This report discusses renewal of the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The discussion in this report focuses on congressional roles in crafting and carrying out the agreement. Such agreements are subject to Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 as amended (AEA, P.L. 95-242, 42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) and commonly are called "123 agreements.

This report provides an analysis of House Member mass mailings (1997-2008, 2012-2014) and mass communications (2009-2014). Despite significant reductions in congressional mail postage costs over the past 25 years, critics continue to raise concerns about the franking privilege.

This report discusses the visa security and visa policy questions, debated in the 112th Congress.. The policy questions center on whether immigration law needs to be strengthened, whether funding should be increased, and which agency should take the lead.

Moratoria measures for the outer continental shelf (OCS) establish bans or restrictions on oil and gas exploration and development in federal ocean areas. With some exceptions for marine sanctuaries and monuments, no portion of the federal OCS has a permanent moratorium on oil and gas leasing and development. While some areas are under temporary development bans, such as suspensions or moratoria directed by either legislative or executive powers, most of the OCS is free of such restrictions and is considered permissible for offshore leasing activity.

This report discusses the current debate over "net neutrality." While there is no single accepted definition of "net neutrality," most agree that any such definition should include the general principles that owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network, and they should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network.

This report discusses various issues regarding the Family Planning Program, Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Enacted in 1970, it is the only domestic federal program devoted solely to family planning and related preventive health services.

Document detailing the proceedings of the Senate of Texas for the fifty-third day of the Regular session of the 83rd Legislature including legislation, reports, discussions, votes, and points-of-order.

Biennial report of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the 85th Legislature of Texas describing the agency's goals, activities, and recommendations for further plans.

The goal of this project is to study the fundamental physical phenoena associated with air ingress in very high temperature reactors (VHTRs). Air ingress may occur due to a nupture of primary piping and a subsequent breach in the primary pressure boundary in helium-cooled and graphite-moderated VHTRs. Significant air ingress is a concern because it introduces potential to expose the fuel, graphite support rods, and core to a risk of severe graphite oxidation. Two of the most probable air ingress scenarios involve rupture of a control rod or fuel access standpipe, and rupture in the main coolant pipe on the lower part of the reactor pressure vessel. Therefor, establishing a fundamental understanding of air ingress phenomena is critical in order to rationally evaluate safety of existing VHTRs and develop new designs that mimimize these risks. But despite this importance, progress toward development these predictive capabilities has been slowed by the complex nature of the underlaying phenomena. The combination of interdiffusion among multiple species, molecular diffusion, natural convection, and complex geometries, as well as the multiple chemical reactions involved, impose significant roadblocks to both modeling and experiment design. The project team will employ a coordinated experimental and computational effort that will …