This report discusses the Endangered Species Act, the regulation of the Fish and Wildlife Service defining "harm" for purposes of the "take" prohibitions of the Endangered Species Act.

In 1994, the second session of the 103rd Congress saw the political pressure exerted by property rights bills ascend new heights. Members supporting property rights legislation sought to add such provisions to nearly every major environmental bill. Opponents, including several committee chairmen, therefore declined to move the bills, and gridlock resulted.

This report provides information concerning voluntary pollution prevention programs administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the past 5 years, under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, the Environmental Protection Agency has developed a wide range of such programs and policies aiming to prevent pollution, improve efficiency, simplify compliance, and recognize or reward companies and organizations taking voluntary pollution prevention steps.

This report discusses the background information and most recent development in U.S.-China relations since mid-1996. The relations also have been marred by continuing allegations of Chinese espionage, ongoing controversy over human rights, charges that China continues to violate its non-proliferation commitments, controversy over the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and renewed tensions over Taiwan. The report describes current issues in U.S.-China relations such as; Human Rights Issues, Issues in U.S.-China Security Relations, Economic Issues, and Sovereignty Issues: Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong.

This report discusses congressional interest in the leadership change and economic transformation underway in China, which has grown substantially over the past two years. Leading congressional concerns focus on how economic conditions in China pose opportunities for U.S. enterprise and how the evolution of conditions in China foster U.S. security, economic, and political interests. Congressional concern with China grew in 1995 as a result of reports of the serious decline in the health of senior Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

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The President has identified proliferation as a primary danger to U.S. security interests. China has contributed to the danger by providing nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, and other nuclear technology to Iran and Algeria. China has also supplied CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia, Silkworm anti-ship missiles to Iran and Iraq, and ballistic missile technology to Pakistan and perhaps Iran, North Korea, and others. China developed the mobile, solid-fuel M-9 and M-11 short-range ballistic missiles reportedly with Pakistan, Syria, and Iran as interested buyers.

This report assesses the factors that facilitate international partnerships in big science projects and those that, conversely, favor the pursuit of purely national projects. The paper also reviews and identifies several important issues to consider in structuring future collaborations.

This report discusses estimates of environmental technology R&D spending, interagency coordination mechanisms, and major federal programs, including programs administered by the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and several other agencies.

This paper discusses how EPA sets Superfund cleanup priorities based on Superfund site health ranking data provided by ATSDR. It examines several parameters by which EPA site prioritization might be measured, including timeliness, cost, and use of special removal actions at the worst sites.

This background paper reviews the progress of the industry and the law enforcement agencies in implementing the Act since its approval in October 1994.

The Transportation Improvement Program outlines a list of federally assisted transportation projects that will be implemented over a three year period in the San Antonio - Bexar County area.

This documents delineates the activities to be accomplished during the period October 1, 1995 through September 30, 1996, the funding requirements, and the agency responsible for accomplishing the tasks.

This Maintenance Action Work Plan has been prepared to document the activities and procedures for the remediation of four inactive, low-level radioactive tanks at Waste Area Grouping 1, from the Category D list of tanks in the Federal Facility Agreement for the Oak Ridge Reservation (EPA et al. 1994). The four tanks to remediated are tanks 3001-B, 3004-B, T-30, and 3013. Three of the tanks (3001-B, 3004-B, and T-30) will be physically removed from the ground. Because of logistical issues associted with excavation and site access, the fourth tank (3013) will be grouted in place and permanently closed.

To model the shock-induced behavior of porous or damaged energetic materials, a nonequilibrium mixture theory has been developed and incorporated into the shock physics code, CTH. The foundation for this multiphase model is based on a continuum mixture formulation given by Baer and Nunziato. This multiphase mixture model provides a thermodynamic and mathematically-consistent description of the self-accelerated combustion processes associated with deflagration-to-detonation and delayed detonation behavior which are key modeling issues in safety assessment of energetic systems. An operator-splitting method is used in the implementation of this model, whereby phase diffusion effects are incorporated using a high resolution transport method. Internal state variables, forming the basis for phase interaction quantities, are resolved during the Lagrangian step requiring the use of a stiff matrix-free solver. Benchmark calculations are presented which simulate low-velocity piston impact on a propellant porous bed and experimentally-measured wave features are well replicated with this model. This mixture model introduces micromechanical models for the initiation and growth of reactive multicomponent flow that are key features to describe shock initiation and self-accelerated deflagration-to-detonation combustion behavior. To complement one-dimensional simulation, two-dimensional numerical calculations are presented which indicate wave curvature effects due to the loss of wall confinement. This study is …

This report includes the issuances received during the specified period from the Commission (CLI), the Atomic safety and Licensing Boards (LBP), the Administrative Law Judges (ALJ), the Directors` Decisions (DD), and the Decisions on Petitions for Rulemaking (DPRM).

The Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS), the Geological Information Systems department, and the School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma are engaging in a program to identify and address Oklahoma`s oil recovery opportunities in fluvial-dominated deltaic (FDD) reservoirs. This program includes the systematic and comprehensive collection and evaluation of information on all of Oklahoma`s FDD reservoirs and the recovery technologies that have been (or could be) applied to those reservoirs with commercial success. This data collection and evaluation effort will be the foundation for an aggressive, multifaceted technology transfer program that is designed to support all of Oklahoma`s oil industry, with particular emphasis on smaller companies and independent operators in their attempts to maximize the economic producibility of FDD reservoirs. Specifically, this project will identify all FDD oil reservoirs in the State; group those reservoirs into plays that have similar depositional and subsequent geologic histories; collect, organize and analyze all available data; conduct characterization and simulation studies on selected reservoirs in each play; and implement a technology transfer program targeted to the operators of FDD reservoirs to sustain the life expectancy of existing wells with the ultimate objective of increasing oil recovery.

A recent advance in immunogold technology has been the use of molecular gold instead of colloidal gold. A number of advantages are realized by this approach, such as stable covalent, site-specific attachment, small probe size and absence of aggregates for improved penetration. Silver enhancement has led to improved and unique results for electron and light microscopy, as well as their use with blots and gels. Most previous work with immunogold silver staining has been done with colloidal gold particles. More recently, large gold compounds (``clusters``) having a definite number of gold atoms and defined organic shell, have been used, frequently with improved results. These gold dusters, large compared to simple compounds, are, however, at the small end of the colloidal gold scale in size; undecagold is 0.8 nm and Nanogold is 1.4 nm. They may be used in practically all applications where colloidal gold is used (Light and electron microscopy, dot blots, etc.) and in some unique applications, where at least the larger colloidal golds don`t work, such as running gold labeled proteins on gels (which are later detected by silver enhancement). The main differences between gold clusters and colloidal golds are the small size of the dusters and their …

New numerical simulations are presented on the self-consistent dynamics of energetic particles and a set of unstable discrete shear Alfven modes in a tokamak. Our code developed for these simulations has been previously tested in the simulations of the bump-on-tail instability model. The code has a Hamiltonian structure for the mode-particle coupling, with the superimposed wave damping, particle source and classical relaxation processes. In the alpha particle-Alfven wave problem, we observe a transition from a single mode saturation to the mode overlap and global quasilinear diffusion, which is qualitatively similar to that observed in the bump-on-tail model. We demonstrate a considerable enhancement in the wave energy due to the resonance overlap. We also demonstrate the effect of global diffusion on the energetic particle losses.

The US Army`s Aberdeen Proving Ground has been a test site for a variety of munitions, including chemical warfare agents. The Pilot Plant Complex (PPC) at Aberdeen was the site of the development, manufacture, storage, and disposal of a number of chemical warfare agents. The objective of this study was to determine if there is polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in the PPC. The results of screening done by Argonne indicate that PCBs in the air of the PPC are well below acceptable levels. The total PCB burden of the surfaces in the PPC appears to be well below the 50-ppM regulatory level. However, the study identified contaminated floor surfaces that exceed the acceptable level of 10 {mu}g/100 cm{sup 2} for a workplace. Areas in Building E5618 exceed 1,000 {mu}g/100 cm{sup 2}, with a high reading of 21,100 {mu}g/100 cm{sup 2} in room C103. Building E5625 has several areas where PCBs exceed 100 {mu}g/cm{sup 2}.

A search for squarks and gluinos has been performed using the D0 detector at the {radical}s = 1.8 TeV Tevatron p{bar p} collider. Data from the 1992--1993 collider run corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 13.5 pb{sup {minus}1} were examined via the missing E{sub T} plus jets signature with two separate analyses. No events above Standard Model backgrounds were observed.

This report summarizes Pacific Northwest Laboratory`s fiscal year (FY) 1995 progress toward developing and implementing methods to identify and quantify cyanide species in ferrocyanide tank waste. This work was conducted for Westinghouse Hanfbrd Company`s (WHC`s) Ferrocyanide Safety Program. Currently, there are 18 high-level waste storage tanks at the US Department of Energy`s Hanford Site that are on a Ferrocyanide Tank Watchlist because they contain an estimated 1000 g-moles or more of precipitated ferrocyanide. In the presence of oxidizing material such as sodium nitrate or nitrite, ferrocyanide can be made to react exothermally by heating it to high temperatures or by applying an electrical spark of sufficient energy (Cady 1993). However, fuel, oxidizers, and temperature are all important parameters. If fuel, oxidizers, or high temperatures (initiators) are not present in sufficient amounts, then a runaway or propagating reaction cannot occur. To bound the safety concern, methods are needed to definitively measure and quantitate ferrocyanide concentration present within the actual waste. The target analyte concentration for cyanide in waste is approximately 0.1 to 15 wt % (as cyanide) in the original undiluted sample. After dissolution of the original sample and appropriate dilutions, the concentration range of interest in the analytical solutions can …

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (as amended in 1987) to study and characterize the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a potential geological repository for high-level nuclear waste. During site characterization, the DOE will conduct a variety of geotechnical, geochemical, geological, and hydrological studies to determine the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository. To ensure that site characterization activities do not adversely affect the environment at Yucca Mountain, a program has been implemented to monitor and mitigate potential impacts and ensure activities comply with applicable environmental regulations. This report describes the activities and accomplishments of EG and G Energy Measurements, Inc. (EG and G/EM) from January 1994 through December 1994 for six program areas within the Terrestrial Ecosystem component of the environmental program for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project (YMP): Site Characterization Effects, Desert Tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), Habitat Reclamation, Monitoring and Mitigation, Radiological Monitoring, and Biological Support.

A procedure and the equipment necessary for single-point diamond flycutting (loosely referred to as diamond turning) potassium di-hydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals are described. It is based on current KDP diamond turning activities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), drawing upon knowledge from the Nova crystal finishing development during the 1980`s and incorporating refinements from our efforts during 1995. In addition to describing a step-by-step process for diamond turning KDP, specific discussions are included on the necessary diamond tool geometry and edge sharpness, cutting fluid, and crystal preparation, handling, cleaning, and inspection. The authors presuppose that the reader is already familiar with diamond turning practices.