This report analyzes the agriculture, nutrition, and rural provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, P.L. 111-5). The ARRA boosts government spending on various infrastructure programs and government benefits programs, and offers individual and business tax benefits.

This report covers carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), but not other types of carbon sequestration activities whereby CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored in vegetation, soils, or oceans. Forests and agricultural lands store carbon, and the world's oceans exchange huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere through natural processes.

This report provides an overview of the fundamental choices involved between a cost (tax) and a quantity (cap) control instrument, including a discussion of policy tools that could be employed to bridge the gap between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program. It also analyzes the potential advantages and disadvantages of a carbon tax, discusses implementation issues for a carbon tax -- including where to apply the tax, at what level to set the tax, and options for distributing the tax revenues-- and provides conclusions.

This report summarizes highlights of scientific research and assessments related to human-induced climate change.

This report begins by reviewing the record of working conditions in the coal mining industry. It then describes the regulatory regime of the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, incorporating discussion of the standard-setting required by the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006. The report closes with an examination of recent legislative initiatives.

A system for collecting solid, post-explosion debris samples from the NIF chamber and their subsequent radiochemical analysis is currently under development. If the debris that condenses out of the plasma can be collected and analyzed, the number and type of nuclear reactions that occurred in the capsule material can be determined. this has applications both for radiochemical diagnostics of NIF capsule performance as well as radiochemical measurements relevant to basic science and stockpile stewardship. Several design prototypes have been studied and a prioritized list of radiochemical measurements that could be performed on NIF is under development based on interactions with capsule design, fabrication, and WCI design divisions.

Deposit summary to American National Bank of Texas of $2,788.30 made on February 23, 2009.

We study effects of energy chirp on echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG). Analytical expressions are compared with numerical simulations for both harmonic and bunching factors. We also discuss the EEHG free-electron laser bandwidth increase due to an energy-modulated beam and its pulse length dependence on the electron energy chirp.

This report provides information on various aspects of end-of-life care: (1) demographic and historical changes affecting death and dying in the United States (2) the definitions of end-of-life, palliative, and hospice care (3) costs associated with end-of-life care (4) end-of-life care laws and ethics (5) quality of care at the end of life and (6) policy issues that would modify or expand the federal government's role in addressing end-of-life care.

This report provides a summary and explanation of the provisions in the HITECH Act, which is intended to promote the widespread adoption of health information technology (HIT) for the electronic sharing of clinical data among hospitals, physicians, and other health care stakeholders. It gives an overview of prior actions taken by Congress and the Administrations to promote HIT, and briefly describes efforts by the 109th and 110th Congresses to enact comprehensive HIT legislation.

This report discusses provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) for selected human services programs. The selected programs generally are those that provide benefits and services to families with children, though some programs (e.g., the Community Services Block Grant) provide services to other families as well. All of the programs discussed in this report are administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

This report contains final FY2008 enacted levels for agencies, programs, and activities. In general, in this report the term appropriations represents total funds available, including regular annual and supplemental appropriations, as well as rescissions, transfers, and deferrals, but excludes permanent mandatory budget authorities.

The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab or LBNL) is a multi-program national research facility operated by the University of California for the Department of Energy (DOE). As an integral element of DOE's National Laboratory System, Berkeley Lab supports DOE's missions in fundamental science, energy resources, and environmental quality. Berkeley Lab programs advance four distinct goals for DOE and the nation: (1) To perform leading multidisciplinary research in the computing sciences, physical sciences, energy sciences, biosciences, and general sciences in a manner that ensures employee and public safety and protection of the environment. (2) To develop and operate unique national experimental facilities for qualified investigators. (3) To educate and train future generations of scientists and engineers to promote national science and education goals. (4) To transfer knowledge and technological innovations and to foster productive relationships among Berkeley Lab's research programs, universities, and industry in order to promote national economic competitiveness. Berkeley Lab's research and the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program support DOE's Strategic Themes that are codified in DOE's 2006 Strategic Plan (DOE/CF-0010), with a primary focus on Scientific Discovery and Innovation. For that strategic theme, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 LDRD projects support each one …

This report describes the installation, testing, and acceptance of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) procured laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (LA-ICP-AES) system for remotely analyzing high-level waste (HLW) samples in a hot cell environment. The work was completed by the Analytical Process Development (APD) group in accordance with Task Order 2005-003; ATS MP 1027, Management Plan for Waste Treatment Plant Project Work Performed by Analytical Technical Services. The APD group at the 222-S Laboratory demonstrated acceptable turnaround time (TAT) and provide sufficient data to assess sensitivity, accuracy, and precision of the LA-ICP-AES method.

The results of a comparison of Multifaceted Asymmetric Radiation From the Edge (MARFE) theory with experiment in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) are presented. A variety of MARFE behavior was observed using a fast-framing camera. A basic MARFE theory was applied to NSTX Multi-Pulse Thomson scattering (MPTS) and charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy (CHERS) data. MARFE theory showed some limited agreement with experiment, but uncertainty in the separatrix location constrained the analysis. A method based on shifting iso-Te flux surfaces was used to estimate the separatrix location. The movements of MARFEs in NSTX are interpreted to result from diamagnetic heat flux driven drifts relative to the background plasma velocity and imply slowing edge poloidal rotation and/or changing edge profiles before a large ELM.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2002, destroying the terrorist threat and closing the terrorist safe haven along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have been key national security goals. The United States has provided Pakistan, an important ally in the war on terror, with more than $12.3 billion for a variety of activities, in part to address these goals. About half of this amount has been to reimburse Pakistan for military-related support, including combat operations in and around the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Despite 6 years of U.S. and Pakistani government efforts, al Qaeda has regenerated its ability to attack the United States and continues to maintain a safe haven in Pakistan's FATA. As the United States considers how it will go forward with efforts to assist Pakistan in securing, stabilizing, and developing its FATA and Western Frontier bordering Afghanistan, it is vital that efforts to develop a comprehensive plan using all elements of national power be completed and that continued oversight and accountability over funds used for these efforts are in place."

This report reviews the ongoing programs that will affect the expected size and shape of the U.S. strategic nuclear force structure. It includes an overview of this force structure during the Cold War, and summarizes the reductions and changes that have occurred since 1991. It also offers details about each category of delivery vehicle--land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers--focusing on their current deployments and ongoing and planned modernization programs.

ZPR-6 Assembly 7 (ZPR-6/7) encompasses a series of experiments performed at the ZPR-6 facility at Argonne National Laboratory in 1970 and 1971 as part of the Demonstration Reactor Benchmark Program (Reference 1). Assembly 7 simulated a large sodium-cooled LMFBR with mixed oxide fuel, depleted uranium radial and axial blankets, and a core H/D near unity. ZPR-6/7 was designed to test fast reactor physics data and methods, so configurations in the Assembly 7 program were as simple as possible in terms of geometry and composition. ZPR-6/7 had a very uniform core assembled from small plates of depleted uranium, sodium, iron oxide, U{sub 3}O{sub 8} and Pu-U-Mo alloy loaded into stainless steel drawers. The steel drawers were placed in square stainless steel tubes in the two halves of a split table machine. ZPR-6/7 had a simple, symmetric core unit cell whose neutronic characteristics were dominated by plutonium and {sup 238}U. The core was surrounded by thick radial and axial regions of depleted uranium to simulate radial and axial blankets and to isolate the core from the surrounding room. The ZPR-6/7 program encompassed 139 separate core loadings which include the initial approach to critical and all subsequent core loading changes required to perform …