This report reviews cyber supply chain risks, discusses ways in which they are currently managed, and provides issues that Congress may consider.

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This report addresses time limitations associated with selected House floor procedures.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Improper payments are a long-standing problem throughout the government. The Department of Defense (DOD) has been overpaying contractors by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. For fiscal years 1994 through 1999, DOD contractors returned nearly $1.2 billion that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) had mistakenly paid them as a result of errors, such as paying the same invoice twice or misreading invoice amounts. Sometimes, however, the contractors do not promptly respond to government demands that the overpayments be returned. The Debt Management Office was created at the DFAS Columbus Center to deal with contractors that are unresponsive to the government's demands that overpayments be returned. GAO found that the Debt Management Office at DFAS Columbus is not effectively and proactively pursuing collections of debts assigned to it. Specifically, the Office is not (1) taking appropriate action to establish the validity of the debts that it receives for collection, (2) promptly issuing letters demanding payment, (3) actively communicating with contractors or resolving issues related to the debts, and (4) effectively using the Department of the Treasury's centralized debt collection programs to maximize collections and …

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The Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) operated a grain storage facility in Waverly, Nebraska, from 1952 to 1974. During this time, the grain fumigant '80/20' (carbon tetrachloride/carbon disulfide) was used to preserve stored grain. In 1982, sampling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found carbon tetrachloride contamination in the town's groundwater. After an investigation of the contaminant distribution, the site was placed on the National Priority List (NPL) in 1986, and the CCC/USDA accepted responsibility for the contamination. An Interagency Compliance Agreement between the EPA and the CCC/USDA was finalized in May 1988 (EPA 1990). The EPA (Woodward-Clyde Consultants, contractor) started immediate cleanup efforts in 1987 with the installation of an air stripper, a soil vapor extraction system, a groundwater extraction well, and groundwater and soil gas monitoring wells (Woodward-Clyde 1986, 1988a,b). After the EPA issued its Record of Decision (ROD; EPA 1990), the CCC/USDA (Argonne National Laboratory, contractor) took over operation of the treatment systems. The CCC/USDA conducted a site investigation (Argonne 1991, 1992a,b), during which a carbon tetrachloride plume in groundwater was discovered northeast of the former facility. This plume was not being captured by the existing groundwater extraction system. The remediation …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under time-and-materials contracts, payments to contractors are made based on the number of labor hours billed at hourly rates and, if applicable, other direct costs. Because of the risk they pose to the government, their use is supposed to be limited to cases where no other contract type is suitable. GAO was asked to identify trends in the Department of Defense's (DOD) obligations under time-and-materials contracts; analyze what DOD is buying under these contracts; assess why DOD is using them and whether actions are being taken to ensure that they are used only when no other contract type is suitable; evaluate DOD's monitoring of contractor performance; and determine the differences between the labor rates prime contractors bill DOD and the rates in their subcontracts. GAO reviewed 82 time-and-materials contracts, agreements, and orders and examined prime contract and subcontract labor rates on 12 additional contracts or agreements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Army and the Marine Corps experienced problems with the delivery of supplies to the warfighter. Such problems highlight long-standing weaknesses in the Department of Defense's (DOD) supply chain management. DOD has identified joint theater logistics as a key effort aimed at improving distribution and supply support. GAO was asked to examine DOD's efforts to develop and implement joint theater logistics. GAO assessed (1) the extent to which DOD's approach to managing joint theater logistics departmentwide encompasses sound management principles and (2) the progress DOD has made in implementing joint theater logistics initiatives. GAO reviewed DOD documents and interviewed officials from the Joint Staff, services, agencies, and geographic combatant commands."

This report discusses the Background, Issues, and Options for Congress on Defense Procurement. The full funding policy is a federal budgeting rule imposed on DOD by Congress in the 1950s that requires the entire procurement cost of a weapon of military equipment.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the process used by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to identify foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, focusing on current identification process used by the Committee and the effectiveness of the Committee's follow-up on acquisitions identified by its member agencies."

OAK-B135 This paper is submitted in fulfillment of DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-015F22369 on the experience of western states/provinces with demand response (DR) in the electricity sector. Demand-side resources are often overlooked as a viable option for meeting load growth and addressing the challenges posed by the region's aging transmission system. Western states should work together with utilities and grid operators to facilitate the further deployment of DR programs which can provide benefits in the form of decreased grid congestion, improved system reliability, market efficiency, price stabilization, hedging against volatile fuel prices and reduced environmental impacts of energy production. This report describes the various types of DR programs; provides a survey of DR programs currently in place in the West; considers the benefits, drawbacks and barriers to DR; and presents lessons learned and recommendations for states/provinces.

A new roadway lighting demonstration project was initiated in late 2010, which was planned in conjunction with other upgrades to NE Cully Boulevard, a residential collector road in the northeast area of Portland, OR. With the NE Cully Boulevard project, the Portland Bureau of Transportation hoped to demonstrate different light source technologies and different luminaires side-by-side. This report documents the initial performance of six different newly installed luminaires, including three LED products, one induction product, one ceramic metal halide product, and one high-pressure sodium (HPS) product that represented the baseline solution. It includes reported, calculated, and measured performance; evaluates the economic feasibility of each of the alternative luminaires; and documents user feedback collected from a group of local Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) members that toured the site. This report does not contain any long-term performance evaluations or laboratory measurements of luminaire performance. Although not all of the installed products performed equally, the alternative luminaires generally offered higher efficacy, more appropriate luminous intensity distributions, and favorable color quality when compared to the baseline HPS luminaire. However, some products did not provide sufficient illumination to all areas—vehicular drive lanes, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks—or would likely fail to meet design criteria over the …

A report describing the process and results of replacing existing parking lot lighting, looking at a LED option with occupancy sensors, and conventional alternates. Criteria include payback, light levels, occupant satisfaction. This report is Phase I of II. Phase I deals with initial installation.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For decades, the Department of Defense (DOD) has been challenged in modernizing its timeworn business systems. Since 1995, GAO has designated DOD's business systems modernization program as high risk. Between 2001 and 2005, GAO reported that the modernization program had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an enterprise architecture and investment management structures that had limited value. Accordingly, GAO made explicit architecture and investment management-related recommendations. Congress included provisions in the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 that were consistent with GAO's recommendations and required GAO to assess DOD's actions to comply with these provisions. To do so, GAO reviewed documents and interviewed military officials on the progress the military departments have made relative to developing their respective parts of the federated business enterprise architecture and establishing investment management structures and processes."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Education's performance report for fiscal year 2000. Specifically, GAO examines Education's progress in achieving selected key outcomes that are important to its mission. Given the lack of performance data, explanations, and strategies to meet unmet goals in the future, it was difficult for GAO to assess progress. The lack of a performance plan also hindered GAO's efforts. Specifically, GAO found that it was difficult to assess Education's progress in achieving the six selected outcomes because of the lack of fiscal year 2000 data for many of its indicators. Consistent with its findings in reviewing Education's performance report from last year, GAO found that Education had no goals or measures for preventing fraud, waste, mismanagement, and error in the student financial assistance programs. Although the Office of Student Financial Assistance has established a target of being removed from GAO's high-risk list, there were no corresponding goals or measures in the department's interim report. However, Education has revised its strategic plan to incorporate an objective of ensuring financial integrity within the department. Like last year's report, GAO found that there was no …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Energy's (DOE) fiscal year 2002 performance report and fiscal 2002 performance plan as required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to assess DOE's progress in achieving five key outcomes identified as important mission areas for the agency. GAO found that DOE's performance report did not always effectively demonstrate the agency's progress in achieving its outcomes because it included (1) unclear, jargon-laden measures that did not always support superceeding objectives, (2) performance assessments that were inconsistent with actual performance, (3) objectives with insufficient performance measures, and (4) a lack of explanation for shortfalls in performance. In its fiscal year 2002 performance plan, DOE generally outlined broad, clear strategies for achieving the objectives under the selected outcomes. However, DOE did not consistently provide detailed, specific actions required to achieve some of the outcomes. DOE's fiscal year 2000 performance and accountability report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan present an overall improvement over previous reports and plans. Specifically, the fiscal year 2000 report organizes information by departmental decision unit to better track with the budget, and it better links objectives …

For several years, a major category of fuel element failures has been the side corrosion type, characterized by localized accelerated fuel element jacket corrosion. Since it has been demonstrated {sup 1} that misalignment of fuel elements in a process tube will produce flow patterns and accelerated corrosion, termed ``hot spots``, failure to align the fuel elements in process tubes is considered a contributing factor in the production of side corrosion failures. Preliminary testing of both self-supporting and ``bumper`` fuel elements is underway. Data on the self-supporting fuel elements have demonstrated that the bridge-rail projections have sufficient support strength, do not of themselves create a corrosion problem and in actuality probably eliminate any hot-spot areas. Although one tube of bumper fuel elements in KW Reactor {sup 3} has been discharged, data are not as yet available. Potentially, the most sever corrosion conditions exist during the summer months when reactor inlet temperatures are high. It is desirable then, provided bumper fuel elements limit hot- spot corrosion, to evaluate the bumper concept for large scale use possibly by the summer of 1960. To accomplish this, a demonstration loading of the bumper type fuel elements must be underway by about July, 1959. The purpose …

Abstract: "A method has been established for the estimation of volatile organic acids in aqueous process solutions containing UNH, nitric acid, ANN, sodium dichromate and small amounts of hexone. The practice is to distill a 400 ul or 500 ul sample in the presence of an excess of phosphoric acid and ferrous sulfate under a high vacuum; a special apparatus utilizing a receiver cooled with a dry ice-isopropanol mixture is employed. The distillate is taken up in isopropanol and then titrated potentiometrically with standard potassium hydroxide solution. Since nitric acid and organic acids are present, two end points are observed. The potassium hydroxide added between these end points is equivalent to the organic acids. In the titration, CO2 from the atmosphere or in the potassium hydroxide is a source of error. The former was avoided and correction was made for the latter."

Although Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been involved in weapons disassembly since its involvement in weapons design, the Lab was recently requested by the Department of Energy to extend its responsibility for LLNL-designed weapons to include dismantlement of some systems in the cold war arsenal. Dissolution of LX-10-1 and PBX-9404 explosive from two artillery fired atomic projectiles (AFAPs) can be accomplished using dimethyl sulfoxide. The composition of LX-10-1 and PBX-9404 are given. The authors have evaluated the detonability of solutions of these two plastic bonded explosives in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) under shock and thermal scenarios based on the UN ``Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods - Tests and Criteria`` (ST/SG/AC.10/11) and US Army Technical Bulletin 700-2. Prior to the relatively large scale shock and thermal sensitivity testing, small scale safety tests and thermochemical code calculations were used as a preliminary estimate of the detonability and hazards associated with up to 33% of these explosives in DMSO. Thermochemical calculations, small scale safety testing, and gap testing all indicate that these solutions are not detonable. They are currently in the process of evaluating these solutions using the small scale cookoff bomb (SCB) test.

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) assessed whether the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) is likely to free up resources for poverty reduction and achieve the goal of debt sustainability; (2) described the strategy to strengthen the link between debt relief and poverty reduction and how this strategy is to be implemented; and (3) described the challenges creditors face in fully funding the enhanced initiative."

Attempts were made to develop a coating formulation for shielded metal arc (SMA) welding electrodes for iron aluminide alloys. Core wires of various compositions were produced by aspiration casting at ORNL and coating formulation development was conducted by Devasco, Inc. It was found that, except for weld deposit compositions containing less than 10 weight % aluminum, all weld deposits exhibited extensive cold cracking and/or porosity. It was concluded that current coating formulation technology limits successful iron aluminide deposits to less than 10 weight % aluminum.

This report provides a brief overview of the proposed amendment to Rule 41. First, it provides a background on the origin of, and rationale underlying, the proposed amendment and a description of the rule as currently written. Second, it reviews the potential changes made by the proposed amendment and will survey various concerns commenters have raised with the proposal. Lastly, this report addresses efforts being made in Congress to alter, delay, or stop this rule change.

The purpose of this Integrated Safety Management System (ISMS) Program Description (PD) is to describe the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Richland Operations Office (RL) ISMS as implemented through the RL Integrated Management System (RIMS). This PD does not impose additional requirements but rather provides an overview describing how various parts of the ISMS fit together. Specific requirements for each of the core functions and guiding principles are established in other implementing processes, procedures, and program descriptions that comprise RIMS. RL is organized to conduct work through operating contracts; therefore, it is extremely difficult to provide an adequate ISMS description that only addresses RL functions. Of necessity, this PD contains some information on contractor processes and procedures which then require RL approval or oversight.

Engineering and construction activities associated with the Dresden Unit 1 chemical cleaning facility are described for January to June 1979.