Omnibus energy legislation (H.R. 4) that is now in conference would expand energy tax incentives significantly. The House passed the bill on August 2, 2001, and the Senate approved its version April 25, 2002. Several energy tax issues are addressed in these bills: 1) tax incentives to increase the supply of oil and gas, and the demand for coal; 2) energy tax issues relating to energy conservation and energy efficiency; 3) energy tax issues relating to alternative fuels; 4) selected issues relating to electricity restructuring; and 5) expiring energy tax provisions.

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The idea of replacing our current income tax system with a “flat-rate tax” is receiving renewed congressional interest. Although referred to as “flat-rate taxes,” many of the current proposals go much further than merely adopting a flat-rate tax structure. Some involve significant income tax base broadening while others entail changing the tax base from income to consumption.

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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 private process server may serve citation in a forcible entry and detainer suit (RQ-0052-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 refusal to permit a constable to enter the restricted area of a business in order to serve civil process constitutes an offense under section 38.16 of the Penal Code (RQ-0056-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 community supervision and corrections department may assess a participant in a pretrial intervention program fees under both article 102.012 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and section 76.015(c) of the Government Code (RQ-0058-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; Liability for improper payment of the attorney's fees of Attorney General Opinion GA-0062 (2003) (RQ-0073-GA)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Most patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) must rely on dialysis treatments to compensate for kidney failure. Currently, over 222,000 ESRD patients visit dialysis centers several times a week to have toxins removed from their bloodstreams. While dialysis care has improved overall, questions remain regarding the quality of care provided by some of the nation's roughly 4,000 ESRD facilities. We examined (1) the extent and nature of quality of care problems identified at dialysis facilities, (2) the effectiveness of state survey agencies in ensuring that quality issues are uncovered, corrected, and stay corrected, and (3) the extent to which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funds, monitors, and assists state survey activities related to dialysis care."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "On the 25th anniversary of passage of the Inspector General (IG) Act, Congress sought GAO's views on the role of the IGs in providing independent oversight within federal agencies and to discuss the new and continuing challenges faced by government performance and accountability professionals."

We review the current status of flavor-changing neutral currents in the charm sector. We focus on the standard-model predictions and identify the main sources of theoretical uncertainties in both D{sup 0} - {bar D}{sup 0} mixing and rare charm decays. The potential of these observables for constraining short-distance physics in the standard model and its extensions is compromised by the presence of large nonperturbative effects. We examine the possible discovery windows in which short-distance physics can be tested and study the effects of various extensions of the standard model. The current experimental situation and future prospects are reviewed.

The CT injector originally used for injecting CTs into 1T toroidal field discharges in the TdeV tokamak was shipped PPPL from the Affiliated Customs Brokers storage facility in Montreal during November 2002. All components were transported safely, without damage, and are currently in storage at PPPL, waiting for further funding in order to begin advanced fueling experiments on NSTX. The components are currently insured through the University of Washington. Several technical presentations were made to investigate the feasibility of the CT injector installation on NSTX. These technical presentations, attached to this document, were: (1) Motivation for Compact Toroida Injection in NSTX; (2) Assessment of the Engineering Feasibility of Installing CTF-II on NSTX; (3) Assessment of the Cost for CT Installation on NSTX--A Peer Review; and (4) CT Fueling for NSTX FY 04-08 steady-state operation needs.

A series of large-scale fire tests were performed at Sandia National Laboratories to simulate a nuclear waste transport package under severe accident conditions. The test data were used to benchmark and adjust the Container Analysis Fire Environment (CAFE) computer code. CAFE is a computational fluid dynamics fire model that accurately calculates the heat transfer from a large fire to a massive engulfed transport package. CAFE will be used in transport package design studies and risk analyses.

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This report provides a framework for discussing preparedness standards, identifies potential elements of a comprehensive federal policy, and discusses policy approaches that Congress might take in addressing this issue. This report also includes an Appendix with brief summaries of existing standards and current activities to develop new preparedness standards.

This report

This report discusses the debate to permit the importation of FDA-approved drugs from less expensive foreign sources as the prices of prescription drugs has risen, considering issues such as cost, safety, policy, consumer protections, and international ramifications.

In 2000, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) was undertaken between the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Catalytica Energy Systems Incorporated (CESI) to determine the properties of current metallic catalyst supports and examine new candidate alloys for this application. A team was established at ORNL to examine oxidation-limited lifetime of these thin-walled metallic components using standard lifetime models and to measure the mechanical properties of the foils (40-200:m in thickness) which can differ substantially from bulk properties. Oxidation experiments were conducted on foil specimens at 700-1100 C in laboratory air and in air with 10 vol.% water vapor to better simulate the combustor environment. At the higher test temperatures, time to oxidation-induced (i.e. breakaway oxidation) failure was determined in 1h cycles in order to verify predictions from a standard reservoir-type oxidation lifetime model. Selected specimens were run for >10,000h in 100 or 500h cycles at lower test temperatures in order to determine the oxidation kinetics for the model. The creep properties of selected foils were measured for 4,000-8,000h at operation-relevant stresses and temperatures. None of the new candidate alloys significantly out-performed currently used alloys in laboratory testing, particularly in oxidation lifetime testing. Therefore, engine testing was not performed …

In 1998 a joint project between the universities of Lancaster and Leeds, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the UK Environment Agency, was initiated to examine, using geophysical methods, unsaturated flow and transport processes at two purposely developed field sites in the UK Sherwood Sandstone. More recently work by Lancaster university funded by a UK Natural Environment Research Council PhD studentship (awarded to Peter Winship) has continued the investigation at the two sites. This work, so far, has demonstrated: how cross-borehole (borehole to borehole) radar tomography can be used to monitor changes in moisture content in the unsaturated zone due to natural and forced (tracer) inputs (Binley et al., 2001); the evaluation of seasonal variation of moisture content profiles using high-resolution borehole resistivity and radar profiling (Binley et al., 2002a); initial attempts to utilize the geophysical data to develop numerical predictive models of unsaturated flow (Binley et al., 2002b; Binley et al, 2003; Binley and Beven, 2003). In addition, petrophysical models relating geophysical data to hydrological properties have been developed (West et al., 2003). Here we provide a data report on two tracer experiments conducted at one of the field sites. Within the report we describe the …

Networking in most large organizations is protected with corporate firewalls and managed by seasoned security professionals. Attempts to break into systems at these organizations are extremely difficult to impossible for an external intruder. With the growth in networking and the options that it makes possible, new avenues of intrusion are opening up. Corporate machines exist that are completely unprotected against intrusions, that are not managed by a security professional, and that are regularly connected to the company network. People have the option of and are encouraged to work at home using a home computer linked to the company network. Managers have home computers linked to internal machines so they can keep an eye on internal processes while not physically at work. Researchers do research or writing at home and connect to the company network to download information and upload results. In most cases, these home computers are completely unprotected, except for any protection that the home user might have installed. Unfortunately, most home users are not security professionals and home computers are often used by other family members, such as children downloading music, who are completely unconcerned about security precautions. When these computers are connected to the company network, they …