A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the process for phasing out single-hull oil vessels and replacing them with double-hull vessels, focusing on: (1) how the Coast Guard implemented the Oil Pollution Act's phase-out requirements for U.S.-built single-hull vessels larger than 5,000 gross tons; (2) the extent to which owners have received extensions or waivers that extend the phase-out deadlines for their single-hull vessels; and (3) the extent to which owners are replacing or planning to replace or convert their single-hull vessels, and what effect their plans would have on the ability to provide sufficient oil-carrying shipping capacity in the future."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) merit review practices, focusing on: (1) what procedures DOE has established for performing merit reviews; and (2) whether DOE could document that it has followed the merit review procedures it has established."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) oversight of lenders participating in its Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) mortgage insurance programs for single-family homes, focusing on: (1) how HUD ensures that lenders granted direct endorsement authority by FHA are qualified to receive such authority; (2) the extent to which HUD focuses on high-risk lenders in monitoring the lenders participating in FHA's mortgage insurance programs; and (3) the extent to which HUD holding lenders are accountable for poor performance."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) Paducah plant cleanup plan, focusing on: (1) the planned activities, cost, and schedule DOE has for cleaning up the site; (2) the challenges that exist in accomplishing the current cleanup plan; and (3) whether the cleanup plan includes all areas at the site requiring cleanup."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed whether the District of Columbia's annual performance report contained all the information required by law and, if not, why. This report transmits GAO's comments on the Mayor's performance report for fiscal year (FY) 1999, which was due on March 1, 2000, but was issued on March 7, 2000."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) reviewed the status of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) implementation of the taxpayer protection and rights provisions in title III of its Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998; and (2) determined what, if any, tax administration or other concerns IRS has identified in implementing these provisions."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed five foreign countries' efforts to combat terrorism, focusing on: (1) how other governments are organized to combat terrorism; and (2) how they allocate their resources to combat terrorism."

A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the personnel management policies and practices of the District of Columbia Courts, focusing on whether: (1) D.C. Courts' applicable policies for six basic personnel activities or functions--performance evaluation, competitive and noncompetitive promotions, corrective actions, training, classification, and equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies--were consistent with commonly accepted personnel management principles; and (2) D.C. Courts generally adhered to its policies when implementing the six personnel activities or functions."

Accurate and efficient simulation of chemical transport processes in the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain is important to evaluate the performance of the potential repository. The scale of the unsaturated zone model domain for Yucca Mountain (50 km{sup 2} area with a 600 meter depth to the water table) requires a large gridblock approach to efficiently analyze complex flow & transport processes. The conventional schemes based on finite element or finite difference methods perform well for dispersion-dominated transport, but are subject to considerable numerical dilution/dispersion for advection-dominated transport, especially when a large gridblock size is used. Numerical dispersion is an artificial, grid-dependent chemical spreading, especially for otherwise steep concentration fronts. One effective scheme to deal with numerical dispersion is the random walk particle method (RWPM). While significant progress has been made in developing RWPM algorithms and codes for single continuum systems, a random walk particle tracker, which can handle chemical transport in dual-continua (fractured porous media) associated with irregular grid systems, is still absent (to our knowledge) in the public domain. This is largely due to the lacking of rigorous schemes to deal with particle transfer between the continua, and efficient schemes to track particles in irregular grid systems. The …

In the early 1980s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) developed two transportation routing models: HIGHWAY, which predicts truck transportation routes, and INTERLINE, which predicts rail transportation routes. Both of these models have been used by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) community for a variety of routing needs over the years. One of the primary uses of the models has been to determine population-density information, which is used as input for risk assessment with the RADTRAN model, which is available on the TRANSNET computer system. During the recent years, advances in the development of geographic information systems (GISs) have resulted in increased demands from the user community for a GIS version of the ORNL routing models. In April 1994, the DOE Transportation Management Division (EM-261) held a Baseline Requirements Assessment Session with transportation routing experts and users of the HIGHWAY and INTERLINE models. As a result of the session, the development of a new GIS routing model, Transportation Routing Analysis GIS (TRAGIS), was initiated. TRAGIS is a user-friendly, GIS-based transportation and analysis computer model. The older HIGHWAY and INTERLINE models are useful to calculate routes, but they cannot display a graphic of the calculated route. Consequently, many users have experienced …

No work was performed; the two remaining Multi Annular Swirl Burner test campaigns are on hold pending selection of a new test facility (replacement for the shut down UTSI burner test facility) and identification of associated testing costs. The Second-Generation PFB Combustion Plant conceptual design prepared in 1987 is being updated to reflect the benefit of pilot plant test data and the latest advances in gas turbine technology. The updated plant is being designed to operate with 95 percent sulfur capture and a single Siemens Westinghouse (SW) 501G gas turbine. Using carbonizer and gas turbine data generated by Foster Wheeler (FW) and SW respectively, Parsons Infrastructure & Technology prepared preliminary plant heat and material balances based on carbonizer operating temperatures of 1700 and 1800 F and found the former to yield the higher plant efficiency. As a result, 1700 F has been selected as the preferred operating condition for the carbonizer. The 501G gas turbine has an air compressor discharge temperature of 811EF and an exhaust temperature of 1140 F. Both of these streams represent high sources of heat and must be cooled, the air to 600 F to be compatible with a 650 F PCFB pressure vessel design temperature …

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to information on the number of state employees and the number of consultants and contract individuals who perform services for state government.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to the Texas Water Development Board's management of human resources in traditional functional areas of staffing, compensation, training, performance appraisals, and employee relations. Additionally, employee and management perception of human resources is examined.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to the enrollment data reported by 50 public community college districts and 7 technical colleges (colleges), which are in compliance with reporting requirements for the purpose of receiving state appropriations.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Water Development Board's State Participation fees were consistent with the authorizing legislation.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to the financial statements for the Office of the Fire Fighters' Pension Commissioner (Commission), which fairly and accurately represent the financial position and results of operations of the Commission.

Final report of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce describing their activities and findings regarding the development of electronic commerce and its impact on the U.S. economy. The report includes sections on the background of electronic commerce, domestic tax issues, and international tax issues.

The Social Security system is projected to have long-range funding problems. Although the system’s income currently exceeds its expenditures, its trust funds are projected to be depleted in 2037. Concern about the problem and a belief that the remedy lies partly in economic growth that could be bolstered by changes to the system have led to introduction of a number of bills incorporating varying degrees of reform. This report describes the funding problem in some detail, summarizes many of the reform bills introduced in the 106th Congress, and provides a list of other related CRS reports.

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This report discusses the Background and issues related to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Demarcation agreements signed in September 1997 and Succession Agreements.

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The United States Government currently has an abundance of depleted uranium (DU). This surplus of about 1 billion pounds is the result of an enrichment process using gaseous diffusion to produce enriched and depleted uranium. The enriched uranium has been used primarily for either nuclear weapons for the military or nuclear fuel for the commercial power industry. Most of the depleted uranium remains at the enrichment process plants in the form of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF{sub 6}). The Department of Energy (DOE) recently began a study to identify possible commercial applications for the surplus material. One of these potential applications is to use the DU in high-density strikers/hammers in pneumatically driven tools, such as jack hammers and piledrivers to improve their impulse performance. The use of DU could potentially increase tunneling velocity and excavation into target materials with improved efficiency. This report describes the efforts undertaken to analyze the particulars of using DU in two specific striking applications: the jackhammer and chipper tool.

The Russian Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament approved ratification of the START II Treaty on April 14, 2000, after 7 years of debate and dissension. (The United States Senate approved ratification of the treaty in January 1996.) This report describes key concerns raised by Members of the Duma during their discussions of START II. These include concerns with treaty provisions, such as its ban on multiple warhead ICBMs and its warhead "downloading" provisions, and concerns with Russia's ability to maintain and finance its strategic nuclear forces in the future.