purposes typically were funded from LWCF, since FY2008, funds have been appropriated annually only for grants under two programs: Forest Legacy and Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund  (See Appendix B and Figure 2   ) The total appropriation from LWCF for these two programs (since FY1998) is $1 7 billion, or 63% of all appropriations for other purposes ($2 7 billion)  These two programs and a third grant program funded prior to FY2008 from LWCF—FWS State and Tribal Wildlife Grants—have received more than three-quarters ($2 1 billion, 79%) of the total appropriations for other purposes  The appropriations through FY2019 are $944 4 million for Forest Legacy (35% of the other purposes total), $753 3 million for Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund (28% of total), and $448 5 million for State and Tribal Wildlife Grants (17% of total)  Grants under the Forest Legacy program are used to acquire lands or conservation easements to preserve private forests threatened by conversion to non-forest uses, such as agriculture or residences  FS provides matching grants to states through a competitive process that requires state approval and then national approval and ranking  The ranking is based on the importance of the project (potential public benefits from protection), the likelihood of the forest's conversion to non-forest uses, and the strategic relevance of the project, among other factors  The program is implemented primarily through state partners, usually state forestry agencies  State partners generally acquire, hold, and administer the easements or land purchases, although the federal government also may do so  The Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund provides grants "for species and habitat conservation actions on non-Federal lands, including habitat acquisition, conservation planning, habitat restoration, status surveys, captive propagation and reintroduction, research, and education " In addition to appropriations from LWCF, the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund typically receives additional appropriations  In recent years, the appropriations from LWCF generally have been used for two types of land acquisition grants provided to state and territories on a matching basis  Recovery land acquisition grants have been made for acquisition of habitats in support of species recovery goals and objectives  Habitat conservation plan land acquisition grants have been made for acquisition of lands that are associated with habitat conservation plans  State and Tribal Wildlife Grants are provided to states, territories, and tribes to develop and implement programs for the benefit of fish and wildlife and their habitats, including nongame species  State and Tribal Wildlife Grants received funding from the LWCF for FY2001-FY2007; subsequently, funding has been provided from the General Fund of the U S  Treasury  Currently, the largest portion of the program is for formula grants to states and territories on a matching basis  Funds from the formula grants may be used to develop state conservation plans and to implement specific conservation projects  Smaller amounts of funding have been appropriated for competitive grants to states and territories, and to tribal governments  The competitive grant programs do not have matching requirements  Appendix A shows the total LWCF appropriations for other purposes summed from FY1998 to FY2019  Appendix B shows the other purposes that received LWCF appropriations each year, the amount of LWCF appropriations for each purpose, and the total annual appropriations for other purposes  Appendix A  Total LWCF Appropriations for Other Purposes Appendix B  Annual LWCF Appropriations for Other Purposes 

ground_truth: The 116th Congress has begun to consider several issues related to two programs in the unemployment insurance (UI) system: Unemployment Compensation (UC) and Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE). The lapse in federal appropriations that occurred from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, created a partial government shutdown. As a result, agencies without funding furloughed many federal employees, and many federal employees excepted from furlough were working without pay during the lapse in appropriations. Furloughed federal employees may be eligible for UCFE benefits. Private-sector workers who are furloughed or laid off due to the partial government shutdown because they were employed by government contractors may be eligible for regular UC benefits. But, according to guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), excepted federal employees who are performing services (without pay) would generally be ineligible for UCFE benefits based on states' definitions of "unemployment." In this climate, there has been congressional interest in assisting furloughed and excepted federal employees through the UI system. UI legislative issues currently facing the 116th Congress include the following: the effects of the FY2019 sequester order on UI programs and benefits, the role of UI in providing temporary income replacement during a government shutdown, state fiscal concerns related to financing UC benefits, reemployment services and eligibility assessments (RESEA), potential consideration of the UI proposals included in the President's FY2020 budget, and congressional oversight related to a proposed UC drug testing rule reissued by DOL after previously being disapproved using the Congressional Review Act. In the 116th Congress, policymakers have introduced legislation related to UCFE benefits in response to the recent partial government shutdown (S. 165, H.R. 720, H.R. 725, and H.R. 1117), legislation to provide self-employment and relocation assistance benefits (S. 136 and H.R. 556), legislation to require that states consider an individual who quit employment because of sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking to be eligible for UC benefits (H.R. 1585), and legislation to amend Title III of the Social Security Act to extend RESEA to all UC claimants (H.R. 1759). For a brief overview of UC, see CRS In Focus IF10336, The Fundamentals of Unemployment Compensation.

prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 2.

Report 1: Colombia, one of the oldest democracies in the Western Hemisphere and the third most populous Latin American country, has endured a multisided civil conflict for more than five decades until President Juan Ma nuel Santos declared the conflict over in August 2017 at the end of a U N -monitored disarmament  According to the National Center for Historical Memory 2013 report, presented to the Colombian government as part of the peace process to end the fighting, some 220,000 Colombians died in the armed conflict through 2012, 81% of them civilians  The report also provided statistics quantifying the scale of the conflict, which has taken a huge toll on Colombian society: more than 23,000 selective assassinations between 1981 and 2012; internal displacement of more than 5 million Colombians due to land seizure and violence; 27,000 kidnappings between 1970 and 2010; and 11,000 deaths or amputees from anti-personnel land mines laid primarily by Colombia's main insurgent guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)  To date, more than 8 million Colombians, or roughly 15% of the population, have registered as conflict victims  Although the violence has scarred Colombia, the country has achieved a significant turnaround  Once considered a likely candidate to become a failed state, Colombia, over the past two decades, has overcome much of the violence that had clouded its future  For example, between 2000 and 2016, Colombia saw a 94% decrease in kidnappings and a 53% reduction in homicides (below 25 per 100,000 in 2016)  Coupled with success in lowering violence, Colombia has opened its economy and promoted trade, investment, and growth  Colombia has become one of Latin America's most attractive locations for foreign direct investment  Yet, after steady growth over several years, Colombia's economy slowed to 3 1% growth in 2015 and declined to 1 7% in 2017  Many analysts identified Colombia's dependence on oil and other commodity exports as the primary cause  Between 2012 and 2016, the Colombian government held formal peace talks with the FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla organization  Upon taking office for a second term in August 2014, President Santos declared peace, equality, and education as his top priorities, although achieving the peace agreement remained his major focus  In August 2016, the government and FARC negotiators announced they had concluded their talks and achieved a 300-page peace agreement  The accord was subsequently narrowly defeated in a popular referendum held in early October 2016, but was revised by the Santos government and agreed to by the FARC and then ratified by the Colombian Congress at the end of November 2016  The Colombian conflict predates the formal founding of the FARC in 1964, as the FARC had its beginnings in the peasant self-defense groups of the 1940s and 1950s  Colombian political life has long suffered from polarization and violence based on the significant disparities and inequalities suffered by landless peasants in the country's peripheral regions  In the late 19 th century and a large part of the 20 th century, the elite Liberal and Conservative parties dominated Colombian political life  Violence and competition between the parties erupted in a period of extreme violence in Colombia, known as La Violencia , set off in 1948 by the assassination of Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Gaitán  The violence continued for the next decade  After a brief military rule (1953-1958), the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed to a form of coalition governance, known as the National Front  Under the arrangement, the presidency of the country alternated between Conservatives and Liberals, each holding office in turn for four-year intervals  This form of government continued for 16 years (1958-1974)  The power-sharing formula did not resolve the tension between the two historic parties, and many leftist, Marxist-inspired insurgencies took root in Colombia, including the FARC, launched in 1964, and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which formed the following year  The FARC and ELN conducted kidnappings, committed serious human rights violations, and carried out a campaign of terrorist activities to pursue their goal of unseating the central government in Bogotá  Rightist paramilitary groups formed in the 1980s when wealthy ranchers and farmers, including drug traffickers, hired armed groups to protect them from the kidnapping and extortion plots of the FARC and ELN  In the 1990s, most of the paramilitary groups formed an umbrella organization, the United-Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)  The AUC massacred and assassinated suspected supporters of the insurgents and directly engaged the FARC and ELN in military battles  The Colombian military has long been accused of close collaboration with the AUC, accusations ranging from ignoring their activities to actively supporting them  Over time, the AUC became increasingly engaged in drug trafficking, and other illicit businesses  In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U S  government designated the FARC, ELN, and AUC as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)  The AUC was formally dissolved in a collective demobilization between 2003 and 2006 after many of its leaders stepped down  However, former paramilitaries joined armed groups (called criminal bands, or Bacrim, by the Colombian government) who continued to participate in the lucrative drug trade and commit other crimes and human rights abuses  When the FARC demobilized in 2017, other illegally armed groups began aggressive efforts to take control of former FARC territory and its criminal enterprises as FARC forces withdrew  (For more, see " The Current Security Environment ," below ) The inability of Colombia's two dominant parties to address the root causes of violence in the country led to the election of an independent, Álvaro Uribe, in the presidential contest of 2002  Uribe, who served two terms, came to office with promises to take on the violent leftist guerrillas, address the paramilitary problem, and combat illegal drug trafficking  During the 1990s, Colombia had become the region's—and the world's—largest producer of cocaine  Peace negotiations with the FARC under the prior administration of President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) had ended in failure; the FARC used a large demilitarized zone located in the central Meta department (see map, Figure 1 ) to regroup and strengthen itself  The central Colombian government granted the FARC this demilitarized zone, a traditional practice in Colombian peace negotiations, but the FARC used it to launch terror attacks, conduct operations, and increase the cultivation of coca and its processing, while failing to negotiate seriously  Many analysts, noting the FARC's strength throughout the country, feared that the Colombian state might fail and some Colombian citizens thought the FARC might at some point successfully take power  The FARC was then reportedly at the apogee of its strength, numbering an estimated 16,000 to 20,000 fighters under arms  This turmoil opened the way for the aggressive strategy advocated by Uribe  At President Uribe's August 2002 inauguration, the FARC showered the event with mortar fire, signaling the group's displeasure at the election of a hardliner, who believed a military victory over the Marxist rebels was possible  In his first term (2002-2006), President Uribe sought to shore up and expand the country's military, seeking to reverse the armed forces' losses by aggressively combating the FARC  He entered into peace negotiations with the AUC  President Pastrana had refused to negotiate with the rightist AUC, but Uribe promoted the process and urged the country to back a controversial Justice and Peace Law that went into effect in July 2005 and provided a framework for the AUC demobilization  By mid-2006, some 31,000 AUC paramilitary forces had demobilized  The AUC demobilization, combined with the stepped-up counternarcotics efforts of the Uribe administration and increased military victories against the FARC's irregular forces, helped to bring down violence, although a high level of human rights violations still plagued the country  Uribe became widely popular for the effectiveness of his security policies, a strategy he called "Democratic Security " Uribe's popular support was evident when Colombian voters approved a referendum to amend their constitution in 2005 to permit Uribe to run for a second term  Following his reelection in 2006, President Uribe continued to aggressively combat the FARC  For Uribe, 2008 was a critical year  In March 2008, the Colombian military bombed the camp of FARC's second-in-command, Raul Reyes (located inside Ecuador a short distance from the border), killing him and 25 others  Also in March, another of FARC's ruling seven-member secretariat was murdered by his security guard  In May, the FARC announced that their supreme leader and founder, Manuel Marulanda, had died of a heart attack  The near-simultaneous deaths of three of the seven most important FARC leaders were a significant blow to the organization  In July 2008, the Colombian government dramatically rescued 15 long-time FARC hostages, including three U S  defense contractors who had been held captive since 2003 and Colombian senator and former presidential candidate Ingrid Bentancourt  The widely acclaimed, bloodless rescue further undermined FARC morale  Uribe's success and reputation, however, were marred by several scandals  They included the "parapolitics" scandal in 2006 that exposed links between illegal paramilitaries and politicians, especially prominent members of the national legislature  Subsequent scandals that came to light during Uribe's tenure included the "false positive" murders allegedly carried out by the military (primarily the Colombian Army) in which innocent civilians were executed and then dressed to look like guerilla fighters to increase the military's rebel body count  In 2009, the media revealed another scandal of illegal wiretapping and other surveillance by the government intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), to discredit journalists, members of the judiciary, and political opponents of the Uribe government  (In early 2012, the tarnished national intelligence agency was replaced by Uribe's successor, Juan Manuel Santos ) Despite the controversies, President Uribe remained popular and his supporters urged him to run for a third term in 2010  Another referendum was proposed to alter the constitution to allow a third term; however, it was turned down by Colombia's Constitutional Court  Once it became clear that President Uribe was constitutionally ineligible to run again, Juan Manuel Santos of the pro-Uribe National Unity party (or Party of the U) quickly consolidated his preeminence in the 2010 presidential campaign  Santos, a centrist, who came from an elite family that once owned the country's largest newspaper, had served as Uribe's defense minister through 2009  In 2010, Santos campaigned on a continuation of the Uribe government's approach to security and its role encouraging free markets and economic opening, calling his reform policy "Democratic Prosperity " In the May 2010 presidential race, Santos took almost twice as many votes as his nearest competitor, Antanas Mockus of the centrist Green Party, but he did not win a majority  Santos won the June runoff with 69% of the vote  Santos's "national unity" ruling coalition formed during his campaign included the center-right National Unity and Conservative parties, the centrist Radical Change Party, and the center-left Liberal party  On August 7, 2010, President Santos said in his first inauguration speech that he planned to follow in the path of President Uribe, but that "the door to [peace] talks [with armed rebels] is not locked " The Santos government was determined to improve relations with Ecuador and Venezuela, which had become strained under Uribe  Santos sought to increase cooperation on cross-border coordination and counternarcotics  He attempted to reduce tensions with Venezuela that had become fraught under Uribe, who claimed that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had long harbored FARC and ELN forces  During his first two years in office, President Santos reorganized the executive branch and built on the market opening strategies of the Uribe administration and secured a free-trade agreement with the United States, Colombia's largest trade partner, which went into effect in May 2012  To address U S  congressional concerns about labor relations in Colombia, including the issue of violence against labor union members, the United States and Colombia agreed to an "Action Plan Related to Labor Rights" (Labor Action Plan) in April 2011  Many of the steps prescribed by the plan were completed in 2011 while the U S  Congress was considering the free trade agreement  Significantly, the Santos government maintained a vigorous security strategy and struck hard at the FARC's top leadership  In September 2010, the Colombian military killed the FARC's top military commander, Victor Julio Suárez (known as "Mono Jojoy"), in a bombing raid  In November 2011, the FARC's supreme leader, Guillermo Leon Saenz (aka "Alfonso Cano") was assassinated  He was replaced by Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri (known as "Timoleón Jiménez" or "Timochenko"), the group's current leader  While continuing the security strategy, the Santos administration began to re-orient the Colombian government's stance toward the internal armed conflict through a series of reforms  The first legislative reform that moved this new vision along, signed by President Santos in June 2011, was the Victims' and Land Restitution Law (Victims' Law), to provide comprehensive reparations to an estimated (at the time) 4 million to 5 million victims of the conflict  Reparations under the Victims' Law included monetary compensation, psycho-social support and other aid for victims, and the return of millions of hectares of stolen land to those displaced  The law was intended to process an estimated 360,000 land restitution cases  The government's implementation of this complex law began in early 2012  Between 2011 and 2016, there were more than 100,000 applications for restitution and 5,000 properties, or about 5%, were resolved by judges  The Victims' Law, while not a land reform measure, tackled issues of land distribution including the restitution of stolen property to displaced victims  Given the centrality of land issues to the rural peasant-based FARC, passage of the Victims' Law was a strong indicator that the Santos government shared its interest in addressing land and agrarian concerns  In June 2012, another government initiative—the Peace Framework Law, also known as the Legal Framework for Peace—was approved by the Colombian Congress, which signaled that congressional support for a peace process was growing  In August 2012, President Santos announced he had opened exploratory peace talks with the FARC and was ready to launch formal talks  The countries of Norway, Cuba, Venezuela, and Chile each held an international support role, with Norway and Cuba serving as peace talk hosts and "guarantors " Following the formal start in Norway, the actual negotiations began a month later in mid-November 2012 in Cuba, where the FARC-government talks continued until their conclusion in August 2016  In the midst of extended peace negotiations, Colombia's 2014 national elections presented a unique juncture for the country  During the elections, the opposition Centro Democrático (CD) party gained 20 seats in the Senate and 19 in the less powerful Chamber of Representatives, and its leader, former President Uribe, became a popular senator  His presence in the Senate challenged the new ruling coalition that backed President Santos  During his second-term inaugural address in August 2014, President Santos declared three pillars—peace, equality, and education—as his focus, yet his top priority was to conclude the peace negotiations with the FARC  In February 2015, the Obama Administration provided support to the peace talks by naming Bernard Aronson, a former U S  assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, as the U S  Special Envoy to the Colombian peace talks  Talks with the FARC concluded in August 2016  In early October, to the surprise of many, approval of the accord was narrowly defeated in a national plebiscite by less than a half percentage point of the votes cast, indicating a polarized electorate  Regardless, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2016, in part demonstrating strong international support for the peace agreement  In response to the voters' criticisms, the Santos government and the FARC crafted a modified agreement, which they signed on November 24, 2016  Rather than presenting this agreement to a plebiscite, President Santos sent it directly to the Colombian Congress, where it was ratified on November 30, 2016  Although both chambers of Colombia's Congress approved the agreement unanimously, members of the opposition CD party criticized various provisions in the accord that they deemed inadequate and boycotted the vote  The peace process was recognized as the most significant achievement of the Santos presidency and lauded outside of Colombia and throughout the region  Over the course of two terms, the President's approval ratings rose and fell rather significantly  His crowning achievement, the accord negotiated over 50 rounds of talks, covered five substantive topics: rural development and agricultural reform; political participation by the FARC; an end to the conflict, including demobilization, disarmament and reintegration; a solution to illegal drug trafficking; and justice for victims  A sixth topic provided for mechanisms to implement and monitor the peace agreement  Colombians elected a new congress in March 2018 and a new president in June 2018  Because no presidential candidate won more than 50% of the vote on May 27, 2018, as required for a victory in the first round, a second-round runoff was held June 17 between the rightist candidate Iván Duque and the leftist candidate Gustavo Petro (see results for presidential contest, Figure 3 )  Duque was carried to victory with almost 54% of the vote  Runner-up Petro, a former mayor of Bogotá, a former Colombian Senator, and once a member of the M-19 guerilla insurgency, nevertheless did better than any leftist candidate in a presidential race in the past century; he won 8 million votes and nearly 42% of the votes cast  Around 4 2% were protest votes, signifying Colombian voters who cast blank ballots  Through alliance building, Duque achieved a functional majority or a "unity" government, which involved the Conservative Party, Santos's prior National Unity or Party of the U, joining the CD, although compromise was required to keep the two centrist parties in sync with the more conservative CD  In the new Congress, two extra seats, for the presidential and vice presidential runners up, became automatic seats in the Colombian Senate and House, due to a constitutional change in 2015, allowing presidential runner up Gustavo Petro to return to the Senate  The CD party, which gained seats in both houses in the March vote, won the majority in the Colombian Senate (see Figure 2 for seat breakouts by party)  Duque, who was inaugurated on August 7, 2018, at the age of 42, was the youngest Colombian president elected in a century  He possessed limited experience in Colombian politics  Duque was partially educated in the United States and worked for at decade at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC  He was the handpicked candidate of former president Uribe, who vocally opposed many of Santos's policies  Disgruntled Colombians perceived Santos as an aloof president whose energy and political capital were expended accommodating an often-despised criminal group, the FARC  President Duque appeared to be technically oriented and interested in economic reform, presenting himself as a modernizer  During his campaign, Duque called for economic renewal and lower taxes, fighting crime, and building renewed confidence in the country's institutions through some reforms  On September 26, 2018, in a speech before the U N  General Assembly, the new president outlined his policy objectives   Duque called for increasing legality, entrepreneurship, and fairness by (1) promoting peace; (2) combating drug trafficking and recognizing it as a global menace, and (3) fighting corruption, which he characterized as a threat to democracy  He also maintained that the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela, resulting in more than 1 million migrants fleeing to Colombia, was an emergency that threatened to destabilize the region  Duque proposed a leadership role for Colombia in denouncing the authoritarian government of President Nicolás Maduro and containing his government's damage  By late November 2018, 1 2 million Venezuelans already present in Colombia were putting increasing pressure on the government's finances, generating a burden estimated at nearly 0 5% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP)  President Duque, along with his vice president, Marta Lucía Ramírez, who initially ran as the Conservative Party candidate in the first round, recommended that drug policy shift back to a stricter counterdrug approach rather than a model endorsed in the peace accord, which focuses on voluntary eradication and economic support to peasant farmers to transition away from illicit drug crops  Duque campaigned on returning to spraying coca crops with the herbicide glyphosate  This would reverse Colombia's decision in mid-2015 to end aerial spraying, which had been a central—albeit controversial—feature of U S -Colombian counter-drug cooperation for two decades  Colombians' concerns with corruption became particularly acute during the 2018 elections, as major scandals were revealed  Similar to many countries in the region, government officials, including Santos during his 2014 campaign for reelection and the opposition candidate during that campaign were accused of taking payoffs (bribes) from the Odebrecht firm, the Brazilian construction company that became embroiled in a region-wide corruption scandal  In December 2018, presidential runner up Gustavo Petro was accused of taking political contributions from Odebrecht in a video released by a CD senator, indicating that both the left and the right of the Colombian political spectrum has been tainted by corruption allegations  In June 2017, the U S  Drug Enforcement Administration arrested Colombia's top anti-corruption official, Gustavo Moreno  In mid-September 2017, the former chief justice of Colombia's Supreme Court was arrested for his alleged role in a corruption scandal that involved other justices accused of taking bribes from Colombian congressmen, some with ties to illegal paramilitary groups  The series of corruption charges made against members of Colombia's judicial branch, politicians, and other officials made the issue a prominent one in Colombian politics and was the focus of a left-centrist candidate's campaign in the presidential contest  In late August 2018, an anti-corruption referendum was defeated by narrowly missing a high vote threshold by less than a half percentage point, although the actual vote favored all seven proposed changes on the ballot  President Duque endorsed the referendum and maintains he will seek to curb many of the abuses identified in the referendum through legislation that his administration will propose  The Duque Administration's first budget for 2019 presented in late October 2018 was linked to an unpopular tax reform that would expand a value-added tax to cover basic food and agricultural commodities (some 36 items in the basic basket of goods, such as eggs and rice, previously exempted)  The 2019 budget totals $89 7 billion, providing the education, military and police, and health sectors with the biggest increases, and reducing funding for peace accord implementation  Duque's own Democratic Center party split with him on the value-added tax, which quickly sank his approval ratings from 53% in early September 2018 to a low of 27% in November 2018, among the lowest levels in the early part of a presidential mandate in recent Colombian history  Colombia's economy is the fourth largest in Latin America after Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina  The World Bank characterizes Colombia as an upper middle-income country, although its commodities-dependent economy has been hit by oil price declines and peso devaluation related to the erosion of fiscal revenue  Between 2010 and 2014, Colombia's economy grew at an average of more than 4%, but slowed to 3 1% GDP growth in 2015  In 2017, Colombia's GDP growth slowed further to 1 7%  Despite its relative economic stability, high poverty rates and inequality have contributed to social upheaval in Colombia for decades  The poverty rate in 2005 was slightly above 45%, but declined to below 27% in 2016  The issues of limited land ownership and high rural poverty rates remain a problem  According to a United Nations study published in 2011, 1 2% of the population owned 52% of the land, and data revealed in 2016 that about 49% of Colombians continued to work in the informal economy  Colombia is often described as a country bifurcated between metropolitan areas with a developed, middle-income economy, and some rural areas that are poor, conflict-ridden, and weakly governed  The fruits of the growing economy have not been shared equally with this ungoverned, largely rural periphery  Frequently these more remote areas are inhabited by ethnic minorities or other disadvantaged groups, such as Afro-Colombians, indigenous populations, or landless peasants and subsistence farmers, who are vulnerable to illicit economies due to few connections to the formal economy  The United States is Colombia's leading trade partner  Colombia accounts for a small percentage of U S  trade (approximately 1%), ranking 22 nd among U S  export markets and 27 th among foreign exporters to the United States in 2017  Colombia has secured free trade agreements with the European Union, Canada, and the United States, and with most nations in Latin America  Colombian officials have worked over the past decade to increase the attractiveness of investing in Colombia, and foreign direct investment (FDI) grew by 16% between 2015 and 2016  This investment increase came not only from the extractive industries, such as petroleum and mining, but also from such areas as agricultural products, transportation, and financial services  Promoting more equitable growth and ending the internal conflict were twin goals of the two-term Santos administration  Unemployment, which historically has been high at over 10%, fell below that double-digit mark during Santos's first term and remained at 9 2% in 2016 but rose slightly to an estimated 9 6% in 2018  Although Colombia is ranked highly for business-friendly practices and has a favorable regulatory environment that encourages trade across borders, it is still plagued by persistent corruption and an inability to effectively implement institutional reforms it has undertaken, particularly in regions where government presence is weak  According to the U S  State Department in its analysis of national investment climates, Colombia has demonstrated a political commitment to create jobs, develop sound capital markets, and achieve a legal and regulatory system that meets international norms for transparency and consistency  Despite its macroeconomic stability, several issues remain, such as a still-complicated tax system, a high corporate tax burden, and continuing piracy and counterfeiting issues  Colombia's rural-sector protestors formed strikes and blockades beginning in 2013 with demands for long-term and integrated-agricultural reform in a country with one of the most unequal patterns of land ownership  In October and November 2018, Colombian secondary and university students protested in high numbers during six large mobilizations, taking place over 60 days, to demand more funding for education  The four-year peace talks between the FARC and the Santos administration started in Norway and moved to Cuba where negotiators worked through a six-point agenda during more than 50 rounds of talks that produced agreements on six major topics  The final topic—verification to enact the programs outlined in the final accord—all parties knew would be the most challenging, especially with a polarized public and many Colombians skeptical of whether the FARC would be held accountable for its violence and crimes during the years of conflict  Some analysts have estimated that to implement the programs required by the commitments in the accord to ensure stable post-conflict development may require 15 years and cost from $30 billion to $45 billion  The country faces steep challenges to underwrite the post-accord peace programs in an era of declining revenues  While progress has been uneven, some programs (those related to drug trafficking) had external pressure to move forward quickly and some considered urgent received "fast track" treatment to expedite their regulation by Congress  The revised peace accord that was approved by the Colombian Congress in late 2016 was granted fast track implementation by the Colombian Constitutional Court in a ruling on December 13, 2016, particularly applied to the FARC's disarmament and demobilization  However, in May 2017, a new ruling by the high court determined that all legislation related to the implementation of the accord needed to be fully debated rather than passed in an expedited fashion, which some analysts maintain started to slow the process of implementing the accord significantly  The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame is responsible for monitoring and implementing the agreement  It issued two interim reports in November 2017 and August 2018  At the end of the last reporting period (June 2018), the Kroc Institute estimated that 63% of the 578 peace accord commitments have begun implementation  In relation to other peace accords it had studied, the Kroc Institute found that the implementation of Colombia's accord was on course as about average, although that progress took place prior to President Duque's election  The first provision undertaken was the demobilization of the FARC, monitored by a U N  mission that was approved by the U N  Security Council to verify implementation of the accords  U N  monitors also emptied large arm caches identified by FARC leaders, seizing the contents of more than 750 of the reported nearly 1,000 caches by the middle of 2017  With the final disarmament, President Santos declared the conflict over in mid-August 2017  The U S  State Department reported in its Country Reports on Terrorism 201 , that by September 25, 2017, the United Nations had verified the collection of 8,994 arms, 1 7 million rounds, and more than 40 tons of explosives  The report states that the Colombian government had accredited "roughly 11,000 ex-combatants for transition to civilian life " The FARC also revealed its hidden assets in September 2017, listing more than $330 million in mostly real estate investments  This announcement drew criticism from several analysts who note that the FARC assets are likely much greater  In July 2017, the U N  Security Council voted to expand its mandate and launch a second mission for three years to verify the reintegration of FARC guerrillas into civil society beginning September 20, 2017  One of Colombia's greatest challenges continues to be ensuring security for ex-combatants and demobilized FARC  The FARC's reintegration into civil society is a charged topic because the FARC's efforts in the 1980s to start a political party, known as the Patriotic Union, or the UP by its Spanish acronym, resulted in more than 3,000 party members being killed by rightwing paramilitaries and others  As of the end of 2018, reportedly 85 FARC members and their close relatives had been killed  In addition to unmet government guarantees of security, the FARC also has criticized the government for not adequately preparing for the group's demobilization  According to observers, the government failed to provide basic resources to FARC gathered throughout the country in specially designated zones for disarmament and demobilization (later renamed reintegration zones)  The demobilization areas or cantonments had been so little prepared in early 2017 that the FARC had in many cases to construct their own housing and locate food and other provisions  Reintegration of former combatants has proceeded slowly  The Constitutional Court's May 2017 ruling to restrict fast track, and controversy about the new court to try war crimes and other serious violations, the "Special Jurisdiction of Peace" led to further delays  Peace process advocates have cited limited attention to include ethnic Colombians, such as Afro-Colombian leaders and indigenous communities, into the accord's implementation, as required by the "ethnic chapter" of the peace accord  A U N  deputy human rights official warned in October 2017 that after a successful demobilization it would be dangerous not to reintegrate FARC former combatants by providing them realistic options for income and delaying effective reintegration could undermine peace going forward  Under the peace accord, Territorially Focused Development Programs (PDETs in Spanish) are a tool for planning and managing a broad rural development process, with the aim of transforming170 municipalities (covering 16 subregions) most affected by the armed conflict  PDETs target those municipalities in Colombia with the highest number of displacements and those that have experienced the most killings, massacres, and forced disappearances  These marginal areas generally have experienced chronic poverty, high inequality, the presence of illicit crops such as coca, and low levels of local government institutional performance  Violence and forced displacements in some of the PDET municipalities increased in the last half of 2018  Colombia's Constitutional Court determined in October 2017 that over the next three presidential terms (until 2030), Colombia must follow the peace accord commitments negotiated by the Santos administration and approved by the Colombian Congress in 2016  The Special Jurisdiction of Peace, set up to adjudicate the most heinous crimes of Colombia's decades-long armed conflict, began to hear cases in July 2018  However, Colombians remain skeptical of its capacity  A key challenge is the case of a FARC leader and lead negotiator in the peace process, Jesús Santrich, alleged to have committed drug trafficking crimes in 2017 after the accord was ratified, who has been jailed  Colombia has confronted a complex security environment of armed groups: two violent leftist insurgencies, the FARC and the ELN, and groups that succeeded the AUC following its demobilization during the Uribe administration  The FARC, whittled down by the government's military campaign against it, continued to conduct a campaign of terrorist activities during peace negotiations with the government through mid-2015, but it imposed successive temporary unilateral cease-fires that significantly reduced violence levels  In August 2016, the FARC and the government concluded negotiations on a peace accord that was subsequently approved by Congress with modifications in November 2016  Authorities and some analysts maintain that since the peace accord was ratified, 5% to 10% of the FARC have become dissidents who reject the peace settlement, although other estimates suggest a higher percentage  These armed individuals remain a threat  As agreed in the peace accord, the demobilized rebels transitioned to a political party that became known as the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (retaining the acronym FARC) in September 2017  On November 1, 2017, the FARC announced their party's presidential ticket: current FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño (aka Timochenko) for president and Imelda Daza for vice president  The FARC Party ran several candidates in congressional races but failed to win any additional congressional race for which it competed in the March 2018 legislative elections, so the automatic seats in Congress were the only ones that it filled  The ELN, like the FARC, became deeply involved in the drug trade and used extortion, kidnapping, and other criminal activities to fund itself  The ELN, with diminished resources and reduced offensive capability, according to government estimates, declined to fewer than 2,000 fighters, although some analysts maintain in 2018 the forces grew as high as 3,400, including former FARC who were recruited to join the ELN as the larger rebel group demobilized  In 2015, ELN leadership began exploratory peace talks with the Santos government in Ecuador, although the ELN continued to attack oil and transportation infrastructures and conduct kidnappings and extortions, at least periodically  Formal talks with the ELN finally opened in February 2017 in Quito, Ecuador  After the talks moved to Cuba in May 2018, at the request of Ecuador's President Lenín Moreno, several negotiating sessions took place  The ELN's central leadership, including Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista (aka "Gabino"), arrived in Cuba to continue the talks  However, President Duque in September 2018 suspended the talks and recalled the government negotiating team  The ELN is far more regionally oriented, decentralized, and nonhierarchical in its decisionmaking than the FARC  Late in 2018, a Colombian political online magazine claimed a meeting had been held two months earlier between FARC dissident groups and the ELN in Venezuela in which the parties discussed how to increase their coordination  On January 17, 2019, a car bomb attack at a National Police academy in southern Bogotá shattered illusions that Colombia's long internal conflict with insurgents was coming to an end  The bombing, allegedly carried out by an experienced ELN bomb maker, killed 20 police cadets and the bomber and injured more than 65 others  The ELN took responsibility for the attack in a statement published on January 21  Large demonstrations took place in Bogotá protesting the return of violence to Colombia's capital city  The Duque government ended peace talks with the ELN, which had been ongoing sporadically since 2017  The Duque government then requested extradition of the ELN's delegation of negotiators to the peace talks in Cuba on terrorism charges  The Cuban government, which condemned the bombing, responded that the protocols for the peace talks required that the negotiators be returned to Colombia without arrest  The Duque government has persisted in requesting the negotiators to be extradited  The AUC, the loosely affiliated national umbrella organization of paramilitaries, officially disbanded a decade ago  The organization was removed from the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations list in July 2014  More than 31,000 AUC members demobilized between 2003 and 2006, and many AUC leaders stepped down  However, as noted, many former AUC paramilitaries continued their illicit activities or re-armed and joined criminal groups—known as Bacrim   Many observers view the Bacrim as successors to the paramilitaries, and the Colombian government has characterized these groups as the biggest threat to Colombia's security since 2011  The Bacrim do not appear to be motivated by the dream of defeating the national government, but they seek territorial control and appear to provide rudimentary justice in ungoverned parts of the country  In 2013, the criminal group Los Urabeños, launched in 2006, emerged as the dominant Bacrim  Over its lifetime, the group has been referred to as the Gaitanistas, the Clan Úsuga, and most recently El Clan del Golfo, growing to about 3,000 members by 2015  The Urabeños organization is heavily involved in cocaine trafficking as well as arms trafficking, money laundering, extortion, gold mining, human trafficking, and prostitution  Early leaders of the group, such as founder Daniel Rendón Herrera (alias "Don Mario") and his brother Feddy Rendón Herrera were designated drug kingpins under the U S  Kingpin Act in 2009 and 2010, respectively  However, because these men had been part of the AUC peace process, they could not be extradited to the United States until they had served time and paid reparations  In June 2015, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against 17 alleged Urabeños members  The Colombian government's efforts to dismantle the Urabeños and interrupt its operations began to result in the capture of top leaders and gradually to disrupt its illicit activities  The Urabeños faced an intense enforcement campaign by the Colombian police and military, especially after the Urabeños reportedly advertised and paid rewards to its subcontracted assassins to murder Colombian police  In September 2017, the Urabeños top leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga (alias "Otoniel"), requested terms of surrender from the Santos government after the arrest of his wife and the killing or arrest of siblings and co-leaders, but this offer was never formalized  Colombia captured a vast amount of cocaine, approximately 12 metric tons, linked to the the Urabeños in November 2017  Splinter groups of the large Colombian drug cartels of the 1980s and 1990s, such as the Medellin Cartel and Cali Cartel, have come and gone in Colombia, including the powerful transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) the Norte del Valle Cartel and Los Rastrajos  The U S  Drug Enforcement Administration's 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment maintains "large-scale Colombian TCOs" work closely with Mexican and Central American TCOs to export large quantities of cocaine out of Colombia every year  Traditionally, the FARC and ELN had cooperated with Bacrim and other Colombian crime groups in defense of drug trafficking and other illicit activities despite the groups' ideological differences  Venezuela is a major transit corridor for Colombian cocaine  According to the State Department's 2018 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report , Venezuela's porous western border with Colombia, current economic crisis, weak judicial system, sporadic international drug control cooperation, and a permissive and corrupt environment make it a preferred trafficking route for illicit drugs  A May 2018 report by Insight Crime identified more than 120 high-level Venezuelan officials who have engaged in criminal activity  The report analyzes how the Venezuelan military, particularly the National Guard, has been involved in the drug trade since 2002 and colluded with other illegally armed groups  Another Bacrim, Los Rastrojos, reportedly controls important gasoline smuggling routes between Venezuela and Colombia in 2018  Similarly, in the past year, ELN guerrillas reportedly have moved from seeking safe haven in Venezuela to taking control of illicit gold mining areas near Venezuela's border with Guyana  Both the ELN, which is still engaged in armed conflict with the Colombian government, and its rival, the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), reportedly recruit Venezuelans to cultivate coca in Colombia  Human trafficking and sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrants throughout Colombia is prevalent  Dissident FARC guerrillas are using border areas and other remote areas in the countryside to regroup and could eventually seek to consolidate into a more unified organization or coordinate with other criminal groups sheltering in Venezuela  The State Department's 2017 terrorism report published in April 2018 maintained that the number of terrorist incidents in Colombia—carried out by the FARC and ELN—decreased significantly, by 40%, over the already much-diminished level of 2016  ELN aggression included high-impact attacks, such as launching mortars at police stations and bombing pipelines, although the report also states that ELN demobilizations and surrenders have increased  The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has set in motion a mass exodus of desperate migrants, who have come temporarily (or for extended stays) to Colombia  Although Venezuela has experienced hyperinflation (the highest in the world), a rapid contraction of its economy, and severe shortages of food and medicine, as of November 2018 Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has refused most international humanitarian assistance  Based on estimates from the U N  High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of November 2018, more than 3 million Venezuelans were living outside Venezuela; of these, an estimated 2 3 million left after 2015  As conditions in Venezuela have continued to deteriorate, increasing numbers of Venezuelans have left the country  Neighboring countries, particularly Colombia, are straining to absorb a migrant population that is often malnourished and in poor health  The spread of previously eradicated diseases, such as measles, is also a major regional concern  In January 2019, the Trump Administration announced backing for the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as interim president of Venezuela  The Trump Administration has called for Maduro's departure, and Colombia joined many other countries in Latin America and Europe to recognize Guaidó  U S  Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced that the United States was prepared to provide $20 million in humanitarian assistance to the people of Venezuela  Colombia joined 11 countries in the Lima Group that declared on February 4, 2019, their desire to hasten a return to democracy in Venezuela by working with Guaidó for a peaceful transition without the use of force  Colombia's multisided internal conflict over the last half century generated a lengthy record of human rights abuses  Although it is widely recognized that Colombia's efforts to reduce violence, combat drug trafficking and terrorism, and strengthen the economy have met with success, many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights groups continue to report significant human rights violations, including violence targeting noncombatants, that involves killings, torture, kidnappings, disappearances, forced displacements, forced recruitments, massacres, and sexual attacks  The Center for Historical Memory report issued to the Colombian government in July 2013 traces those responsible for human rights violations to the guerrillas (the FARC and ELN), the AUC paramilitaries and successor paramilitary groups, and the Colombian security forces  In analyzing nearly 2,000 massacres between 1980 and 2012 documented in the center's database, the report maintains that 58 9% were committed by paramilitaries, 17 3% by guerrillas, and 7 9% by public security forces  According to the U S  State Department's annual report on human rights covering 2017, Colombia's most serious human rights abuses centered on extrajudicial and unlawful killings; torture and detentions; rape and sexual crimes  In addition to the State Department, numerous sources report regularly on human rights conditions in Colombia  (See Appendix  ) Colombia continues to experience murders and threats of violence against journalists, human rights defenders, labor union members, social activists such as land rights leaders, and others  Crimes of violence against women, children, Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders, and other vulnerable groups continue at high rates  In December 2018, the U N  special rapporteur on human rights defenders came out with strong criticism of heightened murders of human rights defenders, which he maintained were committed by hitmen paid no more than $100 per murder, according to reports he heard from activists and other community members whom he met with during a trip to Colombia  These ongoing issues reflect constraints of the Colombian judicial system to effectively prosecute crimes and overcome impunity  For many years, human rights organizations have raised concerns about extrajudicial executions committed by Colombian security forces, particularly the military  In 2008, it was revealed that several young men from the impoverished community of Soacha—who had been lured allegedly by military personnel from their homes to another part of the country with the promise of employment—had been executed  When discovered, the Soacha murder victims had been disguised as guerrilla fighters to inflate military claims of enemy body counts, resulting in the term false positives   Following an investigation into the Soacha murders, the military quickly fired 27 soldiers and officers, including three generals, and the army's commander resigned  The Colombian prosecutor general's criminal investigations of soldiers and officers who allegedly participated in the Soacha executions have proceeded quite slowly  Some 48 of the military members eventually charged with involvement in the Soacha cases were released due to the expiration of the statute of limitations  Whereas some soldiers have received long sentences, few sergeants or colonels have been successfully prosecuted  In 2009, the false positive phenomenon was investigated by the U N 's Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, who issued a report that concluded with no finding that such killings were a result of an official government policy  However, the Special Rapporteur did find, "the sheer number of cases, their geographic spread, and the diversity of military units implicated, indicate that these killings were carried out in a more or less systematic fashion by significant elements within the military " The majority of the cases took place between 2004 and 2008, when U S  assistance to Colombia peaked  In recent years, the number of new alleged false positive cases declined steeply, but human rights NGOs still reported a few cases in 2012 through 2015  To address the military's human rights violations, the Santos administration proposed a change to policy that did not prevail  This reform was a constitutional change to expand the jurisdiction of military courts and, it was approved by the Colombian Congress in late December 2012 by a wide margin despite controversy  Human rights groups criticized the legislation's shift in the jurisdiction over serious human rights crimes allegedly committed by Colombia's public security forces from the civilian to the military justice system  In its review of the constitutional amendment, the Colombian Constitutional Court struck down the law over procedural issues in October 2013  Human Rights Watch in a 2015 report on the false positive cases noted that prosecutors in the Human Rights Unit of the Prosecutor General's Office conducted investigations into more than 3,000 false positive homicide cases allegedly committed by army personnel that resulted in about 800 convictions, mostly of lower-ranking soldiers  Only a few of those convictions involved former commanders of battalions or other tactical units, and none of the investigations of 16 active and retired army generals had produced charges  In 2016, the prosecutions against generals accused of responsibility for false positives continued, although a few were closed and 12 remained under investigation at year's end  Additionally, in October 2016, the Colombian prosecutor general indicted Santiago Uribe, the brother of former President Uribe, on charges of murder and association to commit crimes for his alleged role in the paramilitary group "The 12 Apostols" in the 1990s  The State Department human rights report covering 2017, maintains that during the year through July, four new cases involving "aggravated homicide" committed by security forces and 11 new convictions were reached for "simple homicide" by security force members  Although estimates diverge, the number of human rights defenders murdered in 2016 totaled 80 and another 51 in the first half of 2017, according to Somos Defensores ("We are Defenders"), a Colombian NGO that tracks violence against defenders and is cited by the State Department  Some groups, such as the Colombian think tank, Indepaz, say the numbers are higher, up to 117 murders in 2016  In the two years since the approval of the 2016 peace accord, social leaders, ethnic community leaders, and human rights defenders have suffered from continued high levels of violence  Human rights organizations cite the murders of more than 100 activists in 2017 and in 2018  Of the 109 human rights and civil society activists killed in 2018 through November, some were leaders of efforts to implement the 2016 peace accord  For instance, 13 social leaders were assassinated in the southwest department of Cauca in the first six months of the year, a department in Colombia with the fourth largest area devoted to coca cultivation in the country and host to several peace accord programs associated with rural development, including voluntary eradication of drug crops  Few, if any, of those accused of making threats and ordering or carrying out assassinations have been prosecuted  According to these activists, perpetrators still have little to fear of legal consequences  Since early 2012, violence against land rights activists has risen sharply with the start of implementation of the Victims' Law that authorized the return of stolen land  A September 2013 report by Human Rights Watch pointing to the rise in violence against land activists and claimants maintained that the environment had turned so threatening that claimants who had received land judgments were too frightened to return, and the government had received more than 500 serious threats against claimants in less than 18 months  According to Human Rights Watch, many of the threats and killings have been conducted by paramilitary-influenced Bacrim, although they may be operating at the behest of third-party "landowners," who are trying to protect their land from seizure  For more than a decade, the Colombian government tried to suppress violence against groups facing extraordinary risk through the National Protection Unit (UPN) programs  Colombia's UPN provides protection measures, such as body guards and protective gear, to individuals in at-risk groups, including human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionists, and others  However, according to international and Colombian human rights groups, the UPN has been plagued by corruption issues and has inadequately supported the prosecution of those responsible for attacks  According to the State Department's Report on Human Rights Practices covering 2017, the UPN protected roughly 6,067 at-risk individuals, including 575 human rights activists, with a budget of $150 million  Journalists, a group that has traditionally received protection measures from the UPN, continue to operate in a dangerous environment in Colombia  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 47 journalists have been killed in work-related circumstances since 1992  Three Ecuadorian journalists were killed by a FARC dissident group close to the border of Ecuador in 2018, leading to the end of the Colombian government's peace talks with the ELN in Ecuador and their subsequent move to Cuba  To help monitor and verify that human rights were respected throughout implementation of the peace accord, the government formally renewed the mandate of the U N 's High Commissioner of Human Rights in 2016 for three years  The issue of violence against the labor movement in Colombia has sparked controversy and debate for years  Many human rights groups and labor advocates have maintained that Colombia's poor record on protecting its trade union members and leaders from violence is one reason to avoid closer trade relations with Colombia  The U S -Colombia Free Trade Agreement (also known as the U S -Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement) could not be enacted without addressing the deep concern of many Members of Congress that Colombia must enforce basic labor standards and especially measures to mitigate the alleged violence against trade union members and bring perpetrators of such violence to justice  In April 2011, the United States and Colombia agreed to an "Action Plan Related to Labor Rights" (the Labor Action Plan, LAP), which contained 37 measures that Colombia would implement to address violence, impunity, and workers' rights protection  Before the U S -Colombia Free Trade Agreement entered into force in April 2012, the U S  Trade Representative determined that Colombia had met all the important milestones in the LAP to date  Despite the programs launched and measures taken to implement the LAP, human rights and labor organizations claim that violence targeting labor union members continues  (Some analysts continue to debate whether labor activists are being targeted because of their union activities or for other reasons ) The Colombian government has acknowledged that violence and threats continue, but points to success in reducing violence generally and the number of homicides of labor unionists specifically  Violence levels in general are high in Colombia, but have steadily been decreasing  According to the data reported by the U N  Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its annual homicide report, rates have decreased dramatically since 2002, when the homicide rate was at 68 9 per 100,000  The Colombian Ministry of Defense reported in 2016 that the homicide rate had declined to 24 4 per 100,000  In this context of an overall steady decline in homicides, the number of labor union killings has also declined  For many years, the government and the leading NGO source that tabulates these crimes did not agree on the number of labor union murders because they used different methodologies  Both sources recorded a decline, but the government generally saw a steeper decline  According to the Colombian labor rights NGO and think tank, the National Labor School ( Escuela Nacional Sindical , ENS), there has been a significant decline from 191 labor union murders in 2001 to 20 reported in 2012  In 2017, through the month of August the ENS reported 14 labor murders  Of the cases covering homicides between January 2011 and August 2017, 162 homicide cases in which victims were labor union members, were 409 convictions, 31 for cases after 2011 and 378 for cases before 2011  In addition, labor advocates note that tracking homicides does not capture the climate of intimidation that Colombian labor unions face  In addition to lethal attacks, trade union members encounter increased death threats, arbitrary detention, and other types of harassment  Measures to strengthen the judicial system to combat impunity for such crimes are also part of the Labor Action Plan  Nevertheless, many analysts maintain there remains a large backlog of cases yet to be investigated involving violent crimes against union members  The internal conflict has been the major cause of a massive displacement of the civilian population that has many societal consequences, including implications for Colombia's poverty levels and stability  Colombia has one of the largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world  Most estimates place the total at more than 7 million IDPs, or more than 10% of Colombia's estimated population of 49 million  This number of Colombians, forcibly displaced and impoverished as a result of the armed conflict, continues to grow and has been described by many observers as a humanitarian crisis  Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people make up an estimated 15%-22% of the Colombian population  They are, however, disproportionately represented among those displaced  The leading Colombian NGO that monitors displacement, Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), reports that 36% of the victims of forced displacement nationwide in 2012 came from the country's Pacific region where Afro-Colombian and indigenous people predominate  The Pacific region has marginal economic development as a result of weak central government presence and societal discrimination  (Some 84% of the land in the Pacific region is subject to collective-title rights granted to Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities  ) Illegal armed groups are active in usurping land in this region, which is valued for its proximity to a major port and drug trafficking routes, and the Afro- and indigenous communities are also caught in the middle of skirmishes between illegal groups and Colombian security forces  IDPs suffer stigma and poverty and are often subject to abuse and exploitation  In addition to the disproportionate representation of Colombia's ethnic communities among the displaced, other vulnerable populations, including women and children, have been disproportionally affected  Women, who make up more than half of the displaced population in Colombia, can become targets for sexual harassment, violence, and human trafficking  Displacement is driven by a number of factors, most frequently in more remote regions of the country where armed groups compete and seek to control territory or where they confront Colombian security forces  Violence that uproots people includes threatened or actual child recruitment or other forced recruitment by illegal armed groups, as well as physical, psychological, and sexual violence  Other contributing factors reported by NGOs include counternarcotics measures such as aerial spraying, illegal mining, and large-scale economic projects in rural areas  Inter-urban displacement is a growing phenomenon in cities such as Buenaventura and Medellin, which often results from violence and threats by organized crime groups  The Victims' Law of 2011, which began to be implemented in 2012, is the major piece of legislation to redress Colombian displacement victims with the return of their stolen land  The historic law provides restitution of land to those IDPs who were displaced since January 1, 1991  The law aims to return land to as many as 360,000 families (impacting up to 1 5 million people) who had their land stolen  The government notes that some 50% of the land to be restituted has the presence of land mines and that the presence of illegally armed groups in areas where victims have presented their applications for land restitution has slowed implementation of the law  Between 2011 and 2016, 100,000 applications for land restitution were filed and approximately 5,000 properties (roughly 5% of applications) were successfully returned following judgements on the cases  With the international support from U S  Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors, a Victims Unit was established to coordinate the range of services for victims, including financial compensation and psychosocial services, provided by a host of government agencies  The 2011 Victims' Law is considered a model and particularly the implementation of a Victims' registry, which was supported by USAID  Through its Victims Unit, the Colombian government had provided financial reparations to over 800,000 victims and psychosocial support to 700,000 as of October 2018  The Global Report on Internal Displacement from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported, however, displacement inside Colombia continued with more than 171,000 internally displaced in 2016  As the political crisis in Venezuela has grown, a wave of refugees and migrants have come across the border into Colombia reversing an earlier trend  Venezuelans were fleeing political instability and economic turmoil in Colombia's once-wealthy neighboring nation  Venezuela's economic crisis worsened throughout 2018, prompting a sharp increase in migrants seeking to escape into Colombia  In response to the growing flood of Venezuelans, former President Santos initially announced that he would impose stricter migratory controls and deploy thousands of new security personnel along the frontier  Nevertheless, he acknowledged that Venezuela had once served as a vital escape valve for Colombian refugees fleeing their half century internal conflict, for which he was grateful  Colombia shares long borders with neighboring countries, and some of these border areas have been described as porous to illegal armed groups that threaten regional security  Colombia has a 1,370-mile border with Venezuela, approximately 1,000-mile borders with both Peru and Brazil, and shorter borders with Ecuador and Panama  Much of the territory is remote and rugged and suffers from inconsistent state presence  Although all of Colombia's borders have been problematic and subject to spillover effects from Colombia's armed conflict, the most affected are Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama  Over the years, Colombia's relations with Venezuela and Ecuador have been strained by Colombia's counterinsurgency operations, including cross-border military activity  The FARC and ELN insurgents have been present in shared-border regions and in some cases the insurgent groups used the neighboring countries to rest, resupply, and shelter  Former President Uribe accused the former Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez of harboring the FARC and ELN and maintained that he had evidence of FARC financing the 2006 political campaign of Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa  Relations between Ecuador and Colombia remained tense following the Colombian military bombardment of a FARC camp inside Ecuador in March 2008  Ecuador severed diplomatic relations with Colombia for 33 months  Also in 2008, Ecuador filed a suit against Colombia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), claiming damages to Ecuadorian residents affected by spray drift from Colombia's aerial eradication of drug crops  In September 2013, Colombia reached an out-of-court settlement awarding Ecuador $15 million  Once in office, President Santos reestablished diplomatic ties with both countries and in his first term (2010-2014) cooperation greatly increased between Colombia and Venezuela on border and security issues and with Ecuador's Correa  However, concerns about Venezuelan links to the FARC and the continued use of Venezuela by the FARC and ELN as a safe haven to make incursions into Colombia remained an irritant in Colombian-Venezuelan relations  Nevertheless, the Venezuelan and Colombian governments committed to jointly combat narcotics trafficking and illegal armed group activities along the porous Venezuelan-Colombian border and Venezuela remained a supporting government of the FARC-government peace talks (along with Chile, Norway, and Cuba) through 2016, even after former President Chávez died in office in March 2013  Ecuador's government hosted exploratory talks between the ELN and the Santos government beginning in 2015, which became formal talks hosted in Quito in February 2017, although Ecuador's president requested that the talks move to Cuba in May 2018, due to a spate of border violence that could have been related to the ELN  For many years, the region in Panama that borders Colombia, the Darien, was host to a permanent presence of FARC soldiers who used the remote area for rest and resupply as well to transit drugs north  By 2015, according to the State Department, the FARC was no longer maintaining a permanent militarized presence in Panamanian territory, in part due to effective approaches taken by Panama's National Border Service in coordination with Colombia  Nevertheless, the remote Darien region still faces challenges from smaller drug trafficking organizations and criminal groups such as Bacrim and experiences problems with human smuggling with counterterrorism implications  When Colombia hosted the Sixth Summit of the Americas in April 2012, President Obama and President Santos announced a new joint endeavor, the Action Plan on Regional Security Cooperation  This joint effort, built on ongoing security cooperation, addresses hemispheric challenges, such as combating transnational organized crime, bolstering counternarcotics, strengthening institutions, and fostering resilient communities


Report 2:  The Action Plan focuses on capacity building for security personnel in Central America and the Caribbean by Colombian security forces (both Colombian military and police)  To implement the plan, Colombia undertook several hundred activities in cooperation with Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and between 2013 and 2017 trained almost 17,000 individuals (see Figure 4 )  The Colombian government notes that this program grew dramatically from 34 executed activities in 2013 to 441 activities planned for 2018  Colombia has increasingly trained military and police from other countries both under this partnership and other arrangements, including countries across the globe  According to the Colombian Ministry of Defense, around 80% of those trained were from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean  U S  and Colombian officials maintain that the broader effort is designed to export Colombian expertise in combating crime and terrorism while promoting the rule of law and greater bilateral and multilateral law enforcement cooperation  Critics of the effort to "export Colombian security successes" maintain that human rights concerns have not been adequately addressed  Some observers question the portion of these activities that are funded by the U S  government and want to see more transparency  In one analysis of the training, a majority of the training was provided by Colombian National Police rather than the Colombian Army, in such areas as ground, air, maritime, and river interdiction; police testimony; explosives; intelligence operations; psychological operations; and Comando JUNGLA, Colombia's elite counternarcotics police program  Other analysts praise the Colombian training and maintain that U S  assistance provided in this way has helped to improve, professionalize, and expand the Colombian military, making it the region's second largest  As that highly trained military shifts from combating the insurgency and the Colombian National Police take the dominant role in guaranteeing domestic security, Colombia may play a greater role in regional security and even in coalition efforts internationally  In September 2017, President Trump announced that he had considered designating Colombia in noncompliance with U S  counternarcotics requirements, but noted that he had not proceeded with the step in part because of Colombian training efforts to assist others in the region with combating narcotics and related crime  Colombia is a key U S  ally in the region  With diplomatic relations that began in the 19 th century following Colombia's independence from Spain, the countries have enjoyed close and strong ties  Because of Colombia's prominence in the production of illegal drugs, the United States and Colombia forged a close partnership over the past 16 years  Focused initially on counternarcotics, and later counterterrorism, a program called Plan Colombia laid the foundation for a strategic partnership that has broadened to include sustainable development, human rights, trade, regional security, and many other areas of cooperation  Between FY2000 and FY2016, the U S  Congress appropriated more than $10 billion in assistance from U S  State Department and Department of Defense (DOD) accounts to carry out Plan Colombia and its follow-on strategies  During this time, Colombia made notable progress combating drug trafficking and terrorist activities and reestablishing government control over much of its territory  Its economic and social policies have reduced the poverty rate and its security policies have lowered the homicide rate  Counternarcotics policy has been the defining issue in U S -Colombian relations since the 1980s because of Colombia's preeminence as a source country for illicit drugs  Peru and Bolivia were the main global producers of cocaine in the 1980s and early 1990s  However, successful efforts there in reducing supply pushed cocaine production from those countries to Colombia, which soon surpassed both its Andean neighbors  The FARC and other armed groups in the country financed themselves primarily through narcotics trafficking, and that lucrative illicit trade provided the gasoline for the decades-long internal armed conflict at least since the 1990s  Colombia emerged to dominate the cocaine trade by the late 1990s  National concern about the crack cocaine epidemic and extensive drug use in the United States led to greater concern with Colombia as a source  As Colombia became the largest producer of coca leaf and the largest exporter of finished cocaine, heroin produced from Colombian-grown poppies was supplying a growing proportion of the U S  market  Alarm over the volumes of heroin and cocaine being exported to the United States was a driving force behind U S  support for Plan Colombia at its inception  The evolution of Plan Colombia took place under changing leadership and changing conditions in both the United States and Colombia  Plan Colombia was followed by successor strategies such as the National Consolidation Plan, described below, and U S -Colombia policy has reached a new phase anticipating post-conflict Colombia  Announced in 1999, Plan Colombia originally was a six-year strategy to end the country's decades-long armed conflict, eliminate drug trafficking, and promote development  The counternarcotics and security strategy was developed by the government of President Andrés Pastrana in consultation with U S  officials  Colombia and its allies in the United States realized that for the nation to gain control of drug trafficking required a stronger security presence, the rebuilding of institutions, and extending state presence where it was weak or nonexistent  Initially, the U S  policy focus was on programs to reduce the production of illicit drugs  U S  support to Plan Colombia consisted of training and equipping counternarcotics battalions in the Colombian Army and specialized units of the Colombian National Police, drug eradication programs, alternative development, and other supply reduction programs  The original 1999 plan had a goal to reduce "the cultivation, processing, and distribution of narcotics by 50%" over the plan's six-year timeframe  The means to achieve this ambitious goal were a special focus on eradication and alternative development; strengthening, equipping, and professionalizing the Colombian Armed Forces and the police; strengthening the judiciary; and fighting corruption  Other objectives were to protect citizens from violence, promote human rights, bolster the economy, and improve governance  U S  officials expressed their support for the program by emphasizing its counterdrug elements (including interdiction)  The focus on counternarcotics was the basis for building bipartisan support to fund the program in the U S  Congress because some Members of Congress were leery of involvement in fighting a counterinsurgency, which they likened to the "slippery slope" of the war in Vietnam  President George W  Bush came to office in 2001 and oversaw some changes to Plan Colombia  The primary vehicle for providing U S  support to Plan Colombia was the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, which was included in foreign operations appropriations  The Bush Administration requested new flexibility so that U S -provided assistance would back a "unified campaign against narcotics trafficking, terrorist activities, and other threats to [Colombia's] national security" due to the breakdown of peace talks between the FARC and the Pastrana government in February 2002  Congress granted this request for a unified campaign to fight drug trafficking and terrorist organizations as Members of Congress came to realize how deeply intertwined the activities of Colombia's terrorist groups were with the illicit drug trade that funded them  However, Congress prohibited U S  personnel from directly participating in combat missions  Congress placed a legislative cap on the number of U S  military and civilian contractor personnel who could be stationed in Colombia, although the cap was adjusted to meet needs over time  The current limit (first specified in the FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act, as amended) caps total military personnel at 800 and civilian contractors at 600, although numbers deployed have been far below the 1,400-person cap for years and now total fewer than 200  President Uribe (2002-2010) embraced Plan Colombia with an aggressive strategy toward the insurgent forces that prioritized citizen security  His Democratic Security Policy, implemented first in a military campaign called Plan Patriota, relied on the military to push FARC forces away from the major cities to remote rural areas and the borderlands  Like his predecessor, President Pastrana, Uribe continued to expand the Colombian military and police  He enhanced the intelligence capacity, professionalization, and coordination of the forces, in part with training provided by U S  forces  His strategy resulted in expanded state control over national territory and a significant reduction in kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and homicides  In 2007, the Uribe administration announced a shift to a "Policy of Consolidation of Democratic Security " The new doctrine was based on a "whole-of-government" approach to consolidate state presence in marginal areas that were historically neglected—vulnerable to drug crop cultivation, violence, and control by illegal armed groups  Called a strategic leap forward by then-Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, in 2009 the new strategy came to be called the National Consolidation Plan (see below)  Colombian support for Plan Colombia and for the nation's security program grew under Uribe's leadership  President Uribe levied a "wealth tax" to fund Colombia's security efforts, taxing the wealthiest taxpayers to fund growing defense and security expenditures  Overall U S  expenditures on Plan Colombia were only a modest portion of what Colombians spent on their own security  By one 2009 estimate, U S  expenditures were not more than 10% of what Colombians invested in their total security costs  In 2000, Colombia devoted less than 2% of its GDP to military and police expenditures and in 2010 that investment had grown to more than 4% of GDP  One assessment notes "in the end there is no substitute for host country dedication and funding" to turn around a security crisis such as Colombia faced at the beginning of the millennium  In 2008, congressional support for Plan Colombia and its successor programs also shifted  Some Members of Congress believed that the balance of programming was too heavily weighted toward security  Prior to 2008, the emphasis had been on "hard side" security assistance (to the military and police) compared with "soft side" traditional development and rule of law programs  Members debated if the roughly 75%/25% mix should be realigned  Since FY2008, Congress has reduced the proportion of assistance for security-related programs and increased the proportion for economic and social aid  As Colombia's security situation improved and Colombia's economy recovered, the United States also began turning over to Colombians operational and financial responsibility for efforts formerly funded by the U S  government  The Colombian government "nationalized" the training, equipping, and support for Colombian military programs, such as the counterdrug brigade, Colombian Army aviation, and the air bridge denial program  U S  funding overall began to decline  The nationalization efforts were not intended to end U S  assistance, but rather to gradually reduce it to pre-Plan Colombia levels, adjusted for inflation  A key goal of Plan Colombia was to reduce the supply of illegal drugs produced and exported by Colombia but the goals became broader over time  Bipartisan support for the policy existed through three U S  Administrations—President Bill Clinton, President George W  Bush, and President Barack Obama  Plan Colombia came to be viewed by some analysts as one of the most enduring and effective U S  policy initiatives in the Western Hemisphere  Some have lauded the strategy as a model  In 2009, William Brownfield, then-U S  Ambassador to Colombia, described Plan Colombia as "the most successful nation-building exercise that the United States has associated itself with perhaps in the last 25-30 years " Other observers, however, were critical of the policy as it unfolded  Many in the NGO and human rights community maintained the strategy, with its emphasis on militarization and security, was inadequate for solving Colombia's persistent, underlying problems of rural violence, poverty, neglect and institutional weakness  Nevertheless, it appears that improvements in security conditions have been accompanied by substantial economic growth and a reduction in poverty levels over time  The National Consolidation Plan first launched during the Uribe Administration, (renamed the National Plan for Consolidation and Territorial Reconstruction), was designed to coordinate government efforts in regions where marginalization, drug trafficking, and violence converge  The whole-of-government consolidation was to integrate security, development, and counternarcotics to achieve a permanent state presence in vulnerable areas  Once security forces took control of a contested area, government agencies in housing, education, and development would regularize the presence of the state and reintegrate the municipalities of these marginalized zones into Colombia  The plan had been restructured several times by the Santos government  The United States supported the Colombian government's consolidation strategy through an inter-agency program called the Colombia Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI)  CSDI provided U S  assistance to "fill gaps" in Colombian government programming  At the U S  Embassy in Colombia, CSDI coordinated efforts of the U S  Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department's Narcotics Affairs Section, the U S  Military Group, and the Department of Justice to assist Colombia in carrying out the consolidation plan by expanding state presence and promoting economic opportunities in priority zones  It combined traditional counternarcotics assistance for eradication, interdiction, alternative development, and capacity building for the police, military, and justice sector institutions with other economic and social development initiatives  As the peace agreement between the FARC and the government moved forward into implementation, the focus of U S  assistance to Colombia has shifted again  With a foundation of the work done to advance consolidation, U S  assistance has begun to aid in post-conflict planning and support Colombia's transition to peace by building up democratic institutions, protecting human rights and racial and ethnic minorities, and promoting economic opportunity  USAID's country cooperation strategy for 2014-2018 anticipated the Colombian government reaching a negotiated agreement with the FARC, but remained flexible if an agreement was not signed  It recognized early implementation efforts, especially in the first 24 months after signature, would be critical to demonstrate or model effective practices  In the next five years, it envisioned Colombia evolving from aid recipient to provider of technical assistance to neighbors in the region  Consolidating state authority and presence in the rural areas with weak institutions remains a significant challenge following the FARC's disarmament in the summer of 2017  Reintegration of the FARC and possibly other insurgent forces, such as the ELN, will be expensive and delicate  In particular, critics of the consolidation efforts of the Colombian government maintain that the Santos administration often lacked the commitment to hand off targeted areas from the military to civilian-led development and achieve locally led democratic governance  Consolidation efforts suffered from low political support, disorganization at the top levels of government, and failure to administer national budgets effectively in more remote areas, among other challenges  In August 2018, shortly after President Duque took office, USAID announced a framework of priorities for U S  economic development assistance to Colombia  Some of these priorities include promoting and supporting a whole-of-government strategy to include the dismantling of organized crime; increasing the effectiveness of Colombia's security and criminal justice institutions; promoting enhanced prosperity and job creation through trade; improving the investment climate for U S  companies; and advancing Colombia's capacity to strengthen governance and transition to sustainable peace, including reconciliation among victims, ex-combatants, and other citizens  The U S  Congress initially approved legislation in support of Plan Colombia in 2000, as part of the Military Construction Appropriations Act of 2001 ( P L  106-246 )  Plan Colombia was never authorized by Congress, but it was funded annually through appropriations  From FY2000 through FY2016, U S  funding for Plan Colombia and its follow-on strategies exceeded $10 billion in State Department and Defense Department programs  From FY2000 to FY2009, the United States provided foreign operations assistance to Colombia through the Andean Counterdrug Program (ACP) account, formerly known as the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, and other aid accounts  In FY2008, Congress continued to fund eradication and interdiction programs through the ACP account, but funded alternative development and institution building programs through the Economic Support Fund (ESF) account  In the FY2010 request, the Obama Administration shifted ACP funds into the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account  Since FY2008, U S  assistance has gradually declined because of tighter foreign aid budgets and nationalized Plan Colombia-related programs  In FY2014, in line with other foreign assistance reductions, funds appropriated to Colombia from State Department accounts declined to slightly below $325 million  In FY2015, Congress appropriated $300 million for bilateral assistance to Colombia in foreign operation  The FY2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill ( P L  114-113 ) provided Colombia from U S  State Department and U S  Agency for International Development accounts, slightly under $300 million, nearly identical to that appropriated in FY2015 (without P L  480, the Food for Peace account, the total for FY2016 was $293 million as shown in Table 1 )  In FY2017, Congress funded a program the Obama Administration had proposed called "Peace Colombia" to re-balance U S  assistance to support the peace process and implementation of the accord  In May 2017, Congress approved a FY2017 omnibus appropriations measure, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 ( P L  115-31 ), which funded the various programs of Peace Colombia at $391 3 million  In the FY2017 legislation, Congress appropriated the following: The ESF account increased to $187 million (from $134 million in FY2016) to build government presence, encourage crop substitution to replace drug crops, and provide other assistance to conflict victims, including Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities  However, only $180 million was subsequently allocated  INCLE funding increased to $143 million with a focus on manual eradication of coca crops, support for the Colombian National Police, and judicial reform efforts  INCLE funding also included $10 million for Colombian forces' training to counterparts in other countries  $38 5 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF); and $21 million in Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR), which was a relatively large increase from under $4 million in FY2016 to focus on the demining effort  How the Trump Administration will engage with the issues of supporting post-conflict stability in Colombia has not been clearly defined by either the State Department or other executive departments  For example, the Trump Administration's proposed foreign aid budget for FY2018 would have reduced assistance to Colombia to $251 million  However, the FY2018 omnibus appropriations measure, approved by Congress in March 2018 ( P L  115-114 ), again included $391 3 million to support Colombia's transition to peace  The Trump Administration's FY2019 budget request for Colombia is $265 million, approximately a 32% reduction from the $391 3 million appropriated by Congress in FY2018  However, the House and Senate appropriations bills, H R  6385 and S  3108 , again would support the funding level of $391 3 million  The FY2019 Administration request would reduce post-conflict recovery programs and place greater emphasis on counternarcotics and security  Below, Table 1 provides account data from the annual international affairs congressional budget justification documents  The information about DOD-funded programs was provided to the Congressional Research Service by DOD analysts in December 2015 and October 2017 (and has not been updated)  The breakout of DOD assistance to Colombia is shown in Table 2     Colombia also has received additional U S  humanitarian funding to help it cope with more than 1 million Venezuelan migrants  As of September 30, 2018, U S  government humanitarian funding for the Venezuela response totaled approximately $96 5 million for both FY2017 and FY2018 combined, of which $54 8 million was for Colombia  (Humanitarian funding is drawn primarily from the global humanitarian accounts in annual Department of State/Foreign Operations appropriations acts ) In addition, the U S  Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort is on an 11-week medical support mission deployed through the end of 2018 to work with government partners, in part to assist with arrivals from Venezuela  In Colombia, the U S  response aims to help the Venezuelan arrivals as well as the local Colombian communities that are hosting them  In addition to humanitarian assistance, the United States is providing $37 million in bilateral assistance to support medium- and longer-term efforts by Colombia  Some Members of Congress have been deeply concerned about human rights violations in Colombia—especially those perpetrated by any recipients or potential recipients of U S  assistance  In Colombia's multisided, 50-year conflict, the FARC and ELN, the paramilitaries and their successors, and Colombia's security forces have all committed serious violations  Colombians have endured generations of noncombatant killings, massacres, kidnappings, forced displacements, forced disappearances, land mine casualties, and acts of violence that violate international humanitarian law  The extent of the crimes and the backlog of human rights cases to be prosecuted have overwhelmed the Colombian judiciary, which some describe as "inefficient" and overburdened  The United Nations and many human rights groups maintain that although some prosecutions have gone forward, most remain unresolved and the backlog of cases has been reduced slowly  In addition to the problem of impunity for such serious crimes, continued violations remain an issue  Since 2002, Congress has required in the annual foreign operations appropriations legislation that the Secretary of State certify annually to Congress that the Colombian military is severing ties to paramilitaries and that the government is investigating complaints of human rights abuses and meeting other human rights statutory criteria  (The certification criteria have evolved over time  ) For several years, certification was required before 30% of funds to the Colombian military could be released  The FY2014 appropriations legislation requires that 25% of funding under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program be held back pending certification by the Secretary of State  Some human rights groups have criticized the regular certification of Colombia, maintaining that evidence they have presented to the State Department has contradicted U S  findings  However, even some critics have acknowledged the human rights conditions on military assistance to Colombia to be "a flawed but useful tool" because the certification process requires that the U S  government regularly consult with Colombian and international human rights groups  Critics acknowledge that over time, conditionality can improve human rights compliance  Additional tools for monitoring human rights compliance by Colombian security forces receiving U S  assistance are the so-called "Leahy Law" restrictions, which Congress first passed in the late 1990s prior to the outset of Plan Colombia  First introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, these provisions deny U S  assistance to a foreign country's security forces if the U S  Secretary of State has credible information that such units have committed "a gross violation of human rights " The provisions apply to security assistance provided by the State Department and DOD  The Leahy Law under the State Department is authorized by the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961, as amended, and is codified at 22 U S C  2378d (§520M of the FAA)  The DOD Leahy provisions, which for years applied just to DOD training, now include a broader range of assistance, as modified in the FY2014 appropriations legislation  The provision related to the Leahy Laws for DOD assistance is codified at 10 U S C  362, and prohibits "any training, equipment, or other assistance," to a foreign security force unit if there is credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights  Both the State Department and DOD Leahy provisions require the State Department to review and clear—or vet—foreign security forces to determine if any individual or unit is credibly believed to be guilty of a gross human rights violation  Leahy vetting is typically conducted by U S  embassies and State Department headquarters  Reportedly on an annual basis about 1% of foreign security forces are disqualified from receiving assistance under the Leahy provisions, although many more are affected by administrative issues and are denied assistance until those conditions are resolved  Tainted security force units that are denied assistance may be remediated or cleared, but the procedures for remediation differ slightly between the DOD and State (or FAA) provisions  Because of the large amount of security assistance provided to Colombian forces (including the military and police), the State Department reportedly vets more candidates for assistance in Colombia than in any other country  In the late 1990s, poor human rights conditions in Colombia were a driving concern for developing the Leahy Law provisions  The U S  Embassy in Bogotá, with nearly two decades of experience in its vetting operations, has been cited as a source of best practices for other embassies seeking to bring their operations into compliance or enhance their performance  State Department officials have cited Colombia as a model operation that has helped Colombia to improve its human rights compliance  However, some human rights organizations are critical of the Leahy vetting process in Colombia, and cite the prevalence of extrajudicial executions allegedly committed by Colombian military units as evidence that these restrictions on U S  assistance have failed to remove human rights violators from the Colombian military  A human rights nongovernmental organization, Fellowship of Reconciliation, has published reports alleging an association between false positive killings and Colombian military units vetted by the State Department to receive U S  assistance  However, some have questioned the group's methodology  Some human rights organizations contend that the U S  government has tolerated abusive behavior by Colombian security forces without taking action or withholding assistance  Measured exclusively in counternarcotics terms, Plan Colombia has been a mixed success  Colombia remains the dominant producer of cocaine and in the DEA's National Drug Threat Assessment for 2017 continued to be the source for 95% of cocaine seized in the United States  Enforcement, eradication, and improved security squeezed production in Colombia, so that in 2012, Peru reemerged as the global leader in cocaine production, surpassing Colombia, for a year or so  In the early 2000s, given Colombia's predominance as the source of cocaine destined for U S  markets and its status as the second-largest producer of heroin consumed in the United States, eradication of coca bush and opium poppy (from which heroin is derived) was an urgent priority and became the preferred tool for controlling the production of these drugs  Another critical component of the drug supply reduction effort was alternative development programs funded by the U S  Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist illicit crop cultivators with transitioning to licit crop production and livelihoods  Analysts have long debated how effective Plan Colombia and its follow-on strategies were in combating illegal drugs  Although Plan Colombia failed to meet its goal of reducing the cultivation, processing, and distribution of illicit drugs by 50% in its original six-year time frame, Colombia has sustained significant reductions in coca cultivation in recent years  According to U S  estimates, cultivation of coca declined from 167,000 hectares in 2007 to 78,000 hectares in 2012  (Poppy cultivation declined by more than 90% between 2000 and 2009 ) According to U S  government estimates, Colombia's potential production of pure cocaine fell to 170 metric tons in 2012, the lowest level in two decades  However, it started to rise slightly in 2013, and more dramatically in 2014 through 2016  In those years, cultivation of coca and production of cocaine grew significantly in part due to ending the aerial eradication of coca crops  In 2015, following a U N  agency determination that the herbicide used to spray coca crops was probably carcinogenic, Colombia's minister of health determined that aerial eradication of coca was not consistent with requirements of Colombia's Constitutional Court  In 2016, as noted above, the U S  DEA reported that 95% of cocaine seized in the United States originated in Colombia  According to U S  Office of National Drug Control Policy, Colombia in 2017 cultivated an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of coca, from which cocaine is derived, capable of generating 921 metric tons of cocaine  The United Nations estimates for 2017, which typically differ in quantity but follow the same trends as U S  estimates, maintained that Colombia's potential production of cocaine reached nearly 1,370 metric tons, 31% above its 2016 estimate  Even with Colombia's economic stability and improving security, cocaine exports (primarily to the U S  market) remain a major concern for U S  lawmakers  However, in drug interdiction, Colombia has set records for many years and is considered a strong and reliable U S  partner  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ( Table 4 ), shows Colombia cultivating 146,000 hectares of coca in 2016, a 52% increase over 2015 and another increase to 171,000 hectares, a 17% increase, in 2017  Although cocaine seizures were quite high in both years, the interdiction of cocaine was insufficient to counter the large increases in production  Both manual eradication and aerial eradication were central components of Plan Colombia to reduce coca and poppy cultivation  Manual eradication is conducted by teams, usually security personnel, who uproot and kill the plant  Aerial eradication involves spraying the plants from aircraft with an herbicide mixture to destroy the drug crop, but it may not kill the plants  In the context of Colombia's continuing internal conflict, manual eradication was far more dangerous than aerial spraying  U S  and Colombian policymakers recognized the dangers of manual eradication and, therefore, employed large-scale aerial spray campaigns to reduce coca crop yields, especially from large coca plantations  Colombia is the only country globally that aerially sprayed its illicit crops, and the practice has been controversial for health and environmental reasons, resulting in a Colombian decision to end aerial eradication in 2015  Since 2002, as a condition of fully funding the spraying program, Congress has regularly directed the State Department, after study and consultation with the U S  Environmental Protection Agency and other relevant agencies, to certify that the spraying did not "pose unreasonable risks or adverse effects to humans or the environment " This certification requirement was included most years in the annual foreign operations appropriations legislation  Some analysts have also raised questions about the monetary and collateral costs of aerial eradication compared with other drug supply control strategies, its effectiveness, and its limited effect on the U S  retail price of cocaine  U S  State Department officials attribute Colombia's decline in coca cultivation after 2007 and prior to 2013 to the persistent aerial eradication of drug crops in tandem with manual eradication where viable  Between 2009 and 2013, Colombia aerially sprayed roughly 100,000 hectares annually  In 2013, however, eradication efforts declined  Colombia aerially eradicated roughly 47,000 hectares  It manually eradicated 22,120 hectares, short of the goal of 38,500 hectares  This reduction had a number of causes: the U S -supported spray program was suspended in October 2013 after two U S  contract pilots were shot down, rural protests in Colombia hindered manual and aerial eradication efforts, and security challenges limited manual eradicators working in border areas  In late 2013, Ecuador won an out-of-court settlement in a case filed in 2008 before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for the negative effects of spray drift over its border with Colombia  In negotiations with the FARC, the government and the FARC provisionally agreed in May 2014 that voluntary manual eradication would be prioritized over forced eradication  Aerial eradication remained a viable tool in the government's drug control strategy, according to the agreement, but would be permitted only if voluntary and manual eradication could not be conducted safely  In April 2015, the Santos administration determined that glyphosate, a broad-spectrum, nonselective herbicide used commercially, but in Colombia sprayed on coca plants to eradicate them, was "probably carcinogenic" to humans in a review published by a World Health Organization (WHO) affiliate  In October 2015, the government ended spraying operations and began to implement a new public health approach toward illicit drugs, one that proponents suggested would reduce human rights violations  On the supply side, Colombia's new drug policy gives significant attention to expanding alternative development and licit crop substitution while intensifying interdiction efforts  The State Department in its 2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), however, warned that illicit cultivation was expanding in areas long off-limits to aerial spraying, including national parks, a buffer zone with Ecuador where aerial eradication has been restricted, and in indigenous or protected Afro-Colombian territories  Colombian interdiction practices are deemed some of the most effective in the world  The Colombian government reported seizing more than 207 metric tons (mt) of cocaine base in 2014 and that seizure total doubled by 2017 with capture of 442 mt of cocaine  According to the U S  State Department's 2018 INCSR , Colombia also seized 197 mt of marijuana, 348 kilograms of heroin, and destroyed more than 3,400 cocaine base and hydrochloride labs  USAID funds and runs alternative development programs in Colombia to assist communities with transitioning from a dependency on illicit crops to licit employment and livelihoods  Alternative development was once focused narrowly on crop substitution and assistance with infrastructure and marketing  Since the Colombian government's shift to a consolidation strategy, USAID has supported "consolidation and livelihoods" programming in 40 of the 58 strategically located, conflict-affected municipalities targeted by the government's National Consolidation Plan  To facilitate economic development, USAID funds initiatives that assist farmers and others with shifting from coca growing to licit economic opportunities  These programs are designed to strengthen small farmer producer organizations, improve their productivity, and connect them to markets  Some observers maintain that poor and unsustainable outcomes from alternative development programs while the Colombian conflict was still under way resulted from ongoing insecurity and lack of timeliness or sequencing of program elements  The renewed commitment to alternative development and crop substitution in the 2016 peace accord with the FARC may be similarly challenged  Formal implementation of the peace accord on drug eradication and crop substitution began in late May 2017 with collective agreements committing communities to replace their coca crops with licit crops  In some regions, the program is extended to families who cultivate coca and also to producers of legal crops and landless harvesters  The Colombian government also committed to a combined approach of both voluntary and forced manual eradication  The government's goal set for 2017 was eradicating 100,000 hectares of coca, 50,000 through forced manual eradication and 50,000 through "crop substitution" accords reached with coca farming households who would voluntary eradicate  At the U S -Colombia High Level Dialogue held in Bogotá in March 2018, a renewed commitment to the enduring partnership between the United States and Colombia was announced  A major outcome was a U S -Colombia pledge to reduce illegal narcotics trafficking through expanded counternarcotics cooperation  The new goal set was to reduce Colombia's estimated cocaine production and coca cultivation to 50% of current levels by 2023  In addition, a memorandum of understanding was signed to combat the illegal gold mining that funds transnational criminal organizations  Although President Duque appears determined to pursue a more aggressive approach to drug policy, he has not clearly stated how his approach to counternarcotics will differ from that of his predecessor  The government may restart aerial eradication, a strategy that ended in 2015 due to the Colombian Health Ministry's concerns over cancer-causing potential of the herbicide glyphosate, but no precise plans for restarting the program have been announced in the Duque Administration's first three months in office  Experimentation with delivering glyphosate by drones (rather than planes) began in June 2018 under the Santos Administration and is continuing under the Duque government  On October 1, 2018, President Duque authorized police to confiscate and destroy any quantity of drugs found on persons in possession of them, resulting in the seizure of more than 7 metric tons of drugs in less than two weeks  This enforcement measure may violate a 1994 Colombian Constitutional Court ruling, however, in which Colombians may carry small doses of drugs for personal use, including marijuana, hashish, and cocaine  Several court challenges have been filed that seek to nullify the Duque decree on constitutional grounds of protected personal use  Drug trafficking continues to trigger conflict over land in Colombia while affecting the most vulnerable groups, including Afro-Colombian, peasant, and indigenous populations  Some analysts warn that national and international pressure for drug eradication could also lead to increased human rights violations, including health consequences by reviving aerial spraying of drug crops and government actions to forcibly break up demonstrations by coca producers who resist eradication  Some analysts have advocated that investments to lower drug supply need to go beyond eradication, which has not been a lasting approach to reducing drug crop cultivation  For instance, the government could provide economic and education opportunities to at-risk youth to enhance their role in peace building and to prevent their recruitment into the drug trade and other illegal activity  Economic relations between Colombia and the United States have deepened  The U S -Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) entered into force in May 2012  By 2020, it will phase out all tariffs and other barriers to bilateral trade between Colombia and the United States, its largest trade partner  Since the U S -Colombia FTA went into force, the stock of U S  investment in Colombia surpassed $7 billion in 2014 but dropped to $6 2 billion in 2016 (on a historical cost basis), concentrated mostly in mining and manufacturing  According to the U S  Department of Commerce, U S  exports to Colombia exceeded $26 8 billion in 2016 and Colombia was the 22 nd -largest market for U S  exports; however, U S  imports from Colombia declined between 2015 and 2016  Major U S  exports to Colombia include oil (noncrude oil products including gasoline), machinery, cereals, organic chemicals, and plastic  Because 65% of U S  imports from Colombia are crude oil imports, much of the decline in value was caused by the sharp fall in oil prices that began in 2014  Major U S  imports beside crude oil, include gold, coffee, cut flowers, and fruits  Congressional interest in Colombia now extends far beyond security and counternarcotics and has grown in the area of bilateral trade following implementation of the U S -Colombia FTA, (also known at the U S -Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement)  Colombia is a founding member of the Pacific Alliance, along with Chile, Mexico, and Peru, and has sought to deepen trade integration and cross-border investment with its partners in the alliance while reducing trade barriers  The Pacific Alliance aims to go further by creating a common stock market, allowing for the eventual free movement of businesses and persons, and serving as an export platform to the Asia-Pacific region  Colombia's leadership role in the Pacific Alliance and Colombia's accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in May 2018, following a review of the country's macroeconomic policies and changes, are major new developments  The accession to the OECD was approved by Colombia's lower house in October 2018 and the Senate in November 2018, but it remained under final review by Colombia's Constitutional Court in early February 2019  The Santos administration pushed to meet the criteria required for OECD membership because it maintained that such recognition signified Colombia's attainment of world-class development standards and policies  Colombia has made progress on trade issues such as copyright, pharmaceuticals, fuel and trucking regulations, and labor concerns (including subcontracting methods and progress on resolving cases of violence against union activists)  Congress remains interested in Colombia's future because the country has become one of the United States' closest allies  With 17 years of investment in Colombia's security and stability, some maintain that there has already been a strong return on U S  investment  Plan Colombia and its successor strategies broadened from counternarcotics to include humanitarian concerns, efforts to bolster democratic development and human rights protections, and trade and investment to spark growth  The record expansion of Colombia's coca crop and increasing cocaine exports to the United States, however, may significantly hinder the effort to consolidate peace in Colombia and could potentially increase corruption and extortion  A significant portion of the Colombian public remains skeptical of the peace process and the FARC's role in Colombia's democracy  Other Colombians maintain that support for peace programs in Colombia is important not only to benefit former FARC or other demobilized combatants but also to fulfill promises the government made in the peace accords to the country's 8 6 million victims of the five-decade conflict  As President Duque concluded his first 100 days in office, his government faced overlapping challenges: (1) an upsurge in illicit drug crops, which had set records in 2016 and 2017; (2) implementation of provisions of the peace accord negotiated by former president Santos but marred by slow implementation, attacks on land and human rights activists, and projected budgetary shortfalls; (3) renewed violent competition among criminal groups in rural areas, some of which reportedly are sheltering in Venezuela; and (4) Venezuela's humanitarian crisis, which resulted in a surge of migrants fleeing to or through Colombia  The annual level of foreign assistance provided by the U S  Congress for Colombia began to decline in FY2008 and then gradually increased in FY2017 and FY2018 to support peace and implementation of the FARC-government peace accord  Some Members of Congress may want to build on cooperation with Colombian partners to continue to train Central Americans and other third-country nationals in counternarcotics and security, including programs in citizen security, crime prevention and monitoring, military and police capacity building, and hostage negotiation and cybersecurity  Congress may continue to closely monitor Colombia's domestic security situation  It also may continue to oversee issues such as drug trafficking; Colombia's effort to combat other illegal armed groups such as Bacrim; the status of human rights protections; and the expansion of health, economic, environmental, energy, and educational cooperation  Congress may seek to foster Colombian leadership in the region to counter growing political instability in Venezuela  The U S  Congress has been interested in expanding investment and trade opportunities both bilaterally with Colombia and within regional groupings, such as the Pacific Alliance  Some analysts contend that U S -Colombian trade improvements rest on the strength of the overall relationship between Colombia and the United States  

ground_truth: The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act of 1965 (P.L. 88-578) created the LWCF in the Treasury as a funding source to implement the outdoor recreation goals set out by the act. The LWCF Act authorizes the fund to receive $900 million annually, with the monies available only if appropriated by Congress (i.e., discretionary appropriations). The fund also receives mandatory appropriations under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (GOMESA). The level of annual appropriations for the LWCF has varied since the origin of the fund in FY1965. The LWCF Act outlines uses of the fund for federal and state purposes. Of the total made available through appropriations or deposits under GOMESA, not less than 40% is to be used for "federal purposes" and not less than 40% is to be used to provide "financial assistance to states." The act lists the federal purposes for which the President is to allot LWCF funds "unless otherwise allotted in the appropriation Act making them available." These purposes primarily relate to acquisition of lands and waters (and interests therein) by the federal government. With regard to state purposes, the act authorizes a matching grant program to states for outdoor recreation purposes. Throughout the LWCF's history, appropriations acts typically have provided funds for land acquisition and outdoor recreational grants to states. Beginning in FY1998, appropriations also have been provided each year (except FY1999) to fund other purposes related to natural resources. The extent to which the LWCF should be used for purposes other than federal land acquisition and outdoor recreation grants to states, and which other purposes should be funded from the LWCF, continue to be the subject of legislation and debate in Congress. In the past few decades, Presidents have sought LWCF funds for a variety of other purposes. Congress chooses which if any of these requests to fund, and has chosen programs not sought by the President for a particular year. Among other programs, appropriations have been provided for facility maintenance of the land management agencies, ecosystem restoration, the Historic Preservation Fund, the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, the Forest Legacy Program, State and Tribal Wildlife Grants (under the Fish and Wildlife Service), the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, U.S. Geological Survey science and cooperative programs, and Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Land and Water Claim Settlements. Since FY1998, a total of $2.7 billion has been appropriated for other purposes, of a total LWCF appropriation of $18.9 billion over the history of the fund. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service have received the largest shares of the total appropriations for other purposes, about $1.4 billion (53%) and $1.0.billion (38%), respectively, from FY1998 to FY2019. Several agencies shared the remaining $0.2 billion (9%) of the appropriations. Both the dollar amounts and the percentages of annual LWCF appropriations for other purposes have varied widely since FY1998. The dollar amounts have ranged from $0 in FY1999 to $456.0 million in FY2001. The percentage of annual funds provided for other purposes ranged from 0% in FY1999 to a high of 59% in both FY2006 and FY2007. In some years, the appropriation for other purposes was significantly less than the Administration requested. For instance, for FY2008, the George W. Bush Administration sought $313.1 million; the appropriation was $101.3 million. The appropriation for other purposes last exceeded $100.0 million in FY2010, and most recently was $93.3 million, in FY2019. Prior to FY2008, several other purposes typically were funded each year from LWCF. Since FY2008, funds have been appropriated annually only for grants under two programs: Forest Legacy and Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. These two programs and a third grant program—State and Tribal Wildlife Grants—have received more than three-quarters ($2.1 billion, 79%) of the total appropriation for other purposes since FY1998.