Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Social Security Administration's (SSA) efforts to prepare its workforce to meet future service delivery challenges, focusing on: (1) SSA's reasons for the 7-year delay in developing a service delivery vision; (2) what SSA's decision not to issue a detailed service delivery plan means for customer service; (3) the differences between a service vision and a service delivery plan; (4) effect the absence of a detailed plan will have on SSA's information technology and its workforce; (5) benefits from SSA's investments in its computer modernization; (6) special challenges SSA will face as a result of the changing needs of its customers; (7) reasons why customers cannot apply for Social Security benefits on-line and the effect on-line applications for benefits will have on SSA's service delivery; and (8) various technology initiatives being implemented."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) space station program's prime contract changes during fiscal years 1998 and 1999, focusing on: (1) the number of changes made to the original contract, how many added capability or revised initial designs, and the total estimated cost of the changes; (2) the number of changes that either added capability or revised initial designs and for which work began before NASA and the contractor agreed on a cost estimate and their total estimated cost; (3) the difference between the proposed and final negotiated costs of changes for which work began before NASA and the contractor agreed on a cost; and (4) instances in which NASA spent funds for space station enhancements that were not called for in the original contract's baseline design and are not currently included in NASA's space station program budget."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO followed up on its report on the General Services Administration's (GSA) building repairs and alterations program."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the progress of the nonresponse follow-up operation of the 2000 Census, focusing on the: (1) response rate and its impact on the nonresponse follow-up workload; (2) Bureau of the Census' ability to complete nonresponse follow-up on schedule while maintaining data quality; (3) Bureau's efforts to redeliver questionnaires initially found to be undeliverable; and (4) status of the Bureau's data capture operations."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) progress in implementing its information technology (IT) program, focusing on: (1) VA's efforts to address GAO's 1998 recommendations; (2) the status of VA's actions to develop and implement a Master Veteran Record (MVR); and (3) VA's steps to improve computer security across the department."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the President's proposal to manage the high and rising costs of prescription drugs for the elderly by extending the private sector's prescription drug cost control techniques to the Medicare program."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on federal mandatory spending on the elderly."

This work investigates a control system for HCCI engines, where thermal energy from exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and compression work in the supercharger are either recycled or rejected as needed. HCCI engine operation is analyzed with a detailed chemical kinetics code, HCT (Hydrodynamics, Chemistry and Transport), that has been extensively modified for application to engines. HCT is linked to an optimizer that determines the operating conditions that result in maximum brake thermal efficiency, while meeting the restrictions of low NO{sub x} and peak cylinder pressure. The results show the values of the operating conditions that yield optimum efficiency as a function of torque and RPM. For zero torque (idle), the optimizer determines operating conditions that result in minimum fuel consumption. The optimizer is also used for determining the maximum torque that can be obtained within the operating restrictions of NO{sub x} and peak cylinder pressure. The results show that a thermally controlled HCCI engine can successfully operate over a wide range of conditions at high efficiency and low emissions.

Linear stability analysis of a two-cylinder approximation to gun injection--one cylinder to represent the confined spheromak and another to represent the gun--is shown to yield equilibria in which tearing modes exist simultaneously at the magnetic axis and at the geometric (gun) axis, as might be required to sustain helicity injection. These equilibria are MHD stable at the two axes but may have localized MHD instability at an interior minimum in the q profile. The theory predicts two tearing thresholds with successively deeper q minima as the gun current is increased at constant bias flux.

This document presents the climatological data measured at the Hanford Site for claendar year 1999. The information contained includes updated historical climatologies for temperature, precipitation, normal and extreme values of temperature and precipitaion and other meteorological parameters.

The objective of this calculation is to evaluate the structural response of the waste package during the horizontal and vertical lifting operations in order to support the waste package lifting feature design. The scope of this calculation includes the evaluation of the 21 PWR UCF (pressurized water reactor uncanistered fuel) waste package, naval waste package, 5 DHLW/DOE SNF (defense high-level waste/Department of Energy spent nuclear fuel)--short waste package, and 44 BWR (boiling water reactor) UCF waste package. Procedure AP-3.12Q, Revision 0, ICN 0, calculations, is used to develop and document this calculation.

Evaluations of the Weatherization Assistance Program (the Program) serve three major purposes: (1) to document the energy savings and cost effectiveness of the Program, (2) to attract and maintain funding, and (3) to identify opportunities for improving the Program's performance. State managers need detailed and specific information about the performance of their own Program if they are to conduct and market it as effectively as possible. In this evaluation guide, we focus almost entirely on the issues related to the measurement of energy savings. Because the Program's main goal is to reduce the energy use and energy burden of low-income households, the minimum output of an evaluation study should be an estimate of energy savings. If resources are limited, the first priority is to obtain this estimate of savings. Some states may be interested in other issues such as determining Program cost effectiveness, testing the value of various audit types, or identifying the best opportunities for increasing energy savings. Because of limited resources, most will focus only on measuring energy savings.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Pollution Prevention (EM-77) created a successful internally competed program to fund innovative projects based on projected returns. This is called the Return-on-Investment (ROI) program. EM-77 conducted a successful ROI pilot, developed and implemented sound management practices, and successfully transferred the program to several Operations Offices. Over the past 4 years sites have completed 262 ROI projects (costing $18.8 million) with claimed first-year savings of $88 million and claimed life cycle savings exceeding $300 million. EM-77 requested that Oak Ridge National Laboratory perform an independent evaluation of the site-led, DOE-HQ-funded pollution prevention (P2) ROI program to assist the Department in determining whether claimed savings are real. The approach for conducting this evaluation was to analyze a sample of P2 projects to identify actual project cost savings and other actual benefits--e.g., amount of waste avoided. To determine the projects for review, EM-77 provided a list of EM-funded projects at two Operations Offices: Oak Ridge and Richland. Sixteen projects (eight from each Operations Office) were selected at random from this list for review. Project documentation was requested from the sites, and this was followed by face-to-face interviews with project personnel. of the 16 projects selected …

This Acceptance Test Procedure (ATP) provides for the inspection and testing of the new Pumping Instrumentation and Control (PIC) skid designed as ''R''. The ATP will be performed after the construction of the PIC skid in the fabrication shop.

The purpose of these calculations is to develop the material balances for documentation of the Canister Storage Building (CSB) Process Flow Diagram (PFD) and future reference. The attached mass balances were prepared to support revision two of the PFD for the CSB. The calculations refer to diagram H-2-825869.

The purpose of this document is to provide a comparison of the estimated immobilized low-activity waste (LAW) disposal system performance against established performance objectives using the beat estimates for parameters and models to describe the system. The principal advances in knowledge since the last performance assessment (known as the 1998 ILAW PA [Mann 1998a]) have been in site specific information and data on the waste form performance for BNFL, Inc. relevant glass formulations. The white paper also estimates the maximum release rates for technetium and other key radionuclides and chemicals from the waste form. Finally, this white paper provides limited information on the impact of changes in waste form loading.

This document describe the software programs for the Programmable Logic Controller and the Datable Access Module for Pumping Instrumentation and Control skid ''P''. The Appendices contains copies of the printouts of these software programs.

This Acceptance Test Report (ATR) provides the test results for the inspection and testing of the new Pumping Instrumentation and Control (PIC) skid designed as ''Q''. The ATR summaries the results and provides a copy of the ATP and inspections in the Appendix.

This assessment of High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter vulnerability was requested by the USDOE Office of River Protection (ORP) to satisfy a DOE-HQ directive to evaluate the effect of filter degradation on the facility authorization basis assumptions. Within the scope of this assessment are ventilation system HEPA filters that are classified as Safety-Class (SC) or Safety-Significant (SS) components that perform an accident mitigation function. The objective of the assessment is to verify whether HEPA filters that perform a safety function during an accident are likely to perform as intended to limit release of hazardous or radioactive materials, considering factors that could degrade the filters. Filter degradation factors considered include aging, wetting of filters, exposure to high temperature, exposure to corrosive or reactive chemicals, and exposure to radiation. Screening and evaluation criteria were developed by a site-wide group of HVAC engineers and HEPA filter experts from published empirical data. For River Protection Project (RPP) filters, the only degradation factor that exceeded the screening threshold was for filter aging. Subsequent evaluation of the effect of filter aging on the filter strength was conducted, and the results were compared with required performance to meet the conditions assumed in the RPP Authorization Basis …

This report talks about Electricity regulation and transmission issues. It also includes the history of the California Electricity Crisis.

Double-shell tanks (DSTs) and Double Contained Receiver Tanks (DCRTs) are actively ventilated, along with certain single-shell tanks (SSTs) and other RPP facilities. The exhaust air stream on a typical primary ventilation system is drawn through two stages of high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration to ensure confinement of airborne radioactive materials. Active ventilation exhaust stacks require a stack CAM interlock to detect releases from postulated accidents, and to shut down the exhaust fan when high radiation levels are detected in the stack airstream. The stack CAM interlock is credited as a mitigating control to stop continued unfiltered radiological and toxicological discharges from the stack, which may result from an accident involving failure of a HEPA filter. This document defines the initial technical design baseline for a HEPA filter AP fan interlock system.

This document is the format IV, final report for the tank 241-SY-102 (SY-102) grab samples taken in January 2000 to address waste compatibility concerns. Chemical, radiochemical, and physical analyses on the tank SY-102 samples were performed as directed in Comparability Grab Sampling and Analysis Plan for Fiscal Year 2000 (Sasaki 1999). No notification limits were exceeded. Preliminary data on samples 2SY-99-5, -6, and -7 were reported in ''Format II Report on Tank 241-SY-102 Waste Compatibility Grab Samples Taken in January 2000'' (Lockrem 2000). The data presented here represent the final results.

In February 1995, the US Department of Energy (DOE) approved the Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Project's ''Path Forward'' recommendation for resolution of the safety and environmental concerns associated with the deteriorating SNF stored in the Hanford Site's K Basins (Hansen 1995). The recommendation included an aggressive series of projects to design, construct, and operate systems and facilitates to permit the safe retrieval, packaging, transport, conditions, and interim storage of the K Basins' SNF. The facilities are the Cold VAcuum Drying Facility (CVDF) in the 100 K Area of the Hanford Site and the Canister Storage building (CSB) in the 200 East Area. The K Basins' SNF is to be cleaned, repackaged in multi-canister overpacks (MCOs), removed from the K Basins, and transported to the CVDF for initial drying. The MCOs would then be moved to the CSB and weld sealed (Loscoe 1996) for interim storage (about 40 years). One of the major tasks associated with the initial Path Forward activities is the development and maintenance of the safety documentation. In addition to meeting the construction needs for new structures, the safety documentation for each must be generated.

On December 17, 1999, President Clinton signed the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 (H.R. 1180; P.L. 106-170). This Act contained revenue provisions extending several popular tax benefits such as the work opportunity tax credit, the welfare to work tax credit, and the applicability of the nonrefundable personal tax credits to the individual alternative minimum tax. To pay for the extension of these tax benefits the Act also included several tax changes that increased revenue. Among these revenue offset provisions was a modification and limitation on the use of the installment method of reporting asset sales for taxpayers who normally use the accrual method of accounting.