This report covers funding and policy issues related to Foreign Operations, as addressed in the House and Senate, and State Department programs as debated in the Senate. The discussion and accompanying tables are designed to track the House Foreign Operations Appropriation measure, as well as the broader Senate State, Foreign Operations spending bill.

None

This report provides an overview of Jordanian politics and current issues in U.S.-Jordanian relations. It provides a brief overview of Jordan's government and economy and of its cooperation in promoting Arab-Israeli peace and other U.S. policy objectives in the Middle East.

This report discusses issues in U.S.-Jordanian relations. These issues include the stability of the Jordanian regime, democratic reform under way in Jordan, the role of Jordan in the Arab-Israeli peace process, Jordan’s concerns over the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq in 2003, and its relations with other regional states.

This report discusses issues in U.S.-Jordanian relations. These issues include the stability of the Jordanian regime, democratic reform under way in Jordan, the role of Jordan in the Arab-Israeli peace process, Jordan’s concerns over the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq in 2003, and its relations with other regional states.

We present the luminosity function to very faint magnitudes for the globular clusters in M87, based on a 30 orbit Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFPC2 imaging program. The very deep images and corresponding improved false source rejection allow us to probe the mass function further beyond the turnover than has been done before. We compare our luminosity function to those that have been observed in the past, and confirm the similarity of the turnover luminosity between M87 and the Milky Way. We also find with high statistical significance that the M87 luminosity function is broader than that of the Milky Way. We discuss how determining the mass function of the cluster system to low masses can constrain theoretical models of the dynamical evolution of globular cluster systems. Our mass function is consistent with the dependence of mass loss on the initial cluster mass given by classical evaporation, and somewhat inconsistent with newer proposals that have a shallower mass dependence. In addition, the rate of mass loss is consistent with standard evaporation models, and not with the much higher rates proposed by some recent studies of very young cluster systems. We also find that the mass-size relation has very little slope, …

None

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is being designed to explore the origins and nature of the universe. It should allow scientists to look deeper into space--and thus farther back in time--than ever before. The program, however, has experienced cost growth of more than $1 billion and its schedule has slipped nearly 2 years. NASA recently restructured the program and now anticipates a launch no sooner than June 2013. Because of the cost and schedule problems, under the Comptroller General's authority, we reviewed the JWST program to determine the extent to which this procurement follows NASA acquisition policy and GAO best practices for ensuring that adequate product knowledge is used to make informed investment decisions"

The Navy is implementing or experimenting with new kinds of naval formations, more flexible forward-deployment schedules, forward-homeporting additional Navy ships, and long-duration deployments with crew rotation (which the Navy calls Sea Swap). These changes, which form a key part of Navy transformation, raise several potential issues for Congress. This report will be updated as events warrant.

None

None

Our research is aimed at investigating several technical issues associated with carbon dioxide sequestration in calcium carbonate sediments below the sea floor through laboratory experiments and chemical transport modeling. Our goal is to evaluate the basic feasibility of this approach, including an assessment of optimal depths, sediment types, and other issues related to site selection. The results of our modeling efforts were published this past summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We are expanding on that work through a variety of laboratory and modeling efforts. In the laboratories at Columbia and at Harvard, we are studying the flow of liquid carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide-water mixtures through calcium carbonate sediments to better understand the geomechanical and structural stability of the sediments during and after injection. We are currently preparing the results of these findings for publication. In addition, we are investigating the kinetics of calcium carbonate dissolution in the presence of CO{sub 2}-water fluids, which is a critical feature of the system as it allows for increased permeability during injection. We are also investigating the possibility of carbon dioxide hydrate formation in the pore fluid, which might complicate the injection procedure by reducing sediment permeability but …

None

The 9/11 Commission called for a systematic analysis of transportation assets, the risks to those assets, and the costs and benefits of different approaches to defending those assets. A key challenge facing Congress is balancing the desire for and cost of increased rail passenger security with the impacts of security measures on the operating efficiency of passenger rail systems, with the potential costs that could be incurred in the event of one or more attacks, and with the costs and benefits of other options for promoting homeland security. Some argue for greatly increased federal funding to help secure passenger rail systems against terrorist attack. Others argue that rail systems are difficult to defend and are only one among many groups potential terrorist targets, making the development of enhanced rail systems security an inefficient use of resources.

None

None

None

In March 1990, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to list Snake River sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) as endangered. Snake River sockeye salmon were officially listed as endangered in November 1991 under the Endangered Species Act (56 FR 58619). In 1991, the Snake River Sockeye Salmon Habitat and Limnological Research Project was implemented. This project is part of an interagency effort to prevent the extinction of the Redfish Lake stock of Snake River sockeye salmon. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribal goal for this project is two tiered: The immediate goal is to increase the population of Snake River sockeye salmon while preserving the unique genetic characteristics of the Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU). The Tribes long term goal is to maintain a viable population that warrants delisting and provides Tribal harvest opportunities. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) provides funding for this interagency recovery. Collaborators in the recovery effort include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), the University of Idaho (UI), and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes (SBT). This report summarizes activities conducted by Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Fisheries Department personnel during the 2005 calendar year. Project tasks include: (1) monitor limnological parameters of the …

We report on the results of a visual search for galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses over 650 arcmin2 of HST/ACS imaging in the Extended Groth Strip (EGS). These deep F606W- and F814W-band observations are in the DEEP2-EGS field. In addition to a previously-known Einstein Cross also found by our search (the ''Cross'', HSTJ141735+52264, with z{sub lens} = 0.8106 and a published z{sub source} = 3.40), we identify two new strong galaxy-galaxy lenses with multiple extended arcs. The first, HSTJ141820+52361 (the ''Dewdrop''; z{sub lens} = 0.5798), lenses two distinct extended sources into two pairs of arcs (z{sub source} = 0.9818 by nebular [O{sub II}] emission), while the second, HSTJ141833+52435 (the ''Anchor''; z{sub lens} = 0.4625), produces a single pair of arcs (source redshift not yet known). Four less convincing arc/counter-arc and two-image lens candidates are also found and presented for completeness. All three definite lenses are fit reasonably well by simple singular isothermal ellipsoid models including external shear, giving {chi}{sub {nu}}{sup 2}values close to unity. Using the three-dimensional line-of-sight (LOS) information on galaxies from the DEEP2 data, we calculate the convergence and shear contributions {kappa}{sub los} and {gamma}{sub los} to each lens, assuming singular isothermal sphere halos truncated at 200 h{sup -1} …

None

This report examines the Department of Defense's (DOD) four largest tactical aircraft modernization programs. The background section provides a brief description of each program, and a discussion of how tactical aircraft fit into military air operations: the missions they typically perform and how they contrast to longer-range combat aircraft. The analysis section examines a number of policy issues, including affordability, capability required, force structure, service roles and missions, industrial base, and transformation. The paper concludes with a synopsis of recent congressional action on these programs.

None

None

None