On May 13, 2002, President Bush signed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (FSRIA) of 2002 into law (P.L. 107-171). FSRIA is the latest in a long line of omnibus, multi-year farm bills. The 2002 law is the successor to the last omnibus measure, the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-127). This report, to be updated if events warrant, provides selected highlights.

Final report of the Amtrak Reform Council describing their activities and findings regarding the Council's proposed action plan for restructuring the national intercity rail passenger system in the face of Amtrak's failure to achieve operational self-sufficiency.

The 107th Congress is considering trade issues with implications for the U.S. agricultural sector. Trade in agricultural commodities and food products affects farm income and rural employment, and it also generates economic activity beyond the farm gate. With agricultural export sales the equivalent of one-quarter of farm income, some policymakers view U.S. efforts to develop market opportunities overseas as vital to the sector’s financial health. Decisions taken by the Bush Administration, and actions taken by Congress, thus will affect the outlook for agricultural trade.

This report considers the issue of new "fast track" or trade promotion authority (APA) legislation in the 107th Congress. Moreover, the report summarizes the agricultural debates on the issue.

New “fast track,” or trade promotion, authority (TPA) cleared the 107th Congress, and was signed into law (P.L. 107-210) on August 6, 2002. Such authority enables the Administration to submit negotiated foreign trade agreements to Congress for consideration under expedited procedures. Many agricultural and food industry interests were among the export-oriented enterprises that supported TPA, arguing that foreign trading partners would not seriously negotiate with an Administration that lacked it. However, some farm groups argued that fast track ultimately will lead to new agreements that have adverse effects on U.S. producers, at least of some commodities.

New “fast track,” or trade promotion, authority (TPA) cleared the 107th Congress, and was signed into law (P.L. 107-210) on August 6, 2002. Such authority enables the Administration to submit negotiated foreign trade agreements to Congress for consideration under expedited procedures. Many agricultural and food industry interests were among the export-oriented enterprises that supported TPA, arguing that foreign trading partners would not seriously negotiate with an Administration that lacked it. However, some farm groups argued that fast track ultimately will lead to new agreements that have adverse effects on U.S. producers, at least of some commodities.

An application of alkyne metathesis to 1,2-di(prop-1-ynyl)arenes, producing dehydrobenzannulenes, is described. An efficient method for selective Sonogashira couplings of bromoiodoarenes under conditions of microwave irradiation is also reported.

This report reviews several issues relating to alternative fuels and vehicles, mainly to combat dependence on petroleum imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report discusses the advantages and drawbacks of various alternative fuels and vehicles, as well as related legislation.

This paper reports on a combined experimental and modeling investigation of NOx formation in nitrogen-diluted laminar methane diffusion flames seeded with ammonia. The methane-ammonia mixture is a surrogate for biomass fuels which contain significant fuel-bound nitrogen. The experiments use flue-gas sampling to measure the concentration of stable species in the exhaust gas, including NO, O2, CO, and CO2. The computations evolve a two-dimensional low Mach number model using a solution-adaptive projection algorithm to capture fine-scale features of the flame. The model includes detailed thermodynamics and chemical kinetics, differential diffusion, buoyancy, and radiative losses. The model shows good agreement with the measurements over the full range of experimental NH3 seeding amounts. As more NH3 is added, a greater percentage is converted to N2 rather than to NO. The simulation results are further analyzed to trace the changes in NO formation mechanisms with increasing amounts of ammonia in the fuel.

The state of Iowa is considering adpoting ASHRAE 90.1-1999 as its commercial building energy code. In an effort to evaluate whether or not this is an appropraite code for the state, the potential benefits and costs of adopting this standard are considered. Both qualitative and quantitative benefits are assessed. The energy simulation and economic results suggest that adopting ASHRAE 90.1-1999 would provide postitive net benefits to the state relative to the building and design requirements currently in place.

The design, development, and performance testing of a prototype system known as the Remotely Operated Nondestructive Examination (RONDE)system to examine the knuckle region of a Hanford DST have been completed. The design and fabrication of a scanning bridge to support the Savannah River Site utilizing similar technology was also completed.

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 Defense Appropriations Subcommittees.

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. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies.

Run II at the Tevatron started on March 1, 2001 with a design instantaneous luminosity of 2 x 10{sup 32} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1}. The upgraded D0 detector is expected to collect 2 fb{sup -1} of data at {radical}s = 2.0 TeV in approximately 2 years. The D0 collaboration is planning to make measurements in a number of important areas of B physics, including sin(2{beta}), B{sub s} mixing, the {Lambda}{sub b} lifetime and rare B decays. In this note we describe the upgraded D0 detector and highlights of the B physics program in D0.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has projected that the failure of Superior Bank could cost the deposit insurance fund as much as $526 million. A major reason for the failure was Superior Bank's business strategy of originating and securing subprime loans on a large scale. In addition to the concentration in risky assets, the bank did not properly value and account for the interests that it had retained in pooled home mortgages. Superior's external auditor, Ernst & Young, also failed to detect the improper valuation of Superior's retained interest until the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and FDIC insisted that the issue be reviewed by the auditor's national office. Federal regulators did not identify and act on the bank's problems early enough to prevent a loss to the deposit insurance fund. Both OTS and FDIC were aware of the substantial concentration of retained interests that Superior held, but they took little action because of the apparently high level of earnings, the apparently adequate capital, and the belief that the bank's management was conservatively managing the institution."

A new process is being developed to extract starch from millfeed, the low-value byproduct of wheat flour milling, and convert it to glucose through enzymatic processing. The millfeed-derived glucose will then be converted to value-added products, such as polyol, through a catalytic process, or lactic acid, through a fermentation process. The starch (glucose) recovery process has been tested through the pilot scale. Catalytic and fermentation processes have been tested in the laboratory. The process developed for glucose recovery from wheat millfeed includes hot water extraction of starch and filtration of a fibrous animal feed coproduct, followed by enzymatic liquefaction and saccharification of the extracted starch, with filtration of a high-protein coproduct. The bench-scale tests showed that a glucose yield of approximately 30% on a dry millfeed basis could be achieved, which corresponds to the recovery of essentially all the glucose value in the millfeed. Glucose yields with the pilot-scale system were comparable, although filtration was more difficult.

The studies presented here indicate that a subharmonic system optimized using both 3rd and 12th subharmonic cavities (117.3 and 29.3 MHz) provides the minimum total gap voltage required to capture and accelerate a 15-ns linac macropulse at up to 10 nC with {+-} 1% energy spread. The simulations also show particle losses less than a part in 110,000 when including radiation damping, quantum excitation, and rf cavity beam loading. The only particle losses were found to be at injection due to phase-space mismatch. Optimization of the subharmonic capture idea requires knowledge of the gap voltage that can be achieved with an actual cavity. In general the lower the cavity frequency the harder it is to engineer a cavity that can sustain a given gap voltage without breakdown. Phase and amplitude control of both subharmonic and 352-MHz systems also needs to be carefully considered so that bunch purity is preserved and operational flexibility maintained. Phase stability is particularly important for the high power 352-MHz system, which preliminary simulation studies show needs 1 degree regulation at turn-on. Future optimization studies need to include amplitude stability tolerance studies for each ramped rf system at turn on.

This report discusses the budget for fiscal year 2003. It debates issues such as budget action, receipts surpluses or deficits, and the economy

This is a select chronology of, and a finding guide for information on, congressional and presidential actions and documents related to major budget events in calendar year 2001, covering the FY2002 budget. Brief information is provided for the President’s budget, congressional budget resolutions, appropriations measures (regular, continuing, supplementals, and rescissions), budget reconciliation, House and Senate votes, line-item vetoes, publications, testimony, charts, and tables.

The Unsaturated Zone Transport Test (UZTT) at Busted Butte is a mesoscale field/laboratory/modeling investigation designed to address uncertainties associated with flow and transport in the UZ site-process models for Yucca Mountain. The UZTT test facility is located approximately 8 km southeast of the potential Yucca Mountain repository area. The UZTT was designed in two phases, to address five specific objectives in the UZ: the effect of heterogeneities, flow and transport (F&T) behavior at permeability contrast boundaries, migration of colloids , transport models of sorbing tracers, and scaling issues in moving from laboratory scale to field scale. Phase 1A was designed to assess the influence of permeability contrast boundaries in the hydrologic Calico Hills. Visualization of fluorescein movement , mineback rock analyses, and comparison with numerical models demonstrated that F&T are capillary dominated with permeability contrast boundaries distorting the capillary flow. Phase 1B was designed to assess the influence of fractures on F&T and colloid movement. The injector in Phase 1B was located at a fracture, while the collector, 30 cm below, was placed at what was assumed to be the same fracture. Numerical simulations of nonreactive (Br) and reactive (Li) tracers show the experimental data are best explained by a …

The Busted Butte Unsaturated-Zone Transport Test Facility is located approximately 8 km southeast of Yucca Mountain, and was designed to address uncertainties associated with flow and transport in the UZ site-process models for Yucca Mountain. Busted Butte Phase 2 consisted of a 10m x 10m x 7m test block. From July 1988 through October 2000, complex tracer mixtures were injected continuously at 77 discrete points located along eight parallel 10-m boreholes arranged in two horizontal planes. In August 1999, iodide was added to the tracer mixture to explore the effects of initial hydraulic transients. During the course of the experiment, porewater samples were collected at regular intervals using sorbing-paper collection pads, emplaced into fifteen horizontal and inclined 10-m collection boreholes, oriented perpendicular to the injection boreholes. Potential travel distances ranged from 20 cm to over 500 cm. Nonreactive tracer and weakly sorbing lithium breakthrough was observed at most of the collection points during the injection period. Following termination of injection, approximately 800 rock samples were collected using overcore and mineback techniques, and analyzed for tracer concentration. Rock analyses are discussed in a subsequent paper. To complement complex 3-dimensional finite-element modeling of the entire block, bromide, iodide, and lithium breakthrough onto …

A complex tracer mixture was injected continuously for over two years into a 10 x 10 x 7 m block of tuff as part of the unsaturated-zone (UZ) tracer test at Busted Butte. The test was designed to address uncertainties associated with flow and transport models within the Topopah Springs and Calico Hills tuffs. The tracer mixture included nonreactive (Br, I, and FBAs) and reactive tracers (Li, Ce, Sm, Ni, Coy and Mn) and synthetic colloids. Once injection was completed, samples from the block were collected in two ways. Overcores were taken from around and below injection holes. Then, the entire block was excavated via mineback--during which progressive vertical planes of the block were exposed. Samples from the overcores and mineback were analyzed to determine the distribution of tracers on different spatial scales than available from collection borehole data. Rock analyses confirmed collection pad results that the nonreactive tracers, Br and FBAs, moved several meters. Furthermore, Br and FBAs are observed above and lateral to the injector planes suggesting that capillarity was an important process for tracer movement. Lithium, the most mobile of the metals, was transported on a scale of meters. This is consistent with laboratory sorption measurements and …

This past decade has seen rapid growth in the size, resolution, and complexity of Grand Challenge simulation codes. Many such problems still require interactive visualization tools to make sense of multi-terabyte data stores. Visapult is a parallel volume rendering tool that employs distributed components, latency tolerant algorithms, and high performance network I/O for effective remote visualization of massive datasets. In this paper we discuss using connectionless protocols to accelerate Visapult network I/O and interfacing Visapult to the Cactus General Relativity code to enable scalable remote monitoring and steering capabilities. With these modifications, network utilization has moved from 25 percent of line-rate using tuned multi-streamed TCP to sustaining 88 percent of line rate using the new UDP-based transport protocol.

This report describes the caustic leaching test conducted on Hanford Tank T-110 sludge during FY 2002 at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The data presented here can be used to develop the baseline and alternative flowsheets for pretreating Hanford tank sludge. The U.S. Department of Energy funded the work through the Efficient Separations and Processing Crosscutting Program (ESP; EM-50).