The VA, HUD and Independent Agencies appropriations bill includes funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and a number of independent agencies. This report describes some of the key issues affecting agency funding in FY1997.

The FY1997 agriculture appropriations act (P.L. 104-180) was signed into law on August 6, 1996. P.L. 104-180 provides $52.84 billion in FY1997 budget authority for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and related agencies, an amount which is $5.60 billion below the Administration's FY1997 request and $10.25 billion below the FY1996 enacted level. Much of the reduction in funding from FY1996 levels is attributable to an $8.9 billion reduction in the reimbursement for net realized losses of the Commodity Credit Corporation, which is the funding mechanism for USDA's commodity programs. The act also requires recipients of the new farm bill-authorized market transition payments to use eligible land for farm production, or place it in a conserving use.

This is a report about the USDA budget for food and nutrition programs in the fiscal year 1997.

The President signed P.L. 104-205, the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1997, (FY1997 Act) on September 30, 1996. This action completes work on Department of Transportation (DOT) and related agencies appropriations for the year.

The FY 1997 Multi-Year Work Plan (MYWP) technical baseline describes the functions to be accomplished and the technical standards that govern the work. The following information is provided in this FY 1997 MYWP: technical baseline, work breakdown structure, schedule baseline, cost baseline, and execution year.

This is the Sandia National Laboratories Geothermal program plan. This is a DOE Geothermal Program planning and control document. Many of these reports were issued only in draft form. This one is of special interest for historical work because it contains what seems to be a complete list of Sandia geothermal program publications (citations / references) from about 1975 to late 1996. (DJE 2005)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) continues to face a major tank remediation problem with approximately 332 tanks storing over 378,000 ml of high-level waste (HLW) and transuranic (TRU) waste across the DOE complex. Most of the tanks have significantly exceeded their life spans. Approximately 90 tanks across the DOE complex are known or assumed to have leaked. Some of the tank contents are potentially explosive. These tanks must be remediated and made safe. How- ever, regulatory drivers are more ambitious than baseline technologies and budgets will support. Therefore, the Tanks Focus Area (TFA) began operation in October 1994. The focus area manages, coordinates, and leverages technology development to provide integrated solutions to remediate problems that will accelerate safe and cost-effective cleanup and closure of DOE`s national tank system. The TFA is responsible for technology development to support DOE`s four major tank sites: Hanford Site (Washington), INEL (Idaho), Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) (Tennessee), and Savannah River Site (SRS) (South Carolina). Its technical scope covers the major functions that comprise a complete tank remediation system: safety, characterization, retrieval, pretreatment, immobilization, and closure.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Department of Transportation describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 1997 through 2001.

This document delineates the activities to be accomplished during the period October 1, 1996, through September 30, 1997, the funding requirements, and the agency responsible for accomplishing the tasks.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Natural Resource Commission describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 1997 through 2001.

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

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Waste Management Program (WMP) began a transition to become a {open_quotes}best of class{close_quotes} waste management program during fiscal year 1995 (FY95). A best of class waste management program means that LANL will provide cost-effective and compliant management of the minimum amount of waste. In FY94, the WMP could be characterized as a level of effort program requiring several new facilities and new LANL-developed technologies to carry out its waste management responsibilities. By the end of FY95, significant progress had been made in the transition to best of class. The FY96 WMP is realigned and reorganized. Its budget and scope of work are built upon discrete work packages. It is committed to achieving improved cost-effectiveness, providing significant tangible technical results, and to having its performance measured. During FY95, over $11,000,000 in facility and operational costs were avoided. The need for three new major facilities was reexamined and lower cost solutions, not requiring the development of new facilities, were agreed to. Technology development activities were terminated and replaced with the use of commercial facilities to achieve aggressive reductions in the Low-Level Mixed Waste legacy inventory. In addition, over $14,000,000 in improved cost-effectiveness has been included in …

This report contains the fiscal year budget justification to Congress. The budget provides estimates for salaries and expenses and for the Office of the Inspector General for fiscal year 1997.

Alcator C-Mod is the high-field, high-density divertor tokamak in the world fusion program. It is one of five divertor experiments capable of plasma currents exceeding one megamp. Because of its compact dimensions, Alcator C-Mod investigates an essential area in parameter space, which complements the world`s larger experiments, in establishing the tokamak physics database. Three key areas of investigation have been called out in which Alcator C-Mod has a vital role to play: (1) divertor research on C-Mod takes advantage of the advanced divertor shaping, the very high scrap-off-layer power density, unique abilities in impurity diagnosis, and the High-Z metal wall, to advance the physics understanding of this critical topic; (2) in transport studies, C-Mod is making critical tests of both empirical scalings and theoretically based interpretations of tokamak transport, at dimensional parameters that are unique but dimensionless parameters often comparable to those in much larger experiments; (3) in the area of Advanced Tokamak research, so important to concept optimization, the high-field design of the device also provides long pulse length, compared to resistive skin time, which provides an outstanding opportunity to investigate the extent to which enhanced confinement and stability can be sustained in steady-state, using active profile control. In …

This describes a comprehensive, integrated approach for the development of HTS (high-temperature superconductivity) technology for cost-effective use in electric power applications. This approach supports the program`s mission: to develop the technology that could lead to industrial commercialization of HTS electric power applications, such as fault-current limiters, motors, generators, transmission cables, superinductors, and superconducting energy storage. The vision is that, by 2010, the US power systems equipment industry will regain a major share of the global market by offering superconducting products that outperform the competition; and in US, the power grid will gain increased efficiency and stability by incorporating many kinds of HTS devices. After an overview and a discussion of the program plan (wires, systems technology, partnership initiative), this document discusses technology status, stakeholders, and the role of US DOE.

The purpose of this revision is to update the Line Item Project, 93-L-GFW-152 Functional Design Criteria (FDC) to reflect changes approved in change control M-24-91-6, Engineering Change Notices (ECNs), and expand the scope to include subsurface investigations along with the borehole drilling. This revision improves the ability and effectiveness of maintaining RCRA and Operational groundwater compliance by combining borehole and well drilling with subsurface data gathering objectives. The total projected number of wells to be installed under this project has decreased from 200 and the scope has been broadened to include additional subsurface investigation activities that usually occur simultaneously with most traditional borehole drilling and monitoring well installations. This includes borehole hydrogeologic characterization activities, and vadose monitoring. These activities are required under RCRA 40 CFR 264 and 265 and WAC 173-303 for site characterization, groundwater and vadose assessment and well placement.