The Department of Energy conducts programs relating to energy resources, national nuclear security, environmental quality, and science. In each of these areas, the US is facing significant challenges. Our economic well-being depends on the continuing availability of reliable and affordable supplies of clean energy. Our Nation's security is threatened by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Our environment is under threat from the demands a more populated planet and the legacies of 20th-century activities. Science and the technology derived from it offer the promise to improve the Nation's health and well-being and broadly expand human knowledge. In conducting its programs, the Department of Energy (DOE) employs unique scientific and technical assets, including 30,000 scientists, engineers, and other technical staff, in a complex of outstanding national laboratories that have a capital value of over $45 billion. Through its multidisciplinary research and development activities and its formidable assemblage of scientific and engineering talent, DOE focuses its efforts on four programmatic business lines: (1) Energy Resources--promoting the development and deployment of systems and practices that provide energy that is clean, efficient, reasonably priced, and reliable. (2) National Nuclear Security--enhancing national security through military application of nuclear technology and by reducing global danger …