Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Texas Constitution prevents local political subdivisions from recognizing domestic partnerships by granting benefits previously only available to married couples (RQ-1097-GA).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a home-rule city may change the terms of its officers from three to four years without first adopting a charter amendment (RQ-1077-GA).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county auditor has a right to access inmate property in a county jail to compare it with inmate property receipts (RQ-1 096-GA).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Medicaid reimbursement methodology imposed by rule 354.1143 of the Health and Human Services Commission impermissibly conflicts with section 32.050(c) of the Human Resources Code (RQ-1075-GA).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a junior college district is considered to be a "school district" for purposes of section 395.022, Local Government Code, which relates to the payment of impact fees to a political subdivision (RQ-1076-GA).

This document gathers into one place the publicly available NEPA- and EJ-related documents from Federal agencies (e.g., regulations, guidance, and circulars), providing hyperlinks to each document for quick access.

A transcript of some EPA presentations. It contains words used during a few slide shows pertaining to climate change.

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Utilization of biomass as a co-feed in coal and biomass co-firing and co-gasification requires size reduction of the biomass. Reducing biomass to below 0.2 mm without pretreatment is difficult and costly because biomass is fibrous and compressible. Torrefaction is a promising thermal pretreatment process and has the advantages of increasing energy density, improving grindability, producing fuels with more homogenous compositions and hydrophobic behavior. Temperature is the most important factor for the torrefaction process. Biomass grindability is related to cell wall structure, thickness and composition. Thermal treatment such as torrefaction can cause chemical changes that significantly affect the strength of biomass. The objectives of this study are to understand the mechanism by which torrefaction improves the grindability of biomass and discuss suitable temperatures for thermal pretreatment for co-gasification/cofiring of biomass and coal. Wild cherry wood was selected as the model for this study. Samples were prepared by sawing a single tangential section from the heartwood and cutting it into eleven pieces. The samples were consecutively heated at 220, 260, 300, 350, 450 and 550oC for 0.5 hr under flowing nitrogen in a tube furnace. Untreated and treated samples were characterized for physical properties (color, dimensions and weight), microstructural changes by SEM, …

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PNNL is conducting work to provide the technical basis for estimating radionuclide release from the engineered portion of the disposal facility for Hanford immobilized low-activity waste (ILAW). Before the ILAW can be disposed, DOE must conduct a performance assessment (PA) for the Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF) that describes the long-term impacts of the disposal facility on public health and environmental resources. As part of the ILAW glass testing program, PNNL is implementing a strategy, consisting of experimentation and modeling, to provide the technical basis for estimating radionuclide release from the glass waste form in support of future IDF PAs. Key activities in FY12 include upgrading the STOMP/eSTOMP codes to do near-field modeling, geochemical modeling of PCT tests to determine the reaction network to be used in the STOMP codes, conducting PUF tests on selected glasses to simulate and accelerate glass weathering, developing a Monte Carlo simulation tool to predict the characteristics of the weathered glass reaction layer as a function of glass composition, and characterizing glasses and soil samples exhumed from an 8-year lysimeter test. The purpose of this report is to summarize the progress made in fiscal year (FY) 2012 and the first quarter of FY 2013 toward implementing …

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