Recording Session

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) efforts to modernize its Loan Management and Accounting System (LMAS). As discussed in our report, SBA had completed one of the seven LMAS-Incremental Improvement Projects (IIPs) and awarded contracts for work on three others as of October 2011. However, the projects have experienced increasing costs and schedule delays. However, the projects have experienced increasing costs and schedule delays. Specifically, according to the most recent project schedule, dated August 2011, SBA completed one project in May 2011, 2 months later than planned and expects five of the remaining six projects to finish between 4 and 11 months later than the dates reported to Congress in October 2010. Further, according to the agency’s most recent report to Congress, dated March 2011, the total projected cost of the projects increased approximately $5 million since October 2010 and the costs of individual projects had risen between approximately 3 and 53 percent. SBA plans to complete the seven IIPs at a total cost of approximately $28 million by July 2013. Our report also raises concerns about SBA’s inconsistent implementation of key management practices."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense’s (DOD) management of its key humanitarian assistance programs reflects both positive practices and weaknesses:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For the 52 NNSA identified limitations for all weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile, 86 percent fall into six types: detonation safety under abnormal conditions, weapon reliability, weapon delivery, more frequent replacement of limited life components, nuclear yield, and worker safety. Some DOD officials expressed concern over the impact that certain weapon limitations have on weapon operation, maintenance, and war planning. According to DOD officials, current DOD mitigation actions, as well as the successful completion of ongoing and planned NNSA efforts, should address most limitations for which the officials raised concerns. DOD officials stated that the current stockpile allows sufficient flexibility to mitigate limitations. However, they told GAO that there may be less flexibility in the future as the stockpile continues to age and decreases in size. For each weapon system, NNSA provides DOD with guidance containing additional information on nuclear weapon limitations. However, GAO found that this guidance does not cover all limitations and some DOD officials said that it may not provide them with relevant information for some limitations. Specifically, the guidance addresses approximately 60 percent of all limitations but does not include limitations …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "OMB developed the June 2010 memorandum in consultation with the CFO Council and created FSAB to assist in its oversight and review of agency financial system projects as announced in the June 2010 memorandum. In November 2010, OMB reported an overall budget savings of $1.6 billion as a result of decisions to postpone, cancel, or revise the scope of projects initially reviewed. In response to our survey, most agencies reported no change or that they did not know how the long-term project cost or completion time would change as a result of the actions, decisions, and recommendations related to the June 2010 memorandum and oversight process. However, several agencies reported that they narrowed the scope of their current project plans to focus on implementing more critical business needs first as a result of the June 2010 memorandum. They noted that this rescoping had the effect of delaying their efforts to improve accounting and reporting functions. Agencies also reported other challenges related to their financial system projects, including standardization of internal processes or data and funding delays. According to OMB staff, their plans for oversight of financial systems include …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Bi-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

This is an overview of the elements of federal criminal money laundering statutes and the sanctions imposed for their violation.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

General Motors, LLC and energy partner Shell Hydrogen, LLC, deployed a system of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles integrated with a hydrogen fueling station infrastructure to operate under real world conditions as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Validation and Demonstration Project. This technical report documents the performance and describes the learnings from progressive generations of vehicle fuel cell system technology and multiple approaches to hydrogen generation and delivery for vehicle fueling.

Hand-written letter from Cathy Pfeifer of The Greatest Generations Foundation to Helen Snapp discussing a recent phone call between the two women. Pfeifer hopes that Snapp will help recruit more veterans for the foundation's upcoming programs.

Weekly newspaper from Yoakum, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Student newspaper from St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and campus news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sweetwater, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The overall project goal is to reduce the cost of home and neighborhood photovoltaic storage systems by reducing the single largest cost component – the energy storage cells. Solar power is accepted as an environmentally advantaged renewable power source. Its deployment in small communities and integrated into the grid, requires a safe, reliable and low cost energy storage system. The incumbent technology of lead acid cells is large, toxic to produce and dispose of, and offer limited life even with significant maintenance. The ideal PV storage battery would have the safety and low cost of lead acid but the performance of lithium ion chemistry. Present lithium ion batteries have the desired performance but cost and safety remain the two key implementation barriers. The purpose of this project is to develop new lithium ion cells that can meet PVES cost and safety requirements using A123Systems phosphate-based cathode chemistries in commercial PHEV cell formats. The cost target is a cell design for a home or neighborhood scale at <$25/kWh. This DOE program is the continuation and expansion of an initial MPSC (Michigan Public Service Commission) program towards this goal. This program further pushes the initial limits of some aspects of the original …

A study has been conducted on the material demand and life-cycle energy and emissions performance of power-generating technologies in addition to those reported in Part I of this series. The additional technologies included concentrated solar power, integrated gasification combined cycle, and a fossil/renewable (termed hybrid) geothermal technology, more specifically, co-produced gas and electric power plants from geo-pressured gas and electric (GPGE) sites. For the latter, two cases were considered: gas and electricity export and electricity-only export. Also modeled were cement, steel and diesel fuel requirements for drilling geothermal wells as a function of well depth. The impact of the construction activities in the building of plants was also estimated. The results of this study are consistent with previously reported trends found in Part I of this series. Among all the technologies considered, fossil combustion-based power plants have the lowest material demand for their construction and composition. On the other hand, conventional fossil-based power technologies have the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, followed by the hybrid and then two of the renewable power systems, namely hydrothermal flash power and biomass-based combustion power. GHG emissions from U.S. geothermal flash plants were also discussed, estimates provided, and data needs identified. Of the GPGE …

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Undetected microcracks in solar cells are a principal cause of failure in service due to subsequent weather exposure, mechanical flexing or diurnal temperature cycles. Existing methods have not been able to detect cracks early enough in the production cycle to prevent inadvertent shipment to customers. This program, sponsored under the DOE Photovoltaic Supply Chain and Cross-Cutting Technologies program, studied the feasibility of quantifying surface micro-discontinuities by use of a novel technique, thermoreflectance imaging, to detect surface temperature gradients with very high spatial resolution, in combination with a suite of conventional imaging methods such as electroluminescence. The project carried out laboratory tests together with computational image analyses using sample solar cells with known defects supplied by industry sources or DOE National Labs. Quantitative comparisons between the effectiveness of the new technique and conventional methods were determined in terms of the smallest detectable crack. Also the robustness of the new technique for reliable microcrack detection was determined at various stages of processing such as before and after antireflectance treatments. An overall assessment is that the new technique compares favorably with existing methods such as lock-in thermography or ultrasonics. The project was 100% completed in Sept, 2010. A detailed report of key findings …

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