A major tax cut, H.R. 1836, was enacted in June 2001, but contained sunsetted provisions. The House will consider, the week of April 15, making those tax provisions permanent. This report summarizes the provisions of the bill, analyzes effects, and considers the development of the legislation.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been far more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. The United Nations reports that 25.3 million adults and children are infected with the HIV virus in the region, which has about 10% of the world's population but more than 70% of the worldwide total of infected people. This report discusses this issue in detail, including the cause of the African AIDS epidemic, the social and economic consequences, response and treatment, and U.S. policy.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although fossil fuels--coal, natural gas, and oil--account for more than two thirds of the nation's electricity, generating units that burn these fuels are major sources of airborne emissions that pose health and environmental risks. To limit emissions and protect air quality, the Environmental Protection Agency regulates emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from a variety of sources including electricity generating units that burn fossil fuels, other industrial sources, and automobiles. Older electricity generating units--those that began operating before 1972--emit 59 percent of the sulfur dioxide, 47 percent of the nitrogen oxides, and 42 percent of all electricity produced by fossil-fuel units. Units that began operating in or after 1972 are responsible for the remainder of the emissions and electricity production. For equal quantities of electricity generated, older units, in the aggregate, emitted twice as much sulfur dioxide and 25 percent more nitrogen oxides than newer units which must meet the new source standards for these substances. Older and newer units emitted about the same amount of carbon dioxide for equal quantities of electricity generated. Of the older units, those in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Southeast …

This report discusses President Bush's 2002 requests for new funding and additional authority to provide assistance to Colombia and six regional neighbors in a continuation of the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI) launched in 2001.

In 1991, the 102nd Congress passed the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), which provided for preferential treatment of selected U.S. imports from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru as part of an incentive system to encourage legal trade as an alternative to illicit drug production. This brief report provides a side-by-side comparison of House- and Senate-passed bills that would reauthorize the ATPA.

This report describes Native Lands and State Waters related to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR) oil.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Legislative Branch Appropriations.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Agriculture.

The United States recognized the independence of all the former Soviet republics by the end of 1991, including the South Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The United States has fostered these states' ties with the West in part to end the dependence of these states on Russia for trade, security, and other relations. The FREEDOM Support Act of 1992 provides authorization for assistance to the Eurasian states for humanitarian needs, democratization, and other purposes. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the Administration appealed for a national security waiver of the prohibition on aid to Azerbaijan, in consideration of Azerbaijan's assistance to the international coalition to combat terrorism. Azerbaijani and Georgian troops participate in stabilization efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Armenian personnel serve in Iraq.

This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Energy and Water. It summarizes the current legislative status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related legislative activity. The report lists the key CRS staff relevant to the issues covered and related CRS products.

In August 2001, President Bush announced that federal funds, with certain restrictions, may be used to conduct research on human embryonic stem cells. Federal research is limited to “the more than 60” existing stem cell lines that were derived (1) with the informed consent of the donors; (2) from excess embryos created solely for reproductive purposes; and (3) without any financial inducements to the donors. No federal funds may be used for the derivation or use of stem cell lines derived from newly destroyed embryos; the creation of any human embryos for research purposes; or cloning of human embryos for any purposes.

It is necessary to place a barrier foil in front of the X-ray converter target to prevent the backstreaming ions. This research note presents the simulations of foil heating using the latest EOS tables. LASNEX simulations are carried out using both DARHT-II and ETA-II beam parameters. Results for all the foils studied here, using the DARHT-II beam parameters, show that the integrated line density along the axis at the end of the 4th pulse remains essentially unchanged even if the foils are heated by beams with relatively small beam spot sizes. The temperature can reach up to 3000 C on graphite foil but can only reach several hundred degree Celsius on Mylar foil. Simulations also show that ETA-II beam can create a ''burn-through'' hole on all the foils except graphite and diamond foils, which may require pre-heat. The threshold beam spot size required for hole formation will be compared with LASNEX simulation for the purpose of code verification.

The objectives that our development work addressed are: (1) Establish through lab tests a salt eutectic with a melting point of about 250 F and a working range of 250 to 1800 F. (2) Establish the most economical material of construction for the screened salt eutectics identified in the first objective. (3) Establish the material of construction for the salt heater liner. Objectives 2 and 3 were determined through corrosion tests using selected metallurgical samples. Successful completion of the above-stated goals will be incorporated in a heat recovery design that can be used in high temperature processes and furnaces, typical of which is the glass melting process. The process design incorporates the following unit operations: a vertical batch heater (whereby the batch flows down through tubes in a shell and tube exchanger; a molten salt eutectic is circulated on the shell side); a molten salt heater utilizing furnace flue gas in a radiation type heater (molten salt is circulated in the annular space between the inner and outer shells of the vertical heater, and flue gas passes from the furnace exhaust through the inner shell of the heater); a cantilever type molten salt circulating pump; and a jacketed mixer/conveyor to …

This program benefits coal mine workers by providing medical and income assistance. The programs main goal is to make the benefits readily available to workers than under state laws. The article provides the benefits, eligibility and procedure for the program.

Report by Helen Cannon in which she writes and then answers several questions written to her about the by-laws of the Women Airforce Service Pilots organization.

Soft money is a major issue in the campaign finance reform debate because these generally unregulated funds are perceived as resulting from a loophole in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Generally, soft money is funds that are raised and spent according to applicable state laws, which FECA prohibits from being spent directly on federal elections, but that may have an indirect influence on federal elections. This Issue Brief discusses three major types of soft money: political party soft money, corporate and labor union soft money, and soft money used for issue advocacy communications.

The goal of this research was to predict the part deformation and residual stresses after ejection from the die and cooling to room temperature. A finite element model was built to achieve this goal and several modeling techniques were investigated throughout this research. Die-casting is a very complex process and the researchers are faced with a large number of hard to solve physical problems when modeling the process. Several assumptions are made in our simulation model. The first significant assumption is the instantaneous cavity filling. This means that the cavity filling stage is not considered in our model. Considering the cavity filling stage increases the modeling complexity as a result of different flow patterns. expected in the shot sleeve, gate, runner and different cavity features. The flow of gas from the cavity through the vents is another problem that is ignored in our model as a result of this assumption. Our second assumption is that the cast metal has uniform temperature distribution inside the cavity, at the starting point of simulation. This temperature is assumed to be over liquidus limit, i.e. the solid fraction is 0.0% of the cast metal. The third assumption is due to ABAQUS (commercial software used …

The Current Drive experiment-Upgrade (CDX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has begun experiments with a fully toroidal liquid lithium limiter. CDX-U is a compact [R = 34 cm, a = 22 cm, B(subscript)toroidal = 2 kG, I(subscript)P = 100 kA, T(subscript)e(0) {approx} 100 eV, n(subscript)e(0) {approx} 5 x 10{sup 19} m{sup -3}] short-pulse (<25 msec) spherical torus with extensive diagnostics. The limiter, which consists of a shallow circular stainless steel tray of radius 34 cm and width 10 cm, can be filled with lithium to a depth of a few millimeters, and forms the lower limiting surface for the discharge. Heating elements beneath the tray are used to liquefy the lithium prior to the experiment. Surface coatings are evident on part of the lithium. Despite the surface coatings, tokamak discharges operated in contact with the lithium-filled tray show evidence of reduced impurities and recycling. The reduction in recycling is largest when the lithium is liquefied by heating to 250 degrees Celsius.

This document describes a laboratory tracer facility which was used to show Duolite CS-100 resin's capability for removing cesium from supernate.

The geology under the SX Tank Farm forms the framework through which the contaminants move and provides the basis with which to interpret and extrapolate the physical and geochemical properties that control the migration and distribution of contaminants. Of particular interest are the interrelationships between the coarser and finer-grained facies and the degree of contrast in their physical and geochemical properties. The vertical distribution of cesium-137, based on borehole gamma logging and the laboratory analysis of the sediment at borehole 41-09-39, suggest that much of the tank fluid that leaked from tanks SX-108, SX-109, SX-111, and SX-112 traveled within the coarse-grained Hanford formation H1 unit that is found between 67 and 88 feet below ground surface (bgs) at borehole 41-09-39. It is difficult to differentiate the known moisture content relationship with particle size (finer-grained material retains higher moisture contents) from excess moisture from leaked fluid. Thus, moisture content distribution did not give us a clear indication of the vertical extent of the plume. However, moisture content does help identify intervals that have been impacted by drilling operations. The pH values are not nearly as high as would be expected for tank liquor completely saturating sediment. Therefore, it would appear that …

The Tank Farm Vadose Zone Project is led by CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. Their goals include defining risks from past and future single-shell tank farm activities, identifying and evaluating the efficacy of interim measures, and collecting geo-technical information and data. The purpose of these activities is to support future decisions made by the U.S. Department of Energy regarding near-term operations, future waste retrieval, and final closure activities for the single-shell tank Waste Management Areas. To help in this effort, CH2M HILL contracted with scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to analyze sediment samples collected from borehole 299-W23-19. The conclusions reached from this study support specific mechanisms influencing subsurface migration of contaminants. The mechanisms are supported by the distributions of contaminants beneath tank farms. These observations will help DOE and CH2M HILL identify and implement viable remediation and closure activities.

The overall goal of the Tank Farm Vadose Zone Project, led by CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc., is to define risks from past and future single-shell tank farm activities. To meet this goal, CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc., asked scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to perform detailed analyses on vadose zone sediment from within the S-SX Waste Management Area. This report is the fourth in a series of four reports to present the results of these analyses. Specifically, this fourth report contains all the geologic, geochemical, and selected physical characterization data collected on vadose zone sediment recovered from the slant borehole installed beneath tank 241-SX-108 (or simply SX-108 slant borehole). This report also presents our interpretation of the data in the context of determining the appropriate lithologic model, the vertical extent of contamination, the migration potential of the contaminants that still reside in the vadose zone, and the correspondence of the contaminant distribution in the borehole sediment in relationship to groundwater plumes in the aquifer proximate and downgradient from the SX Tank Farm.

The overall goal of the of the Tank Farm Vadose Zone Project, led by CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc., is to define risks from past and future single-shell tank farm activities. To meet this goal, CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. asked scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to perform detailed analyses on vadose zone sediment from within the S-SX Waste Management Area. This report is the first in a series of four reports to present the results of these analyses. Specifically, this report contains all the geologic, geochemical, and selected physical characterization data collected on vadose zone sediment recovered from RCRA borehole bore samples and composite samples. Intact cores from two RCRA boreholes (299-W22-48 and 299-W22-50) near the SX Tank Farm and four, large-quantity grab samples from outcrop sediment on and off the Hanford Site were sampled to better understand the fate of contaminants in the vadose zone beneath underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site. Borehole and outcrop samples analyzed for this report are located outside the tank farms, and therefore may be considered standard or background samples from which to compare contaminated sediments within the tank farms themselves. This report presents our interpretation of the physical, chemical, and …