A variety of animal agriculture issues, including prices, the impact of consolidation in the meat production/packing industry, trade, and the environmental impacts of large feedlots, continue to generate interest in Congress. This issue brief discusses these issues, as well as the 2002 farm bill, which contains several provisions affecting animal agriculture, including protections for contract growers, disaster assistance, country-of-origin labeling, and increased funding for conservation purposes.

This report examines various issues pertaining to foreign students in the United States. Since the Immigration Act of 1924, the United States has expressly permitted foreign students to study in U.S. institutions. Most foreign students are at least 18 years old and are enrolled in higher education programs. Foreign students are generally considered to enrich cultural diversity of the educational experience for U.S. residents as well as enhance the reputation of U.S. universities as world-class institutions. Concerns have arisen in recent years that have caused Congress to take a new look at the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provisions that govern their admission.

In the wake of the bankruptcy of Enron Corporation, numerous bills have been introduced in the 107th Congress with the intent of protecting workers from the financial losses that employees risk when they invest a large proportion of their retirement savings in securities issued by their employers. Legislative proposals include some that would directly regulate the proportion of employees’ retirement savings that can be comprised of employer securities, and others that would encourage education of employees on financial matters without imposing a cap on employee investment in employer securities.

This report briefly examines the accounting system that failed to provide a clear picture of the firm’s true condition, the independent auditors and board members who were unwilling to challenge Enron’s management, the Wall Street stock analysts and bond raters who missed the trouble ahead, the rules governing employer stock in company pension plans, and the unregulated energy derivatives trading that was the core of Enron’s business. The report also describes related legislation that has received floor or committee action and will be updated regularly.

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Electronic government (e-government) intersects many legislative issues, including privacy, digital divide (the lack of equal access to computers, whether due to a lack of financial resources or necessary skills), public access to government information, service delivery, and information security. E-government solutions are prominently represented in efforts to improve the management and efficiency of government information technology resources. To help policymakers discern e-government initiatives relative to their role in various issues, this report identifies and defines the principal e-government sectors and stages of development. It also outlines some of the opportunities and challenges associated with e-government.

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Weekly student newspaper from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Rio Grande City, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Funeral program for Vernon "Bud" Shannon, born September 9, 1952 and died March 22, 2002. The funeral was held Thursday, March 28, 2002 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiated by Rev. Terrence K. Hayes. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal, state, and local governments share responsibility in preparing for catastrophic terrorist attacks. Because the national security threat is diffuse and the challenge is intergovernmental, national policymakers need a firm understanding of the interests, capacity, and challenges when formulating antiterrorism strategies. Key aspects of this strategy should include a definition and clarification of the appropriate roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and local entities. GAO has found fragmentation and overlap among federal assistance programs. More than 40 federal entities have roles in combating terrorism, and past federal efforts have resulted in a lack of accountability, a lack of cohesive effort, and program duplication. This situation has led to confusion, making it difficult to identify available federal preparedness resources and effectively partner with the federal government. Goals and performance measures should be established to guide the nation's preparedness efforts. For the nation's preparedness programs, however, outcomes have yet to be defined in terms of domestic preparedness. Given the recent and proposed increases in preparedness funding, real and meaningful improvements in preparedness and establishing clear goals and performance measures are critical to ensuring a successful and a fiscally responsible effort. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of internal control weaknesses, the Department of Education's student financial assistance programs are at high risk for fraud or erroneous payments. GAO discovered fraud in the grant and loan areas and pervasive control breakdowns and improper payments in other areas. Controls over grant and loan disbursements lacked a key edit check or follow-up process that would identify schools improperly disbursing Pell Grants. Significant internal control weaknesses over Education's third party drafts also increased the department's vulnerability. GAO found that individual Education employees could control the entire payment process for third party drafts. Education employees also circumvented a key computerized control designed to prevent duplicate payments. Education eliminated third party drafts in May 2001. Inconsistent and inadequate authorization and review processes for purchase cards, combined with a lack of monitoring, meant that improper purchases were unlikely to be detected. Inadequate control over these expenditures, combined with the inherent risk of fraud and abuse associated with purchase cards, led to fraudulent, improper, and questionable purchases totaling $686,000. Poor internal controls over computers acquired with purchase cards and third party drafts led to 241 missing personal computers and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has experienced significant increases in the prices it pays for consumable spare parts, which are "consumed" when used or discarded when worn out because they cannot be cost effectively repaired. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) manages four million consumable spare parts or 93 percent of all consumable spare parts used by the military services. DOD is required to perform price trend analyses on some categories of commercial spare parts, address unreasonable price escalation, and report the results to Congress for three consecutive years beginning in April 2000. DLA has completed two price trend analyses for DOD. In addition to the price trend analyses, DLA also did a procurement management review in fiscal year 2000 to assess the overall risk of spare parts overpricing. The agency also has three information technology initiatives underway to determine price reasonableness for DLA customers and buyers. These efforts are in various stages of completion, and it is too early to assess their results."

Weekly newspaper published in Duncanville, Texas that includes local Cedar Hill, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Tulia, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) Office of Nuclear Material & Spent Fuel, EM-21, tasked the CSSG to perform a scoping study to determine the feasibility of increasing the fissile mass loading limits for specified TRUPACT-II and HalfPACT packages and containers. The results of the scoping study may provide insights and technical guidance for establishing fissile mass loading limits at waste generator sites and at the waste repository. The goal is to reduce costs of transporting fissile material to the WIPP from EM's various closure sites. This report documents the results of the scoping study and demonstrates that it is feasible to significantly increase the fissile mass loading limits in the TRUPACT-II and HalfPACT packages and containers. Depending upon the particular payload containers used, the number of shipments to WIPP could be reduced by at least a factor of 2 and as much as a factor of 16 and the number of total payload containers required ''down-hole'' at WIPP could be reduced by at least a factor of 2 and as much as about 6. These cost savings result simply from applying a more realistic criticality analysis model rather than the very conservative, hypothetical, bounding analysis used …

This report provides the results of experimental demonstrations related to processing of a legacy solution containing americium and curium through the High Level Waste (HLW) system. The testing included eight experiments covering the baseline, mitigation, and enhanced nitrate processing studies. In general, each experiment studied the mixtures generated over a period of time to emulate the lifecycle of actual sludge in the High Level Waste system. While the data in previous reports remain valid, this report supercedes all the previous reports and provides a collective overview of the work.

Consistent with the intent of this International Atomic Energy Agency technical meeting, decommissioning operating experience and contributions to the preparation for the Coordinated Research Project from Experimental Breeder Reactor-II activities will be discussed. This paper will review aspects of the decommissioning activities of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II, make recommendations for future decommissioning activities and reactor system designs and discuss relevant areas of potential research and development. The Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) was designed as a 62.5 MWt, metal fueled, pool reactor with a conventional 19 MWe power plant. The productive life of the EBR-II began with first operations in 1964. Demonstration of the fast reactor fuel cycle, serving as an irradiation facility, demonstration of fast reactor passive safety and lastly, was well on its way to close the fast breeder fuel cycle for the second time when the Integral Fast Reactor program was prematurely ended in October 1994 with the shutdown of the EBR-II. The shutdown of the EBR-II was dictated without an associated planning phase that would have provided a smooth transition to shutdown. Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy arrived at a logical plan and sequence for closure activities. The decommissioning activities as described herein …