None

This report discusses the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI), implemented by the Bush Administration in 2001 to provide economic and counter-narcotics assistance for Colombia and regional neighbors. The report discusses the goals of the ARI, as well as related appropriations.

This report provides a brief overview of Federal statutes and where to find them, both in hard copy and on the Internet. After providing an overview on the basics of Federal statutes, this report gives guidance on where Federal statutes, in their various forms, may be located on the Internet, where they are most readily accessible

None

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

Weekly student newspaper from McMurry University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Funeral program for Clara Bell (Jean) Ladson, born January 8, 1933 and died October 27, 2001. The funeral was held Wednesday, October 31, 2001 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiated by Rev. Terrence K. Hayes. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Southern Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 and the subsequent appearance of letters containing anthrax, terrorism rose to the top of the national agenda. The Attorney General has indicated that the country needs to be prepared for still more terrorist incidents. The Department of Justice is working with state and local governments to complete risk management tools for the domestic preparedness program. However, the FBI told GAO that these will be limited to threat assessments only and will not include other aspects of risk management that GAO advocates. Despite these inconclusive results, the federal government can benefit from risk management. Risk management is a systematic and analytic process to consider the likelihood that a threat will endanger an asset and to identify actions that reduce the risk and mitigate the consequences of an attack. An effective risk management approach includes a threat assessment, a vulnerability assessment, and a criticality assessment. Such an approach could help the nation prepare against threats it faces and help better target finite resources to areas of highest priority."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Many small employers--those with 50 or fewer workers--do not offer health benefits to their employees. This is particularly true for employers with fewer than 10 workers. The families of workers employed by small employers are about twice as likely to be uninsured as households with a worker at a large employer. Despite efforts by Congress and the states to help small employers buy coverage, many small employers continue to cite cost as a major obstacle to providing coverage. Small and large employers purchasing health insurance generally had comparable premiums in 1998, but this comparison does not fully reflect the challenges facing small employers in providing health insurance for their employees. Although the premiums were similar, the health plans offered by small employers were slightly less generous on average--they had slightly higher average cost-sharing requirements for their employees and were somewhat less likely to offer some benefits, excluding, for example, mental health services and chiropractic care. Also, insurers' costs to administer employer-based health insurance and protect against potentially large health care costs result in a larger share of small employers' premium dollars being spent on these nonbenefit …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare's physician fee schedule establishes payments for more than 7,000 different services, such as office visits, surgical procedures, and treatments. Before 1992, fees were based on charges physicians billed for these services. Since then, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs Medicare, has been phasing in a new fee schedule on the basis of the amount of resources used to provide that service relative to other services. The development of the resource-based practice expense component was a substantial undertaking. The implementation of the resource-based methodology has been the subject of considerable controversy, partly because of HCFA's adjustments to the underlying data and basic method and partly because payment changes were required to be budget-neutral--which means that total Medicare spending for physician services was to be the same under the new payment method as it was under the old one. As a result, Medicare payments to some specialties have increased while payments to other specialties have decreased. Oncologists claim that their practice expense payments are particularly inadequate for some office-based services, such as chemotherapy. Oncology practice expense payments in 2001 are eight percent higher than they …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are seeking to add new techniques to their arsenal of investigative tools. "Brain fingerprinting" measures brain wave responses to determine whether an individual recognizes certain details of an event or activity. Because the technique requires specific information about the event that would be known only to the perpetrator and the investigator, Brain Fingerprinting is not designed as a screening tool--a function that involves questioning a subject about events unknown to the investigator. Instead, an investigator would be able to use certain information as evidence for or against a subject. For example, the technique could be used to determine whether a subject has knowledge of details about a crime. Officials representing the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation do not forsee using the brain fingerprinting technique because of its limited use. Furthermore, given the technique's limitations, the research expenses, equipment, and training costs are perceived to exceed benefits."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Americans have become increasingly concerned about the downside of growth and development--increasing dependence on automobiles; worsening traffic congestion; and the loss of farmland, forests, and open space. Some are also concerned that "urban sprawl" can increase air and water pollution, endanger their health, and even threaten their livelihood. Most local transportation planners and state air quality managers do not consider the effects of different land use strategies on air quality. They do not do so principally because nonpoint sources are diffuse and difficult to identify and measure. According to local transportation planners and state air quality managers, federal agencies could help remove barriers to, and provide incentives for, assessing and mitigating the environmental impacts of land use. They proposed actions in the following three key areas: (1) financial incentives for transportation, environmental, and local decisionmakers to collaborate on land use strategies that limit adverse impacts on air and water quality; (2) technical capacity to assess and mitigate land use impacts; and (3) educating the public and local officials about the environmental impacts of their transportation and land use decisions and alternative development strategies that better protect …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 authorized the Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct the Medicare subvention demonstration for a three-year period. Under this demonstration, DOD formed Medicare managed care organizations--collectively called TRICARE Senior Prime--at six sites that provided the full range of Medicare-covered services as well as additional DOD-covered services, notably prescription drugs. The Medicare program was to pay DOD for Medicare-covered care of the enrolled military retirees if DOD continued to spend on all aged military retirees at least as much as it had historically. Under the subvention demonstration, Senior Prime enrollees' care in 1999 cost DOD far more than the Medicare capitation rate that was established for the demonstration. This mainly resulted from enrollees' heavy use of medical services, but DOD coverage of prescription drugs--not included in the Medicare benefit package--also contributed to its high costs. Without the demonstration, Medicare spending in 1999 for retirees who enrolled in Senior Prime would have been, on average, about 55 percent of the Senior capitation rate. The Balanced Budget Act's payment rules resulted in no Medicare payment to DOD in 1999. This was because they were …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1997, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began a management reform effort, called the 2020 Management Reform Plan, to resolve its management and operational problems. GAO found that HUD has had some successes in implementing the management reforms, but challenges remain. Some initiatives, such as consolidating and streamlining operations, were achieved relatively quickly and are producing results. Other efforts, such as improving the efficiency of those operations and improving accountability, have been hampered by inefficient distribution of workload and other problems. HUD has made some progress toward improving accountability and control of its programs. Specifically, HUD developed a strategic planning process; enhanced monitoring tools; improved some aspects of its information and financial management systems; improved contracting procedures; and established centralized entities, such as an enforcement authority, to follow up on problem properties. HUD's efforts to refocus and retrain its staff have been somewhat successful. HUD faces several challenges in its efforts to consolidate and streamline its operations, improve accountability and control of its programs, and refocus and retrain its staff. Successfully addressing these challenges in the areas of human capital, information and financial …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 significantly changed federal welfare policy for low-income families with children. The act eliminated eligible families' legal entitlement to cash assistance and created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants to states. TANF emphasizes the importance of work and personal responsibility rather than dependence on government benefits. To avoid financial penalties, states must demonstrate yearly that an ever-increasing proportion of adults receiving TANF are working or engaged in work-related activities. The U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for 1999 show that 44 percent of TANF recipients nationwide had physical or mental impairments, a proportion almost three times as high as among adults in the non-TANF population. The percentages of TANF adults with impairments from 1994 can not be compared to later years because Census broadened its measurements of mental impairments starting with its 1997 SIPP data. Most of the counties that screen for impairments rely on recipients' self-disclosure, which may not ensure the identification of some impairments that could interfere with employment. Still, for the one-third of counties that reported service data, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Each day, nearly two million passengers on 25,000 flights depend on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Air Traffic Control (ATC) system to safely reach their destinations. Because the ATC system requires thousands of controllers, each of whom typically manages just a section of airspace or one aspect of an aircraft's takeoff or landing, FAA depends on supervisors to monitor air traffic operations and controllers' workload and performance to ensure that the system is operating safely. In negotiating its 1998 collective bargaining agreement with its controllers' union, FAA agreed to a national plan that would reduce by attrition the number of supervisors who oversee air traffic controllers. To avoid compromising safety, FAA will increasingly have its controllers performing supervisory duties as Controllers-in-Charge (CIC) when supervisors are not present. Nationwide, FAA has selected 8,268 controllers to serve as CICs, which is about 55 percent of its air traffic controller workforce. GAO found that the materials for FAA's CIC training program were through and comprehensive, but FAA has little assurance that the training was effectively presented and achieved its objectives. Although FAA assessed training at a few facilities, the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress established a three-year demonstration, called Medicare subvention, to improve the access of Medicare-eligible military retirees to care at military treatment facilities (MTF). The demonstration allowed Medicare-eligible retirees to get their health care largely at MTFs by enrolling in a Department of Defense (DOD) Medicare managed care organization known as TRICARE Senior Prime. During the subvention demonstration, access to health care for many retirees who enrolled in Senior Prime improved, while access to MTF care for some of those who did not enroll declined. Many enrollees in Senior Prime said they were better able to get care when they needed it. They also reported better access to doctors in general as well as care at MTFs. Enrollees generally were more satisfied with their care than before the demonstration. However, the demonstration did not improve enrollees' self-reported health status. In addition, compared to nonenrollees, enrollees did not have better health outcomes, as measured by their mortality rates and rates of "preventable" hospitalizations. Moreover, DOD's costs were high, reflecting enrollees' heavy use of hospitals and doctors."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides information on oil and gas activities in the National Wildlife Refuge System. GAO focuses on (1) how many units produced or had oil or gas activities on their lands in 2000, (2) why these activities took place in these units, (3) the number of these units for which the federal government owned the oil and gas mineral rights, (4) resources available to these units to manage oil and gas activities, and (5) the effects of the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 on leases for oil and gas activities."

Semiweekly newspaper from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas that includes local, national, and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly Czech and English language newspaper from Temple, Texas published as the official organ of the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas that includes news of interest to members along with advertising.

Seventy soil gas-sampling points were installed around the perimeter of the 618-11 Burial Ground, approximately 400 feet downgradient of well 699-13-3A, and in four transects downgradient of the burial ground to a maximum distance of 3,100 feet. Soil gas samples were collected and analyzed for helium-3/helium-4 ratios from these 70 points. Helium-3/helium-4 ratios determined from the soil gas sampling points showed significant enrichments, relative to ambient air helium-3 concentrations. The highest concentrations were located along the northern perimeter of the burial ground. Helium-3/helium-4 ratios (normalized to the abundances in ambient air) ranged from 1.0 to 62 around the burial ground. The helium-3/helium-4 ratios from the 4 transect downgradient of the burial ground ranged from 0.988 to 1.68. The helium-3/helium-4 ratios from around the burial ground suggest there is a vadose zone source of tritium along the north side of the burial ground.

This report describes experiments performed in FY 2001 to examine the feasibility of using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to characterize Hanford tank sludge solids. The results demonstrate the potential utility of magic-angle spinning solid-state NMR spectroscopy for this purpose. We have shown that 27Al NMR signals can be easily detected in samples simulating the compositions of Hanford tank sludge solids. Different Al-containing species can be distinguished on the basis of a number of characteristics, including resonance frequency, lineshape, and response to excitation pulse length of the 27Al NMR signal. This work also indicates that 23Na NMR can likely be used to identify specific Na-containing phases present in tank wastes. It is expected that other NMR-active nuclides can be probed for information about specific phases present in tank-waste solids.

The Fiddler Creek field is in Weston County, Wyoming, and was discovered in 1948. Secondary waterflooding recovery was started in 1955 and terminated in the mid-1980s with a fieldwide recovery of approximately 40%. The West Fiddler Creek Unit, the focus of this project, had a lower recovery and therefore has the most remaining oil. Before the project this unit was producing approximately 85 bbl of oil per day from 20 pumping wells and 17 swab wells. The recovery process planned for this project involved adapting two independent processes, the injection of polymer as a channel blocker or as a deep-penetrating permeability modifier, and the stabilization of clays and reduction of the residual oil saturation in the near-wellbore area around the injection wells. Clay stabilization was not conducted because long-term fresh water injection had not severely reduced the injectivity. It was determined that future polymer injection would not be affected by the clay. For the project, two adjoining project patterns were selected on the basis of prior reservoir studies and current well availability and production. The primary injection well of Pattern 1 was treated with a small batch of MARCIT gel to create channel blocking. The long-term test was designed for …