A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Currently in Iraq, there are thousands of private security contractor (PSC) personnel supporting DOD and State, many of whom are foreign nationals. Congressional concerns about the selection, training, equipping, and conduct of personnel performing private security functions in Iraq are reflected in a provision in the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that directs DOD to develop guidance on PSCs. This report examines the extent (1) that DOD and State have developed and implemented policies and procedures to ensure that the backgrounds of PSC employees have been screened and (2) that DOD has developed guidance to implement the provisions of the NDAA and (3) that DOD and State have addressed measures on other issues related to PSC employees in Iraq. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed DOD and State guidance, policies, and contract oversight documentation and interviewed agency and private security industry officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "DHS has generally relied on workforce data and has not regularly included employee input from available sources to identify "triggers," the term EEOC uses for indicators of potential barriers. GAO's analysis of DHS's MD-715 reports showed that DHS generally relied on workforce data to identify 13 of 15 triggers, such as promotion and separation rates. According to EEOC, in addition to workforce data, agencies are to regularly consult a variety of sources, such as exit interviews, employee groups, and employee surveys, to identify triggers. Involving employees helps to incorporate insights about operations from a frontline perspective in determining where potential barriers exist. DHS does not consider employee input from such sources as employee groups, exit interviews, and employee surveys in conducting its MD-715 analysis. Data from the governmentwide employee survey and DHS's internal employee survey are available, but DHS does not use these data to identify triggers. By not considering employee input on DHS personnel policies and practices, DHS is missing opportunities to identify potential barriers. Once a trigger is revealed, agencies are to investigate and pinpoint actual barriers and their causes. In 2007, through its …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "H.R. 3915 (2007), a bill introduced, but not enacted by the 110th Congress, was intended to reform mortgage lending practices to prevent a recurrence of problems in the mortgage market, particularly in the nonprime market segment. The bill would have set minimum standards for all mortgages (e.g., reasonable ability to repay) and created a "safe harbor" for loans that met certain requirements. Securitizers of safe harbor loans would be exempt from liability provisions, while securitizers of non-safe harbor loans would be subject to limited liability for loans that violated the bill's minimum standards. In response to a congressional request, this report discusses (1) the proportions of recent nonprime loans that likely would have met and not met the bill's safe harbor requirements and factors influencing the performance of these loans, and (2) relevant research and the views of mortgage industry stakeholders concerning the potential impact of key provisions of the bill on the availability of mortgage credit. To do this work, GAO analyzed a proprietary database of securitized nonprime loans, reviewed studies of state and local anti-predatory lending laws, and met with financial regulatory agencies and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's third report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) follows up on recommendations from the January 28, 2009, report (GAO-09-296). It also reviews (1) the nature and purpose of activities that had been initiated under TARP as of March 27, 2009; (2) the Department of Treasury's Office of Financial Stability's (OFS) hiring efforts, use of contractors, and progress in developing an internal control system; and (3) TARP performance indicators. For this work, GAO reviewed signed agreements and other relevant documentation and met with officials from OFS, contractors, and federal agencies. As of March 27, 2009, Treasury had disbursed $303.4 billion of the $700 billion in TARP funds. Most of the funds (almost $199 billion) went to purchase preferred shares of 532 financial institutions under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), Treasury's primary vehicle under TARP for stabilizing financial markets."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare's physician fees may not always reflect efficiencies that occur when a physician performs multiple services for the same patient on the same day, and some resources required for these services do not need to be duplicated. In response to a request from Congress, GAO examined (1) the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) efforts to set appropriate fees for services furnished together and (2) additional opportunities for CMS to avoid excessive payments when services are furnished together. GAO examined relevant policies, laws, and regulations; interviewed CMS officials and others; and analyzed claims data to identify opportunities for further savings."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Information technology (IT) plays a critical role in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) ability to carry out its home ownership and community development mission, which was recently expanded under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Pursuant to a congressional mandate to study HUD's IT environment, GAO reviewed the adequacy of key IT management and modernization controls within the department, including strategic planning and performance measurement, investment management, human capital management, enterprise architecture development and use, and modernization program office establishment. To do so, GAO compared HUD policies, guidance, plans, reports, and other products and actions to relevant aspects of statutory requirements, federal guidance, and related best practices."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Border Patrol, part of the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP), operates checkpoints on U.S. roads, mainly in the southwest border states where most illegal entries occur. As part of a three-tiered strategy to maximize detection and apprehension of illegal aliens, Border Patrol agents at checkpoints screen vehicles for illegal aliens and contraband. GAO was asked to assess (1) checkpoint performance and factors affecting performance, (2) checkpoint performance measures, (3) community impacts considered in checkpoint placement and design, and (4) the impact of checkpoint operations on nearby communities. GAO work included a review of Border Patrol data and guidance; visits to checkpoints and communities in five Border Patrol sectors across four southwest border states, selected on the basis of size, type, and volume, among other factors; and discussions with community members and Border Patrol officials in headquarters and field locations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes, coordination and collaboration challenges created obstacles during the government's response and recovery efforts. Because of the many stakeholders involved in recovery, including all levels of government, it is critical to build collaborative relationships. Building on GAO's September 2008 report which provided several key recovery practices from past catastrophic disasters, this report presents examples of how federal, state, and local governments have effectively collaborated in the past. GAO reviewed five catastrophic disasters--the Loma Prieta earthquake (California, 1989), Hurricane Andrew (Florida, 1992), the Northridge earthquake (California, 1994), the Kobe earthquake (Japan, 1995), and the Grand Forks/Red River flood (North Dakota and Minnesota, 1997)--to identify recovery lessons. GAO interviewed officials involved in the recovery from these disasters and experts on disaster recovery. GAO also reviewed relevant legislation, policies, and the disaster recovery literature."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Division of Enforcement (Enforcement) plays a key role in meeting the agency's mission to protect investors and maintain fair and orderly markets. In recent years, Enforcement has brought cases yielding record civil penalties, but questions have been raised about its capacity to manage its resources and fulfill its law enforcement and investor protection responsibilities. GAO was asked to evaluate, among other issues, (1) SEC's progress toward implementing GAO's 2007 recommendations; (2) the extent to which Enforcement has an appropriate mix of resources dedicated to achieving its objectives; and (3) the adoption, implementation, and effects of recent penalty policies. GAO analyzed information on resources, enforcement actions, and penalties; and interviewed current and former SEC officials and staff, and others."

The goals of this project were to (1) explore ways of bridging the gap between fundamental molecular nucleation theories and phenomenological approaches based on thermodynamic reasoning, (2) test and improve binary nucleation theory, and (3) provide the theoretical underpinning for a powerful new experimental technique, small angle neutron scattering (SANS) from nanodroplet aerosols, that can probe the compositional structure of nanodroplets. This report summarizes the accomplishments of this project in realizing these goals. Publications supported by this project fall into three general categories: (1) theoretical work on nucleation theory (2) experiments and modeling of nucleation and condensation in supersonic nozzles, and (3) experimental and theoretical work on nanodroplet structure and neutron scattering. These publications are listed and briefly summarized in this report.

Environmental cleanup of contaminated nuclear weapons manufacturing and test sites generates radioactive waste that must be disposed. Site cleanup activities throughout the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex are projected to continue through 2050. Some of this waste is mixed waste (MW), containing both hazardous and radioactive components. In addition, there is a need for MW disposal from other mission activities. The Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement Record of Decision designates the Nevada Test Site (NTS) as a regional MW disposal site. The NTS has a facility that is permitted to dispose of onsite- and offsite-generated MW until November 30, 2010. There is not a DOE waste management facility that is currently permitted to dispose of offsite-generated MW after 2010, jeopardizing the DOE environmental cleanup mission and other MW-generating mission-related activities. A mission needs document (CD-0) has been prepared for a newly permitted MW disposal facility at the NTS that would provide the needed capability to support DOE's environmental cleanup mission and other MW-generating mission-related activities. This report presents a conceptual engineering design for a MW facility that is fully compliant with Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and DOE O 435.1, 'Radioactive Waste Management'. The facility, which will …

Report by the Texas Department of Saving & Mortgage Lending containing information tables with financial information on such things as bank assets, assets of associated business by county and equity capital.

This report is organized in three parts. First, it discusses the extent of GHG emissions associated with the U.S. agriculture sector, and cites current and potential estimates for U.S. agricultural soils to sequester carbon and partly offset national GHG emissions. Second, the report describes the types of land management and farm conservation practices that can reduce GHG emissions and/or sequester carbon in agricultural soils, highlighting those practices that are currently promoted under existing voluntary federal agricultural programs. Finally, the report describes legislative action within the ongoing climate change debate as well as enacted changes in the 2008 farm bill (Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, P.L. 110-246) that could expand the scope of existing farm and forestry conservation programs in ways that could more broadly encompass certain aspects of these climate change initiatives. The report concludes with a discussion of some of the types of questions that may be raised regarding the role of the U.S. agriculture sector in the broader climate change debate.

The U.S. Constitution makes no specific allowance for any one of the three branches of the federal government to have access to information held by the others. No provision in the U.S. Constitution expressly establishes a procedure for public access to government information. Congress has legislated various public access laws. Among these laws are two records access statutes, The Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, and two meetings access statutes, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Government in the Sunshine Act. This report offers an overview of the four information access laws noted above, and provides citations to additional resources related to these tools.

Heavy water with varying chemistries is currently being stored in over 6700 drums in L- and K-areas and in seven tanks in L-, K-, and C-areas. A detailed evaluation of the potential degradation of the drums and tanks, specific to their design and service conditions, has been performed to support the demonstration of their integrity throughout the desired storage period. The 55-gallon drums are of several designs with Type 304 stainless steel as the material of construction. The tanks have capacities ranging from 8000 to 45600 gallons and are made of Type 304 stainless steel. The drums and tanks were designed and fabricated to national regulations, codes and standards per procurement specifications for the Savannah River Site. The drums have had approximately 25 leakage failures over their 50+ years of use with the last drum failure occurring in 2003. The tanks have experienced no leaks to date. The failures in the drums have occurred principally near the bottom weld, which attaches the bottom to the drum sidewall. Failures have occurred by pitting, crevice and stress corrosion cracking and are attributable, in part, to the presence of chloride ions in the heavy water. Probable degradation mechanisms for the continued storage of …

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The objective of this project was to assess the feasibility of using a membrane process to capture CO2 from coal-fired power plant flue gas. During this program, MTR developed a novel membrane (Polaris™) with a CO2 permeance tenfold higher than commercial CO2-selective membranes used in natural gas treatment. The Polaris™ membrane, combined with a process design that uses a portion of combustion air as a sweep stream to generate driving force for CO2 permeation, meets DOE post-combustion CO2 capture targets. Initial studies indicate a CO2 separation and liquefaction cost of $20 - $30/ton CO2 using about 15% of the plant energy at 90% CO2 capture from a coal-fired power plant. Production of the Polaris™ CO2 capture membrane was scaled up with MTR’s commercial casting and coating equipment. Parametric tests of cross-flow and countercurrent/sweep modules prepared from this membrane confirm their near-ideal performance under expected flue gas operating conditions. Commercial-scale, 8-inch diameter modules also show stable performance in field tests treating raw natural gas. These findings suggest that membranes are a viable option for flue gas CO2 capture. The next step will be to conduct a field demonstration treating a realworld power plant flue gas stream. The first such MTR field …

The objective of this program is to use a novel nano-composite material system for the OLED anode coating/hole transport layer. The novel anode coating is intended to significantly increase not only hole injection/transport efficiency, but the device energy efficiency as well. Another goal of the Core Technologies Program is the optimization and scale-up of air-stable and cross-linkable novel HTL nano-composite materials synthesis and the development of low-cost, large-scale mist deposition processes for polymer OLED fabrication. This proposed technology holds the promise to substantially improve OLED energy efficiency and lifetime.

This report documents the requirements for transferring physical and hydraulic property data compiled by PNNL into the Hanford Environmental Information System (HEIS). The Remediation Decision Support (RDS) Project is managed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to support Hanford Site waste management and remedial action decisions by the U.S. Department of Energy and one of their current site contractors - CH2M-Hill Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC). The objective of Task 1, Activity 6 of the RDS project is to compile all available physical and hydraulic property data for sediments from the Hanford Site, to port these data into the Hanford Environmental Information System (HEIS), and to make the data web-accessible to anyone on the Hanford Local Area Network via the so-called Virtual Library.1 These physical and hydraulic property data are used to estimate parameters for analytical and numerical flow and transport models that are used for site risk assessments and evaluation of remedial action alternatives. In past years efforts were made by RDS project staff to compile all available physical and hydraulic property data for Hanford sediments and to transfer these data into SoilVision{reg_sign}, a commercial geotechnical software package designed for storing, analyzing, and manipulating soils data. Although SoilVision{reg_sign} has proven …

Our research was guided by a key objective of the Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP), which is to improve conceptual and predictive models for contaminant movement in complex vadose zone environments. In this report, increases in the understanding of colloidcontaminant interactions, colloid mobilization, and colloid deposition within unsaturated soils are cited as requisite needs for predicting contaminant fate and distribution in the vadose zone. We addressed these needs by pursuing three key goals: 1. Identify the mechanisms that govern OM and mineral-colloid reaction and transport in heterogeneous, unsaturated porous media; 2. Quantify the role of OM and mineral colloids in scavenging and facilitating the transport of contaminants of concern to DOE; and 3. Develop and test a mathematical model suitable for simulating the movement of OM- and colloid-associated contaminants through heterogeneous, unsaturated porous media.

The objective of this research was to use molecular modeling techniques, coupled with our prior experimental results, to design, synthesize and evaluate inexpensive, non-fluorous carbon dioxide thickening agents. The first type of thickener that was considered was associating polymers. Typically, these thickeners are copolymers that contain a highly CO{sub 2}-philic monomer, and a small concentration of a CO{sub 2}-phobic associating monomer. Yale University was solely responsible for the synthesis of a second type of thickener; small, hydrogen bonding compounds. These molecules have a core that contains one or more hydrogen-bonding groups, such as urea or amide groups. Non-fluorous, CO{sub 2}-philic functional groups were attached to the hydrogen bonding core of the compound to impart CO{sub 2} stability and macromolecular stability to the linear 'stack' of these compounds. The third type of compound initially considered for this investigation was CO{sub 2}-soluble surfactants. These surfactants contain conventional ionic head groups and composed of CO{sub 2}-philic oligomers (short polymers) or small compounds (sugar acetates) previously identified by our research team. Mobility reduction could occur as these surfactant solutions contacted reservoir brine and formed mobility control foams in-situ. The vast majority of the work conducted in this study was devoted to the copolymeric thickeners …

By completing the tasks and subtasks of the project, the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) through its state regulatory agency members and oil and gas industry partners, will bring attention to water quality and quantity issues and make progress toward water and energy sustainability though enhanced water protection and conservation thus enhancing the viability of the domestic fossil fuel industry. The project contains 4 major independent Tasks. Task 1 - Work Plan: Water-Energy Sustainability: A Symposium on Resource Viability. Task 2 - Work Plan: A Regional Assessment of Water and Energy Sustainability. Task 3 - Work Plan: Risk Based Data Management System-Water Water and Energy Module. Task 4 - Work Plan: Identification and Assessment of States Regulatory Programs Regarding Geothermal Heating and Cooling Systems. Each task has a specific scope (details given).

The overall goal of this project was to produce a working dynamic model to predict the transformation and partitioning of trace metals resulting from combustion of a broad range of fuels. The information provided from this model will be instrumental in efforts to identify fuels and conditions that can be varied to reduce metal emissions. Through the course of this project, it was determined that mercury (Hg) and arsenic (As) would be the focus of the experimental investigation. Experiments were therefore conducted to examine homogeneous and heterogeneous mercury oxidation pathways, and to assess potential interactions between arsenic and calcium. As described in this report, results indicated that the role of SO{sub 2} on Hg oxidation was complex and depended upon overall gas phase chemistry, that iron oxide (hematite) particles contributed directly to heterogeneous Hg oxidation, and that As-Ca interactions occurred through both gas-solid and within-char reaction pathways. Modeling based on this study indicated that, depending upon coal type and fly ash particle size, vaporization-condensation, vaporization-surface reaction, and As-CaO in-char reaction all play a role in arsenic transformations under combustion conditions.

Reconciliation detail and summary with an ending balance of $4,574.30 for the period ending on August 31, 2009.