Report from the Texas House Committee on Defense & Veterans' Affairs describing the group's goals, activities, accomplishments, and other information, for review by the 82nd Texas Legislature.

Farm commodity programs over the decades have focused on protecting farmers against declines in farm prices and not declines in revenue (price times production). Traditional programs for field crops provide benefits to producers when farm prices drop below specified levels. This report discusses the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program which Congress included in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-246) as a revenue based program option for farmers who enroll in traditional farm commodity programs. Unlike revenue protection provided by some crop insurance products, ACRE is designed to protect against losses from multi-year price declines.

None

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced the creation of a pilot loan program for home energy improvements. The PowerSaver loan program is a new, energy-focused variant of the Title I Property Improvement Loan Insurance Program (Title I Program) and is planned for introduction in early 2011. The PowerSaver pilot will provide lender insurance for secured and unsecured loans up to $25,000 to single family homeowners. These loans will specifically target residential energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements. HUD estimates the two-year pilot will fund approximately 24,000 loans worth up to $300 million; the program is not capped. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), HUD's mortgage insurance unit, will provide up to $25 million in grants as incentives to participating lenders. FHA is seeking lenders in communities with existing programs for promoting residential energy upgrades.

Penetrations through the LCLS injector shield wall are needed for the alignment of the accelerator, a diagnostic laser beam and utilities, and are shown in figure 1. The 1-inch diameter LCLS injector beam tube is blocked by the PPS stopper when the injector side of the wall is occupied. The two 3-inch diameter penetrations above and to the left of the beam tube are used by Precision Alignment and will be open only during installation of the injector beamline. Additional 3-inch diameter penetrations are for laser beams which will be used for electron beam diagnostics. These will not be plugged when the injector occupied. Other penetrations for the RF waveguide and other utilities are approximately 13-inch from the floor and as such are far from the line-of-sight of any radiation sources. The waveguide and utility penetrations pass only through the thicker wall as shown in the figure. The principal issue is with the two laser penetrations, since these will be open when the linac is operating and people are in the LCLS injector area. A principal concern is radiation streaming through the penetrations due to direct line-of sight of the PEP-2 lines. To answer this, fans of rays were traced …

To support Sludge Batch 7 (SB7) washing, a demonstration of the proposed Tank Farm washing operation was performed utilizing a real-waste test slurry generated from Tank 4, 7, and 12 samples. The purpose of the demonstration was twofold: (1) to determine the settling time requirements and washing strategy needed to bring the SB7 slurry to the desired endpoint; and (2) to determine the impact of washing on the chemical and physical characteristics of the sludge, particularly those of sulfur content, oxalate content, and rheology. Seven wash cycles were conducted over a four month period to reduce the supernatant sodium concentration to approximately one molar. The long washing duration was due to the slow settling of the sludge and the limited compaction. Approximately 90% of the sulfur was removed through washing, and the vast majority of the sulfur was determined to be soluble from the start. In contrast, only about half of the oxalate was removed through washing, as most of the oxalate was initially insoluble and did not partition to the liquid phase until the latter washes. The final sulfur concentration was 0.45 wt% of the total solids, and the final oxalate concentration was 9,900 mg/kg slurry. More oxalate could …

This report describes radioactive effluents from commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the United States. This information was reported by the licensees for radioactive discharges that occurred in 2007. The report provides information relevant to the potential impact of NPPs on the environment and on public health.

The LCLS photocathode rf gun requires a solenoid immediately downstream for proper emittance compensation. Such a gun and solenoid have been operational at the SSRL Gun Test Facility (GTF) for over eight years. Based on magnetic measurements and operational experience with the GTF gun solenoid multiple modifications are suggested for the LCLS gun solenoid. The modifications include adding dipole and quadrupole correctors inside the solenoid, increasing the bore to accommodate the correctors, decreasing the mirror plate thickness to allow the solenoid to move closer to the cathode, cutouts in the mirror plate to allow greater optical clearance with grazing incidence cathode illumination, utilizing pancake coil mirror images to compensate the first and second integrals of the transverse fields and incorporating a bipolar power supply to allow for proper magnet standardization and quick polarity changes. This paper describes all these modifications plus the magnetic measurements and operational experience leading to the suggested modifications.

This report reviews a demonstration of light-emitting diode (LED) accent lighting compared to halogen (typical) accent lighting in a gallery of the Field Museum in Chicago, IL.

The objective of Task 2 is to develop a numerical method for the efficient and accurate analysis of distributed thermal perturbation sensing (DTPS) data for (1) imaging flow profiles and (2) in situ determination of thermal conductivities and heat fluxes. Numerical forward and inverse modeling is employed to: (1) Examine heat and fluid flow processes near a geothermal well under heating and cooling conditions; (2) Demonstrate ability to interpret DTPS thermal profiles with acceptable estimation uncertainty using inverse modeling of synthetic temperature data; and (3) Develop template model and analysis procedure for the inversion of temperature data collected during a thermal perturbation test using fiber-optic distributed temperature sensors. This status report summarizes initial model developments and analyses.

The lithium tokamak experiment #2;LTX#3; is a modest-sized spherical tokamak #2;R0=0.4 m and a =0.26 m#3; designed to investigate the low-recycling lithium wall operating regime for magnetically confined plasmas. LTX will reach this regime through a lithium-coated shell internal to the vacuum vessel, conformal to the plasma last-closed-flux surface, and heated to 300-400 oC. This structure is highly conductive and not axisymmetric. The three-dimensional nature of the shell causes the eddy currents and magnetic fields to be three-dimensional as well. In order to analyze the plasma equilibrium in the presence of three-dimensional eddy currents, an extensive array of unique magnetic diagnostics has been implemented. Sensors are designed to survive high temperatures and incidental contact with lithium and provide data on toroidal asymmetries as well as full coverage of the poloidal cross-section. The magnetic array has been utilized to determine the effects of nonaxisymmetric eddy currents and to model the start-up phase of LTX. Measurements from the magnetic array, coupled with two-dimensional field component modeling, have allowed a suitable field null and initial plasma current to be produced. For full magnetic reconstructions, a three-dimensional electromagnetic model of the vacuum vessel and shell is under development.

This report describes radioactive effluents from commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the United States. This information was reported by the licensees for radioactive discharges that occurred in 2008. The report provides information relevant to the potential impact of NPPs on the environment and on public health.

The spectrometer design was modified to allow the measurement of uncorrelated energy spread for the nominal lattice. One bunch from every 120 each second would be sent to the straight ahead spectrometer while the transverse cavity is on. The implementation of this 'stealing mode' will not be available for the LCLS commissioning and the early stage of operation. However, the spectrometer was redesigned to retain that option. The energy feedback relies independently on the beam position of the beam in the dispersive section of dogleg 1 (DL1). The main modification of the spectrometer design is the Pole face rotation of 7.5 degrees on both entrance and exit faces. The location and range of operation of the 3 quadrupoles remains unchanged relative to those of the earlier design.

None

After the CMMD Seminar by Sung Woo Yu on the subject of the x-ray spectroscopy of UO2, there arose some questions concerning the XAS of UO2. These questions can be distilled down to these three issues: (1) The validity of the data; (2) The monchromator energy calibration; and (3) The validity of XAS component of the figure shown. The following will be shown: (1) The data is valid; (2) It is possible to calibrate the monchromator; and (3) The XAS component of the above picture is correct. The remainder of this document is in three sections, corresponding to these three issues.

This report summarizes the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and its major programs and regulatory requirements. The SDWA, Title XIV of the Public Health Service Act, is the key federal law for protecting public water supplies from harmful contaminants. First enacted in 1974 and substantially amended in 1986 and 1996, the act is administered through programs that establish standards and treatment requirements for public water supplies, control underground injection of wastes, finance infrastructure projects, and protect sources of drinking water.

This report provides information on classified information policy, which also is called security classification policy and national security classification information policy. It discusses the history, costs, and agencies assigned roles in classified information policy. The report focuses on Executive Order 13526, which establishes much of the current policy, and the report identifies possible oversight issues for Congress.

This report provides a discussion of the National Drug Control Strategy, the National Drug Control Budget, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP's) evaluation of the National Drug Control Strategy implementation. It then provides an analysis of selected legislative and oversight issues that Congress may consider when debating the reauthorization of ONDCP. Policymakers may question the status of the war on drugs, whether drug use should be seen as more of a law enforcement issue or a public health issue, and whether drug control resources are more effective when directed toward prevention and treatment or toward law enforcement. Another issue for consideration is whether the National Drug Control Budget--as currently conceived--represents a comprehensive view of federal drug control activities in the United States. Further, Congress may exercise oversight over ONDCP's means of evaluating the nation's federal drug control programs.

The George W. Bush Administration enacted a series of tax cuts through the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. This report examines these tax cuts within the context of the current and long-term economic environment.

This report is divided into two segments. The first section provides the most recent information on the FY2011 continuing resolutions. The second segment focuses on the history and recent trends, including the nature, scope, and duration of CRs during the past 35 years; CR types by duration; major substantive legislative provisions included in some CRs; and funding gaps.

This report discusses recent legislative initiatives seeking to establish climate change impacts as a common law nuisance. The report explains what private and public nuisances are, the issues faced by policymakers when litigating a climate-change/nuisance suit, and also discusses five climate-chance/nuisance suits that are now or formerly active, as a basis of comparison. The report also explores arguments of those both for and against addressing the complex issue of climate change through common law suits.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has statutory authority to regulate chemical facilities for security purposes. This report provides a brief overview of the existing statutory authority and the regulation implementing this authority. It describes several policy issues raised in previous debates regarding chemical facility security and identifies policy options that might resolve components of these issues. Finally, legislation introduced in the 111th Congress is discussed.

This report describes the final rules implementing PPACA that had been published in the Federal Register during the first 8 1/2 months of implementation. This report lists the 18 final rules, including a summary of their requirements and their effective dates.