Historically, national commemorative observances were recommended by Congress through the legislative process. This practice was discontinued by the House of Representatives in January 1995, although the Senate continues to issue sense of the Senate resolutions recommending the establishment of commemoratives. It has now become standard practice for special observances to be designated by a proclamation issued by the President. This report is a chronological list of these proclamations for 1997 and 1998, indicating the proclamation number and its Federal Register citation

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The purpose of this report is to provide background for and summarize current developments in U.S. - People’s Republic of China (PRC) relations, including current and pending congressional actions involving the PRC.

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This report provides the financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare programs.

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The Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) is a flexible source of funds that states may use to support a wide variety of social services activities. States have broad discretion over the use of these funds. This short report provides background information on the SSBG and tracks relevant legislation and appropriations measures.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Texas Board of Architecture Examiners’ authority under chapter 53 of the Occupations Code to require an applicant for registration or a registrant to report criminal history information (RQ-0627-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Texas Water Advisory Council is subject to the requirements of the Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code (RQ-0632-JC)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Health and Safety Code, section 572.0025(f)(1) requirement that a physician conduct an "in-person examination" of a prospective patient of an inpatient mental health facility means that only a physician may conduct the examination (RQ-0003-GA)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "By the year 2006, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) projects it will lose a significant portion of its mission-critical workforce to retirement. VBA has hired over 2,000 new employees to begin to fill this expected gap. GAO was asked to review: (1) the attrition rate at VBA, particularly for new employees who examine veterans' claims, and the agency's methods for calculating attrition; and (2) the adequacy of VBA's analysis of attrition data, including the reasons for attrition. To answer these questions, GAO analyzed attrition data from VBA's Office of Human Resources, calculated attrition rates for VBA and other federal agencies using a governmentwide database on federal employment, and interviewed VBA officials about their efforts to measure attrition and determine why new employees leave."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "To protect the public from harmful emissions, transportation planners in areas with poor air must show that their plans will not make it worse. Every time they update their transportation improvement program (TIP) and their 20-year plan--every 2 and 3 years respectively--federal laws and regulations require that they ensure the emissions from their plans will not exceed the mobile source emissions budget. This is known as "demonstrating conformity." Areas that fail to do so generally cannot spend federal funds on new projects until they resolve the problem. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works asked GAO to determine (1) how many areas have failed, why, and what corrective actions they took, and (2) what issues transportation planners had with the conformity process and what solutions are possible."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, Americans have come to rely increasingly on mobile phones to meet their business and personal needs. However, because of the nature of radio transmission and other constraints, consumers are not always able to complete calls or to hear their calls clearly. As reliance on mobile phones has increased, state officials, consumer groups, the media, and others have raised concerns about the extent of call quality problems. With regard to call quality, GAO agreed to describe the regulatory framework; determine the extent to which consumers are experiencing problems; and discuss actions for improving call quality suggested by interested parties."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Solar radiation is absorbed by the earth and is subsequently reemitted. The buildup of carbon dioxide and certain other gases in the earth's atmosphere traps some of that radiation. This is known as the greenhouse effect and is believed to contribute to a warming of the earth's climate. Concerns are growing that, in addition to carbon dioxide and other conventional greenhouse gases, certain air pollutants may affect the climate. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent of agreement among scientists regarding the effect on the climate of three air pollutants--black carbon (soot), ground-level ozone, and sulfate aerosols--and (2) seven countries' efforts to control these pollutants, trends in these substances in these countries over the past 2 decades, and estimates for the next decade. GAO was also asked to summarize the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution. The seven countries include four that are economically developed--Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States--and three that are developing--China, India, and Mexico. These countries were chosen because they have large economies with a high potential to emit these pollutants. The two federal agencies asked to comment …

An email from Scott Evertz to Lawrence A. Fleischer, and Karl C. Rove who is CC'd, about the recent comments made by Senator Rick Santorum. Included is a chain of previous emails.

This seventh quarterly technical report discusses the progress made on a machine vision technique for determining coal content and ore grades. Considerable progress has been made on coal analysis. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) target recognition software has been tested and incorporated into the system. This software decreases analysis time considerably and is more intuitive to use. Work with board-level computers has proceeded well; ultimately this will make the technology more compact and fieldable. Work with talc will be delayed because the graduate student working on this project is leaving the program. Ongoing work is devoted to more detailed coal analysis, improving the software interface, and developing procedures and a users manual.

This project was initially targeted to the making of coke for blast furnaces by using proprietary technology of Calderon in a phased approach, and Phase I was successfully completed. The project was then re-directed to the making of iron units. U.S. Steel teamed up with Calderon for a joint effort which will last 30 months to produce directly reduced iron with the potential of converting it into molten iron or steel consistent with the Roadmap recommendations of 1998 prepared by the Steel Industry in cooperation with the Department of Energy.

This Corrective Action Investigation Plan (CAIP) contains the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Sites Office's (NNSA/NSO's) approach to collect the data necessary to evaluate corrective action alternatives appropriate for the closure of Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 516, Septic Systems and Discharge Points, Nevada Test Site (NTS), Nevada, under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. CAU 516 consists of six Corrective Action Sites: 03-59-01, Building 3C-36 Septic System; 03-59-02, Building 3C-45 Septic System; 06-51-01, Sump Piping, 06-51-02, Clay Pipe and Debris; 06-51-03, Clean Out Box and Piping; and 22-19-04, Vehicle Decontamination Area. Located in Areas 3, 6, and 22 of the NTS, CAU 516 is being investigated because disposed waste may be present without appropriate controls, and hazardous and/or radioactive constituents may be present or migrating at concentrations and locations that could potentially pose a threat to human health and the environment. Existing information and process knowledge on the expected nature and extent of contamination of CAU 516 are insufficient to select preferred corrective action alternatives; therefore, additional information will be obtained by conducting a corrective action investigation. The results of this field investigation will support a defensible evaluation of corrective action alternatives in the …

The Yellowstone geothermal system provides an ideal opportunity to test the ability of reactive transport models to accurately simulate water-rock interaction. Previous studies of the Yellowstone geothermal system have characterized water-rock interaction through analysis of rocks and fluids obtained from both surface and downhole samples. Fluid chemistry, rock mineralogy, permeability, porosity, and thermal data obtained from the Y-8 borehole in Upper Geyser Basin were used to constrain a series of reactive transport simulations of the Yellowstone geothermal system using TOUGHREACT. Three distinct stratigraphic units were encountered in the 153.4 m deep Y-8 drill core: volcaniclastic sandstone, perlitic rhyolitic lava, and nonwelded pumiceous tuff. The main alteration phases identified in the Y-8 core samples include clay minerals, zeolites, silica polymorphs, adularia, and calcite. Temperatures observed in the Y-8 borehole increase with depth from sub-boiling conditions at the surface to a maximum of 169.8 C at a depth of 104.1 m, with near-isothermal conditions persisting down to the well bottom. 1-D models of the Y-8 core hole were constructed to determine if TOUGHREACT could accurately predict the observed alteration mineral assemblage given the initial rock mineralogy and observed fluid chemistry and temperatures. Preliminary simulations involving the perlitic rhyolitic lava unit are consistent …

At present, guidelines for fuel cycle designs to prevent axial offset anomalies (AOA) in pressurized water reactor (PWR) cores are based on empirical data from several operating reactors. Although the guidelines provide an ad-hoc solution to the problem, a unified approach based on simultaneous modeling of thermal-hydraulics, chemical, and nuclear interactions with vapor generation at the fuel cladding surface does not exist. As a result, the fuel designs are overly constrained with a resulting economic penalty. The objective of present project is to develop a numerical simulation model supported by laboratory experiments that can be used for fuel cycle design with respect to thermal duty of the fuel to avoid economic penalty, as well as, AOA. At first, two-dimensional numerical simulation of the growth and departure of a bubble in pool boiling with chemical interaction is considered. A finite difference scheme is used to solve the equations governing conservation of mass, momentum, energy, and species concentration. The Level Set method is used to capture the evolving liquid-vapor interface. A dilute aqueous boron solution is considered in the simulation. From numerical simulations, the dynamic change in concentration distribution of boron during the bubble growth shows that the precipitation of boron can …