This document reports the findings and implementation recommendations of the Price Reasonableness Working Group to the Federal ESPC Steering Committee. The working group was formed to address concerns of agencies and oversight organizations related to pricing and fair and reasonable price determination in federal energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs). This report comprises the working group's recommendations and is the proposed draft of a training curriculum on fair and reasonable price determination for users of federal ESPCs. The report includes: (1) A review of federal regulations applicable to determining price reasonableness of federal ESPCs (section 2), (2) Brief descriptions of the techniques described in Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) 15.404-1 and their applicability to ESPCs (section 3), and (3) Recommended strategies and procedures for cost-effectively completing price reasonableness determinations (sections 4). Agencies have struggled with fair and reasonable price determinations in their ESPCs primarily because this alternative financing vehicle is relatively new and relatively rare in the federal sector. The methods of determining price reasonableness most familiar to federal contracting officers (price competition based on the government's design and specifications, in particular) are generally not applicable to ESPCs. The regulatory requirements for determining price reasonableness in federal ESPCs have also been misunderstood, …

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This report examines various options for strengthening FDA's ability to protect the public.

In support of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), Battelle conducted tests on mixing specific wastes within the plant, removing troublesome materials from the waste before treatment, and determining if the final waste forms met the established criteria. In addition, several Battelle experts filled full-time positions in WTP's Research and Testing and Process and Operations departments.

The U.S. Department of Energy's mission is to protect the Columbia River and the public living in communities surrounding the Hanford Site while cleaning up and shrinking the Site. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is contributing to the cleanup mission and protection of the Columbia River and public. This booklet summarizes work PNNL performed directly for DOE. Work done for Hanford contractors and the Waste Treatment Plant is summarized in the other booklets in this series.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory supports Bechtel Hanford, Inc., in identifying and applying new technologies to clean up contaminated sites on the land bordering the Columbia River where nine nuclear reactors operated. During fiscal year 2004, PNNL screened more than 100 different technologies for potential application to site clean up.

In 2004, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory provided analyses, reviews, testing, and new tools to assist CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. in accomplishing their River Protection Project objectives. These objectives are safe storage, retrieval, and treatment of radioactive waste from Hanford's tanks, closure of tanks, and disposal of treated wastes.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory managed a variety of technical and scientific efforts to support Fluor Hanford's work in cleaning up the Hanford Site. Work done for other Hanford contractors, the Waste Treatment Plant, and directly for the U.S. Department of Energy is summarized in the other booklets in this series.

This paper presents a novel slideway bearing design comprised of a thin-film (0.1 mm-0.2 mm) of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) bound to a rigid hemispherical substrate. Two prototype bearing designs were fabricated and tested to characterize the coefficient of friction (dynamic and static) and wear of the polymer. In addition, similar bearings were incorporated into a kinematically constrained rectilinear carriage to determine the repeatability of motion during multiple traverses. The first bearing had a radius of curvature on the order of 2.38 mm incorporating an UHMWPE film thickness between 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm. The friction coefficient was measured to be between 0.155 and 0.189 for normal loads of 11.5 N and 2.2 N, respectively at a surface speed of 4.2 mm {center_dot} s{sup -1}. This bearing failed after a traverse of approximately 700 m at a load of 11.5 N. A similar evaluation procedure was carried out on a bearing of radius 6.35 mm resulting in a friction coefficient between 0.125 and 0.185 at loads of 27.8 N and 2.2 N, respectively, and the bearing endured a traverse of over 2.2 km at a load of approximately 28 N (in both air and vacuum conditions) with a surface …

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) was enacted to address concerns expressed by state and local governments about federal statutes and regulations that require nonfederal parties to expend resources to achieve legislative goals without being provided funding to cover the costs. Over the past 10 years, Congress has at various times considered legislation that would amend various aspects of UMRA. This testimony is based on GAO's report, Unfunded Mandates: Analysis of Reform Act Coverage (GAO-04-637, May 12, 2004). Specifically, this testimony addresses (1) the process used to identify federal mandates and what are federal agencies' roles, (2) statutes and rules that contained federal mandates under UMRA, and (3) statutes and rules that were not considered mandates under UMRA but may be perceived to be "unfunded mandates" by certain affected parties."

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. agriculture generates more than $1 trillion per year in economic activity and provides an abundant food supply for Americans and others. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, there are new concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. agriculture to the deliberate introduction of animal and plant diseases (agroterrorism). Several agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Defense (DOD), play a role in protecting the nation against agroterrorism. GAO examined (1) the federal agencies' roles and responsibilities to protect against agroterrorism, (2) the steps that the agencies have taken to manage the risks of agroterrorism, and (3) the challenges and problems that remain."

During the 2nd half of Year I, we continued the development of the microporous ceramic layer as a transition layer for the deposition of the carbon molecular sieve membrane on the stainless steel substrate offered by Pall Corp. Based upon the positive result from the feasibility study conducted in the 1st half of Year I, our activities in this period focused on eliminating the high pore size peak and the minimization of defect. A microporous ceramic layer with 40A pore size and <1% initial flow have been successfully prepared. Further, this modified membrane has demonstrated excellent thermal stability, <1% initial flow after the 5 thermal cycles. In addition we began the CMS layer deposition on the AccuSep with the ceramic transition layer. The CMS membranes fired at the low temperature range demonstrate an excellent hydrogen permeance, up to >5 m{sup 3}/m{sup 2}/hr/bar, with the selectivity of {approx}20 for H{sub 2}/N{sub 2}. The extremely high permeance is indicative of the extremely thin CMS membrane layer, which becomes possible as a result of the uniform and defect free transition layer. This could be an ideal membrane for hydrogen recovery applications where the hydrogen permeance is the primary concern. Presently we are actively …

This report briefly provides an overview of general trends among the states individual statutes.

This report includes information regarding U.S. relations with Libya as well as other Libyan foreign relations and government.

A new method to implement low-noise collision operators in particle-in-cell simulations is presented. The method is based on the fact that relevant collision operators can be included naturally in the Lagrangian formulation that exemplifies the particle-in-cell simulation method. Numerical simulations show that the momentum and energy conservation properties of the simulated plasma associated with the low-noise collision operator are improved as compared with standard collision algorithms based on random numbers.

This short report provides information and analysis on Moldova, including its political and economic situation, foreign policy, and on U.S. policy toward Moldova. For more background on Moldova, see CRS Report 95-403, Moldova: Basic Facts, by Steven Woehrel. This report will be updated as events warrant.

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The purpose of this report is to identify and document the nuclear safety design requirements that are specific to structures, systems, and components (SSCs) of the repository that are important to safety (ITS) during the preclosure period and to support the preclosure safety analysis and the license application for the high-level radioactive waste (HLW) repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The scope of this report includes the assignment of nuclear safety design requirements to SSCs that are ITS and does not include the assignment of design requirements to SSCs or natural or engineered barriers that are important to waste isolation (ITWI). These requirements are used as input for the design of the SSCs that are ITS such that the preclosure performance objectives of 10 CFR 63.111 [DIRS 156605] are met. The natural or engineered barriers that are important to meeting the postclosure performance objectives of 10 CFR 63.113 [DIRS 156605] are identified as ITWI. Although a structure, system, or component (SSC) that is ITS may also be ITWI, this report is only concerned with providing the nuclear safety requirements for SSCs that are ITS to prevent or mitigate event sequences during the repository preclosure period.

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Federal agencies have implemented many energy efficiency projects over the years with direct funding or alternative financing vehicles such as energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs). While it is generally accepted that these projects save energy and costs, the savings are usually not obvious in the utility bills. This is true for many valid technical reasons, even when savings are verified in other ways to the highest degree of certainty. However, any perceived deficiency in the evidence for savings is problematic when auditors or other observers evaluate the outcome of energy projects and the achievements of energy management programs. This report discusses under what circumstances energy savings should or should not be evident in utility bills. In the special case of a large ESPC project at the Army's Fort Polk, the analysis of utility bills carried out by the authors does unequivocally confirm and quantify savings. The data requirements and methods for arriving at definitive answers through utility bill analysis are demonstrated in our discussion of the Fort Polk project. The following paragraphs address why the government generally should not expect to see savings from ESPC projects in their utility bills. We also review lessons learned and best practices for measurement …

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This note describes a simple model developed to explore some of the properties of the pulse-line ion accelerator [1], here represented as a series of lumped elements, in the general parameter regime for the ''NDCX-1d'' experiments. The goals of this modeling are: to understand the evolution of various possible input pulses in the presence of dispersive effects and imperfect termination of the line; to examine scenarios for beam acceleration; and to explore the effects of ''beam loading'', that is, changes to the voltages along the helical line that result from the interaction of the beam's return current with the ''circuitry'' of that line. In Section 1 below, the model is described and the method of solution outlined; in Section 2, a low-current example of beam acceleration is presented; in Section 3, runs are presented showing the development of beam loading-induced voltages as model pulses are followed; in section 4, the modeling of a higher-current beam under acceleration is presented, and the effects of beam loading quantified; and in section 5, a brief summary of complementary efforts and of plans to extend the modeling is presented.

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