This report should be useful for tracking appropriations and authorization actions on the DOE R&D programs, and the potential implications of those actions.

This report focuses on the R&D programs. It divides the programs into four categories: energy resources R&D, science, national security R&D, and environmental quality R&D. Those categories, which approximate the way DOE has divided up its programs, are set up to keep similar research activities together.(1) R&D funding is concentrated in the first three. The report gives a description of the programs within each category including their research objectives and the activities where significant budget changes were requested for FY1999. It then describes the request, and congressional appropriation and authorization action. There follows a discussion of issues about the FY1999 request that are emerging during congressional consideration of the budget.

This report provides an overview of federal pay Salary adjustments for Fiscal Year 1999

This report analyzes the pay adjustment that Federal employees are to receive in fiscal 1999 under P.L. 101-509, the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act.

This report shows in tabular form how much the Administration requested and how much Congress appropriated during the past 11 years for U.S. payments to the multilateral development banks (MDBs). It also provides a brief description of the MDBs and the ways they fund their operations. It will be updated periodically. Three companion reports provide further information on the MDBs. See CRS Report RS20793, Multilateral Development Banks: Basic Background, CRS Report RS20791, Multilateral Development Banks: Procedures for U.S. Participation, and CRS Report RS22134 International Financial Institutions: Funding U.S. Participation.

Both during September 15-30, 1996 and September 15-October 5, 1997, the Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL) participated in experiments at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site that was designed to study many of the ways that ARM is measuring water vapor. Because of some inconsistencies between ETL and ARM Microwave radiometers (MWR) during these experiments, called the Water Vapor Intensive Operating Periods (WVIOPs), we applied to both sets of data a newly developed correction algorithm for tipping curve calibration. We found that this algorithm reduces the differences between the radiometers, there are still some unexplained features of scanning ARM MWR data. Measurements of water vapor at the North Slope of Alaska and Adjacent Arctic Ocean (NSA/AAO) CART site in Barrow, Alaska, area potential problem because of the difficulty of radiosondes to measure low amounts of vapor during cold and extremely dry conditions. The applicability of MWR scaling to radiosondes is questionable because of the low sensitivity of these instrument during dry conditions. It has been suggested by the ARM Instantaneous Radiative Flux Working Group and others that measurements of brightness temperature around 183 GHz could be used to scale radiosondes during the coldest and driest periods. …

This report briefly describes the budget sequestration process, including the ways in which a sequester could be avoided under the regular process, and then discusses in more detail various techniques that have been used since FY1991 to prevent a sequester by intervening in the regular process.