A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) operates one of the nation's largest health care systems. In 1999, GAO reported on VA's aged, obsolete capital assets, noting that better management of these assets could significantly reduce VA's operating costs. GAO also noted that VA could reinvest the savings to enhance veterans' health care. In response, VA initiated its Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process to identify what health care services it should provide in which locations through fiscal year 2022. CARES resulted in decisions to realign inpatient services at some VA facilities and to leave services as currently aligned at others. VA did not complete inpatient alignment decisions across VA for long-term care and mental health services and for inpatient services at some facilities because VA lacked sufficient information on demand for such care and other factors. GAO was asked to examine key challenges VA will face in completing and implementing CARES. This report discusses three key challenges: (1) developing information to complete inpatient alignment decisions, (2) improving management of excess property, and (3) determining priorities for purchasing care to improve access. GAO's analysis is …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because it is important that the Department of Defense (DOD) adheres to disciplined information technology (IT) acquisition processes to successfully modernize its business systems, GAO was asked to determine whether the Naval Tactical Command Support System (NTCSS) is being managed according to important aspects of DOD's acquisition policies and guidance, as well as other relevant acquisition management best practices. NTCSS was started in 1995 to help Navy personnel effectively manage ship, submarine, and aircraft support activities. To date, about $1 billion has been spent to partially deploy NTCSS to about one-half its intended ashore and afloat sites."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP), the government guarantees and makes consolidation loans to help borrowers manage their student loan debt. By combining loans into one and extending repayment, monthly repayments are reduced. Unlike other student loans, consolidation loans carry a fixed interest rate. Recently, trends in interest rates and consolidation loan volume have increased overall federal costs, leading Congress to consider cost reduction proposals. Under the Federal Credit Reform Act, the government calculates, for budgetary purposes, the net cost, or "subsidy cost," of extending or guaranteeing credit over the life of loans. Agencies generally reestimate, subsidy costs annually to include actual results and adjust future program estimates. GAO was asked to provide information on the budgetary effects of making consolidation loans exclusively through FDLP. We developed information to answer the following questions: (1) What would be the estimated budgetary effect of providing consolidation loans exclusively through FDLP in fiscal year 2006? (2) To what extent and for what reasons might this estimated budgetary effect change as subsidy costs are reestimated in future years? (3) How might …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The high pace of military operations in Iraq and elsewhere has generated a multibillion dollar equipment maintenance requirement that must be addressed after units return home. Upon returning from deployments, active, reserve, and National Guard units reconstitute, or restore, their equipment to a condition that enables them to conduct training and prepare for future deployments. The Department of Defense (DOD) uses a two-phased process to develop equipment reconstitution supplemental budget estimates. GAO reviewed this process for the fiscal year 2004 supplemental budget to determine (1) the extent to which the process produced reliable estimates of reconstitution requirements in the fiscal year 2004 supplemental budget, and (2) whether DOD is accurately tracking and reporting reconstitution costs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. airlines are increasingly relying on code-share partnerships with foreign carriers to provide additional sources of revenue. Code-sharing is a marketing arrangement in which an airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline and sells and issues tickets for that flight. To determine whether the foreign code-share partners of U.S. airlines meet an acceptable level of safety, in 2000, the Department of Transportation (DOT) established the Code-Share Safety Program, which requires U.S. airlines to conduct safety audits of their foreign code-share partners as a condition of code-share authorization. GAO's objective was to assess the federal government's efforts to provide reasonable assurance of safety and security on foreign code-share flights. GAO reviewed (1) the extent to which DOT's code-share authorization process is designed to consider safety and security, (2) the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) management of the Code-Share Safety Program, and (3) the implementation of the program by airlines and the results."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2003, the federal Food Stamp Program made payment errors totaling about $1.4 billion in benefits, or about 7 percent of the total $21.4 billion in benefits provided to a monthly average of 21 million low-income participants. Because payment errors are a misuse of public funds and can undermine public support of the program, it is important that the government minimize them. Because of concerns about ensuring payment accuracy GAO examined: (1) what is included in the national food stamp payment error rate and how it has changed over time, (2) what is known about the causes of food stamp payment errors, and (3) what actions the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and states have taken to reduce these payment errors. To answer these questions, GAO analyzed program quality control data for fiscal years 1999 through 2003 and interviewed program stakeholders, including state and local officials from nine states."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Demographic changes pose serious challenges for employers, the economy, and older Americans. As the baby boomers near traditional retirement ages, the loss of experienced workers could have adverse effects on productivity and economic growth. Also, many older Americans face less-secure retirements due to rising health care costs, pension coverage changes, and fiscal pressures on the nation's retirement programs. Due to the growing importance of workers aged 55 or older, GAO examined: (1) areas of the labor market affected by the aging of the workforce; (2) factors that influence the timing of retirement; and (3) what employers are doing to hire and retain older workers."

At the request of the Defense Logistics Agency, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education conducted radiological scoping surveys of the Scotia Depot during the period of September 24 through 27, 2007. The scoping survey included visual inspections and limited radiological surveys performed in accordance with area classification that included surface scans, total and removable activity measurements, and soil sampling.

Nuclear technologies have important distinctions and potential advantages for large-scale generation of hydrogen for U.S. energy services. Nuclear hydrogen requires no imported fossil fuels, results in lower greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants, lends itself to large-scale production, and is sustainable. The technical uncertainties in nuclear hydrogen processes and the reactor technologies needed to enable these processes, as well waste, proliferation, and economic issues must be successfully addressed before nuclear energy can be a major contributor to the nation's energy future. In order to address technical issues in the time frame needed to provide optimized hydrogen production choices, the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (NHI) must examine a wide range of new technologies, make the best use of research funding, and make early decisions on which technology options to pursue. For these reasons, it is important that system integration studies be performed to help guide the decisions made in the NHI. In framing the scope of system integration analyses, there is a hierarchy of questions that should be addressed: What hydrogen markets will exist and what are their characteristics? Which markets are most consistent with nuclear hydrogen? What nuclear power and production process configurations are optimal? What requirements are placed on the nuclear …

U.S. industry consumes approximately 37 percent of thenation's energy to produce 24 percent of the nation's GDP. Increasingly,society is confronted with the challenge of moving toward a cleaner, moresustainable path of production and consumption, while increasing globalcompetitiveness. Technology is essential in achieving these challenges.We report on a recent analysis of emerging energy-efficient technologiesfor industry, focusing on over 50 selected technologies. The technologiesare characterized with respect to energy efficiency, economics andenvironmental performance. This paper provides an overview of theresults, demonstrating that we are not running out of technologies toimprove energy efficiency, economic and environmental performance, andneither will we in the future. The study shows that many of thetechnologies have important non-energy benefits, ranging from reducedenvironmental impact to improved productivity, and reduced capital costscompared to current technologies.

Staff of the King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) have concern about the aftermath of a radiological dispersion event (RDE) leading to the introduction of significant quantities of radioactive material into the combined sanitary and storm sewer system in King County, Washington. Radioactive material could come from the use of a radiological dispersion device (RDD). RDDs include "dirty bombs" that are not nuclear detonations but are explosives designed to spread radioactive material (National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) 2001). Radioactive material also could come from deliberate introduction or dispersion of radioactive material into the environment, including waterways and water supply systems. This document develops plausible and/or likely scenarios, including the identification of likely radioactive materials and quantities of those radioactive materials to be involved. These include 60Co, 90Sr, 137Cs, 192Ir, 226Ra, plutonium, and 241Am. Two broad categories of scenarios are considered. The first category includes events that may be suspected from the outset, such as an explosion of a "dirty bomb" in downtown Seattle. The explosion would most likely be heard, but the type of explosion (e.g., sewer methane gas or RDD) may not be immediately known. Emergency first responders must be able to quickly detect the radioisotopes …

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This report includes information regarding ocean commissions. Ocean policy review, further outlook, and legislation are among topics discussed in this report.

This report addresses the adoption of a "broadcast flag" system by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to protect digital division (DTV) broadcasts from unauthorization redistribution.

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This report provides the details related to Salary adjustments of Federal white-collar employees for the Fiscal Year 2005

This report discusses the national security problem of China's role in weapons proliferation and issues related to the U.S. policy response, including legislation, since the mid-1990's.

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The W-band Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Cloud Radar (WACR) systems are zenith pointing Doppler radars that probe the extent and composition of clouds at 95.04 GHz. The main purpose of this radar is to determine cloud boundaries (e.g., cloud bottoms and tops). This radar reports estimates for the first three spectra moments for each range gate up to 15 km. The 0th moment is reflectivity, the 1st moment is radial velocity, and the 2nd moment is spectral width. Also available are the raw spectra files. Unlike the millimeter wavelength cloud radar (MMCR), the WACR does not use pulse coding and operates in only copolarization and cross-polarization modes.

On March 9, 2001, representatives of the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) and Argonne National Laboratory met with representatives from a number of federal and Nebraska state agencies (the wetlands agencies; see Table 1.1) to discuss the CCC/USDA's proposed aquifer remediation and wetlands restoration project at Utica, Nebraska. As part of those discussions, Argonne outlined preliminary recommendations for a long-term monitoring program to verify and document (1) the performance of the spray irrigation treatment process for the removal of carbon tetrachloride from extracted groundwater, (2) the geochemical quality of the extracted and treated groundwater delivered to the wetlands, and (3) the hydrogeologic and inorganic geochemical impacts of the groundwater delivery. General activities recommended included the following: (1) Periodic sampling and analysis for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in groundwater extracted at each pumping well and in water discharged from the spray irrigation treatment units. (2) Periodic sampling of groundwater from each pumping well and directly from the sprinkler discharge, for analysis for selected inorganic water quality parameters. The CCC/USDA and Argonne also requested at the March 2001 meeting that the wetlands agencies accept responsibility for developing the ecological and biological monitoring programs needed to meet environmental …

The objective of this report is to characterize the fluid properties and fluid-rock interactions that are needed for formation evaluation by NMR well logging. The advances made in the understanding of NMR fluid properties are summarized in a chapter written for an AAPG book on NMR well logging. This includes live oils, viscous oils, natural gas mixtures, and the relation between relaxation time and diffusivity. Oil based drilling fluids can have an adverse effect on NMR well logging if it alters the wettability of the formation. The effect of various surfactants on wettability and surface relaxivity are evaluated for silica sand. The relation between the relaxation time and diffusivity distinguishes the response of brine, oil, and gas in a NMR well log. A new NMR pulse sequence in the presence of a field gradient and a new inversion technique enables the T{sub 2} and diffusivity distributions to be displayed as a two-dimensional map. The objectives of pore morphology and rock characterization are to identify vug connectivity by using X-ray CT scan, and to improve NMR permeability correlation. Improved estimation of permeability from NMR response is possible by using estimated tortuosity as a parameter to interpolate between two existing permeability models.

This benchmarking review has been developed to support benchmarking planning and tool development under discussion by the California Energy Commission (CEC), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and others in response to the Governor's Executive Order S-20-04 (2004). The Executive Order sets a goal of benchmarking and improving the energy efficiency of California's existing commercial building stock. The Executive Order requires the CEC to propose ''a simple building efficiency benchmarking system for all commercial buildings in the state''. This report summarizes and compares two currently available commercial building energy-benchmarking tools. One tool is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star National Energy Performance Rating System, which is a national regression-based benchmarking model (referred to in this report as Energy Star). The second is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Cal-Arch, which is a California-based distributional model (referred to as Cal-Arch). Prior to the time Cal-Arch was developed in 2002, there were several other benchmarking tools available to California consumers but none that were based solely on California data. The Energy Star and Cal-Arch benchmarking tools both provide California with unique and useful methods to benchmark the energy performance of California's buildings. Rather than determine which model is ''better'', the purpose of this report …

Solar energy has become a major alternative for supplying a substantial fraction of the nation's future energy needs. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports activities ranging from the demonstration of existing technology to research on future possibilities. At Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), projects are in progress that span a wide range of activities, with the emphasis on research to extend the scientific basis for solar energy applications, and on preliminary development of new approaches to solar energy conversion. To assess various solar applications, it is important to quantify the solar resource. Special instruments have been developed and are now in use to measure both direct solar radiation and circum-solar radiation, i.e., the radiation from near the sun resulting from the scattering of sunlight by small particles in the atmosphere. These measurements serve to predict the performance of solar designs that use focusing collectors employing mirrors or lenses to concentrate the sunlight. Efforts have continued at a low level to assist DOE in demonstrating existing solar technology by providing the San Francisco Operations Office (SAN) with technical support for its management of commercial-building solar demonstration projects. Also, a hot water and space-heating system has been installed on an LBL building …