A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "With the closing of Howard Air Force Base in Panama, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Coast Guard and the Customs Service began searching for alternate sites from which to conduct counterdrug operations close to drug producing zones. The United States has secured 10-year agreements for the use of four such sites. However, each site requires some construction to support a designated mix of aircraft. In response to concerns over the costs to develop and operate these four sites and whether these sites would meet the needs of interagency users, GAO briefed members of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control on (1) the process used to select these sites, (2) the estimated costs to develop and maintain these sites, and (3) issues that might affect operational capabilities at the sites. GAO found that the United States used a reasonable process to locate and secure four sites for its counterdrug efforts in foreign countries. DOD estimated that it would cost about $136.6 million to build airfields at these sites. Several issues might affect the capabilities of these sites, including (1) the unavailability of certain U.S. aircraft to …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impact of loan sales on tenants and properties, focusing on: (1) the impact on tenants as project-based assistance contracts expire; and (2) the steps that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has taken to ensure that mortgage purchasers honor the tenant protections."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's report to Congress on its contractor support, focusing on the extent to which the report: (1) identified programs or systems using or planning to use contractor support arrangements; (2) supported the Air Force's view that the contractor support provides equal or superior warfighting capabilities; (3) identified the impact of such support arrangements on the government's logistics depots and core government logistics management skills; and (4) identified processes and criteria followed in determining whether government employees or the private sector can perform logistics management functions more cost-effectively."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the progress that the securities industry has made toward the implementation of decimal pricing for U.S. stocks, focusing on: (1) what were the specific reasons that the Nasdaq market was not ready for the July 3, 2000, implementation date and how the National Association of Securities Dealers', Inc. (NASD) decimal-trading preparations compared with those of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE); (2) how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approached oversight of the securities industry's implementation of decimal trading and how this compared with its year 2000 oversight effort; and (3) what challenges remain regarding implementing decimal trading for the industry."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the practice of single-use device (SUD) reprocessing in the United States, focusing on the: (1) extent of SUD reprocessing; (2) health risks associated SUD with reprocessing; (3) cost savings from reprocessing; and (4) Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) oversight of SUD reprocessing."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances' (OPPTS) implementation of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), focusing on the: (1) guidance that OPPTS and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) three other major program offices have used during the past 10 years to determine whether their proposed rules could be certified as not having a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities (SEISNSE); (2) comparing rate at which OPPTS certified that its substantive proposed rules published during calendar years 1994 through 1999 would not have a SEISNSE with the rates in EPA's other major program offices; and (3) methodology that OPPTS used in the economic analysis for the proposed lead rule and: (a) key aspects of that methodology that may have contributed to the Office's conclusion that the rule would not have a SEISNSE; (b) if so, how OPPTS has changed its economic analysis since publication of the rule; and (c) whether additional data or analysis could have yielded a different conclusion about the rule's impact on small entities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Small Business Administration's (SBA) 8(a) program's progress in developing small businesses that are owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, focusing on: (1) the extent to which firms are obtaining federal contracts; (2) how SBA tracks the training and assistance provided to firms; and (3) how firms view the program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Data sharing among federal agencies that run federal benefit and loan programs is important for determining the eligibility of applicants and beneficiaries. A GAO symposium on data sharing highlighted various issues facing federal agencies in their efforts to prevent abuse of federal programs. Symposium speakers focused on the number of program dollars saved by interagency data exchanges. Agencies using computer matching have detected undisclosed income and welfare recipients who receive benefits from more than one state. Improved technologies offer agencies the opportunity to expand their data sharing efforts. Such technologies include computer systems that can communicate directly with other systems and computer networks that can obtain information directly from financial institutions. Symposium speakers agreed that applicants' privacy should be protected when personal information is shared among agencies, but they disagreed about the extent to which data sharing threatens it. Privacy laws and security-related technology provide individuals with some protection against the possible misuse of personal information, but symposium participants differed on whether these protections are adequate."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act's Title I program for preschool education, focusing on: (1) the extent to which title I funds are used to support education or developmentally appropriate activities for preschool children, aged birth to 5 years; and (2) what is known about the effectiveness of title I-funded programs for preschool children in preparing them for school."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Through the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), Congress has sought to improve federal management and instill a greater focus on results. Congress and the executive branch recognize, however, that performance improvements do not take place merely because a set of management requirements has been put in place. In 1997 and 2000, GAO surveyed agencies' progress towards establishing a focus on results. GAO found that progress has been uneven in building the organizational cultures to create and sustain a focus on results governmentwide. A significantly higher percentage of managers in 2000 than in 1997 reported that their agencies had provided, arranged, or paid for training that would help them accomplish two results-oriented management-related tasks: setting performance goals and implementing the requirements of GPRA. Overall, the survey results show that, in some keys areas, agencies may be losing ground in their efforts towards building organizational cultures that support a focus on results. In GAO's view, the Senate confirmation process must ensure that political nominees have the appropriate management and leadership skills needed to continue to transform federal agencies into high-performing organizations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's use of large orders under multiple-award contracts to acquire information technology products and services, focusing on: (1) whether contractors were provided a fair opportunity to be considered and the extent of competition realized; and (2) how ordering offices met requirements to clearly specify the tasks to be performed or property to be delivered under the orders."

The overall objective of our studies was to specify an index describing the hydraulic force that fish experience when subjected to a shear environment. Fluid shear is a phenomenon that is important to fish. However, elevated levels of shear may result in strain rates that injure or kill fish. At hydroelectric generating facilities, concerns have been expressed that strain rates associated with passage through turbines, spillways, and fish bypass systems may adversely affect migrating fish. Development of fish friendly hydroelectric turbines requires knowledge of the physical forces (injury mechanisms) that impact entrained fish and the fish's tolerance to these forces. It requires up-front, pre-design specifications for the environmental conditions that occur within the turbine system, in other words, determining or assuming that those conditions known to injure fish will provide the descriptions of conditions that engineers must consider in the design of a turbine system. These biological specifications must be carefully and thoroughly documented throughout the design of a fish friendly turbine. To address the development of biological specifications, we designed and built a test facility where juvenile fish could be subjected to a range of shear environments and quantified their biological response.

In the early 1980s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) developed two transportation routing models: HIGHWAY, which predicts truck transportation routes, and INTERLINE, which predicts rail transportation routes. Both of these models have been used by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) community for a variety of routing needs over the years. One of the primary uses of the models has been to determine population-density information, which is used as input for risk assessment with the RADTRAN model, which is available on the TRANSNET computer system. During the recent years, advances in the development of geographic information systems (GISs) have resulted in increased demands from the user community for a GIS version of the ORNL routing models. In April 1994, the DOE Transportation Management Division (EM-261) held a Baseline Requirements Assessment Session with transportation routing experts and users of the HIGHWAY and INTERLINE models. As a result of the session, the development of a new GIS routing model, Transportation Routing Analysis GIS (TRAGIS), was initiated. TRAGIS is a user-friendly, GIS-based transportation and analysis computer model. The older HIGHWAY and INTERLINE models are useful to calculate routes, but they cannot display a graphic of the calculated route. Consequently, many users have experienced …

An invoice from the Texas Triangle to Texas Stonewall Democrats of $1,210.00 on September 20, 2000. There is also a post-it note from Michael Milliken to Al Daniels regarding a check for $1,210.00 to Stonewall Democrats.

This report was prepared as part of a task supporting the deployment of the retained gas sampler (RGS) system in Flammable Gas Watch List Tanks. The emphasis of this report is on presenting supplemental information about the ammonia measurements resulting from retained gas sampling of Tanks 241-AW-101, A-101, AN-105, AN-104, AN-103, U-103, S-106, BY-101, BY-109, SX-106, AX-101, S-102, S-111, U-109, and SY-101. This information provides a better understanding of the accuracy of past RGS ammonia measurements, which will assist in determining flammable and toxicological hazards.

Shows and explains certain procedures needed for surface environmental surveillance.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing and implementing a customer satisfaction assessment program (CSAP) to assess the quality of research and development provided by the laboratory. We present the customer survey component of the PNNL CSAP. The customer survey questionnaire is composed of 2 major sections, Strategic Value and Project Performance. The Strategic Value section of the questionnaire consists of 5 questions that can be answered with a 5 point Likert scale response. These questions are designed to determine if a project is directly contributing to critical future national needs. The Project Performance section of the questionnaire consists of 9 questions that can be answered with a 5 point Likert scale response. These questions determine PNNL performance in meeting customer expectations. Many approaches could be used to analyze customer survey data. We present a statistical model that can accurately capture the random behavior of customer survey data. The properties of this statistical model can be used to establish a "gold standard'' or performance expectation for the laboratory, and then assess progress. The gold standard is defined from input from laboratory management --- answers to 4 simple questions, in terms of the information obtained from the CSAP customer survey, …

The D-Zero silicon trough is segmented into two half troughs. Loading to the Central Fiber Tracker Barrel 1 is at both ends and near Z = 0. The loading near Z = 0 is thought to be 4 lbs at 4 points. The point locations are at +/-45 degrees for each half trough on each side of Z = O. An additional support at Z = O is required to prevent beam sag and out of round distortions to the CFT Barrel 1. An additional joining washer will be attached between barrels 1 and 2 at Z = 0. Also a support ring will be attached to the inner diameter of barrel 1 to further help in out of round distortions. Details of the washer and loading are modeled using ANSYS.

A number of DOE sites are contaminated with mixtures of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs) such as carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, perchloroethylene, and trichloroethylene. At many of these sites, in situ microbial bioremediation is an attractive strategy for cleanup, since it has the potential to degrade DNAPLs in situ without the need for pump-and-treat or soil removal procedures, and without producing toxic byproducts. A rapid screening method to determine broad range metabolic and genetic potential for contaminant degradation would greatly reduce the cost and time involved in assessment for in situ bioremediation, as well as for monitoring ongoing bioremediation treatment. The objective of this project was the development of mass-spectrometry-based methods to screen for genetic potential for both assessment and monitoring of in situ bioremediation of DNAPLs. These methods were designed to provide more robust and routine methods for DNA-based characterization of the genetic potential of subsurface microbes for degrading pollutants. Specifically, we sought to (1) Develop gene probes that yield information equivalent to conventional probes, but in a smaller size that is more amenable to mass spectrometric detection, (2) Pursue improvements to matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) methodology in order to allow its more general application to gene probe …

The Department of Energy Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs (BTS) is interested in assessing the potential economic impacts of its portfolio of programs on national employment and income. A special purpose version of the IMPLAN input-output model called ImBuild is used in this study of all 38 BTS programs included in the FY2001 federal budget. Energy savings, investments, and impacts on U.S. national employment and wage income are reported by program for selected years to the year 2030. Energy savings from these programs have the potential of creating a total of nearly 332,000 jobs and about $5.3 billion in wage income (1999$) by the year 2030. Because the required investments to achieve these savings are capital intensive, the net effect after investment is 304,000 jobs and $5.0 billion.

This study supports the Hanford Groundwater/Vadose integration project objectives to better understand the risk of groundwater contamination and potential risk to the public via groundwater flow paths. The primary objective of this study was to refine the conceptual groundwater flow model for the 200-East Area and vicinity.

This Analysis/Model Report (AMR) summarizes transport properties for the lower unsaturated zone hydrogeologic units and the saturated zone at Yucca Mountain and provides a summary of data from the Busted Butte Unsaturated Zone Transport Test (UZTT). The purpose of this report is to summarize the sorption and transport knowledge relevant to flow and transport in the units below Yucca Mountain and to provide backup documentation for the sorption parameters decided upon for each rock type. Because of the complexity of processes such as sorption, and because of the lack of direct data for many conditions that may be relevant for Yucca Mountain, data from systems outside of Yucca Mountain are also included. The data reported in this AMR will be used in Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA) calculations and as general scientific support for various Process Model Reports (PMRs) requiring knowledge of the transport properties of different materials. This report provides, but is not limited to, sorption coefficients and other relevant thermodynamic and transport properties for the radioisotopes of concern, especially neptunium (Np), plutonium (Pu), Uranium (U), technetium (Tc), iodine (I), and selenium (Se). The unsaturated-zone (UZ) transport properties in the vitric Calico Hills (CHv) are discussed, as are colloidal …

This report summarizes work on the development of a process to produce LNG (liquefied methane) for heavy vehicle use from landfill gas (LFG) using Acrion's CO{sub 2} wash process for contaminant removal and CO{sub 2} recovery.

This report summarizes work on the development of a process to produce LNG (liquefied methane) for heavy vehicle use from landfill gas (LFG) using Acrion's CO{sub 2} wash process for contaminant removal and CO{sub 2} recovery. Work was done in the following areas: (1) production of natural gas pipeline methane for liquefaction at an existing LNG facility, (2) production of LNG from sewage digester gas, (3) the use of mixed refrigerants for process cooling in the production of LNG, liquid CO{sub 2} and pipeline methane, (4) cost estimates for an LNG production facility at the Arden Landfill in Washington PA.