A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of 2003 Conference Report mandated that GAO review the Office of Compliance (OOC), an independent legislative branch agency created by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA). OOC, a 15-person office with about $2 million in expenditures during fiscal year 2003, administers and enforces various CAA provisions related to fair employment and occupational safety and health among certain legislative branch agencies. OOC's current Executive Director has been in place since April 2001 and its General Counsel joined the Office in June 2003. The mandate directed GAO to assess the OOC's overall effectiveness and efficiency and to make recommendations, as appropriate."

Interruptions of congressional operations by incidents such as episodic computer virus infections and the 2001 anthrax contamination, the February 2004 ricin incident have demonstrated the importance of congressional continuity of operations (COOP) planning. This report discusses the circumstances surrounding COOP planning, including provisions for alternative meeting sites and methods for conducting House and Senate meetings and floor sessions when Capitol facilities are not available.

OAK-B135 The Design Guide is presented in three parts. Section II describes the need for REC tracking, the two principal tracking methods available, and, in simple terms, the operation of certificate-based systems. Section III presents the major issues in the design of certificate-based tracking systems and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of alternative solutions. Finally, Section IV offers design principles or recommendations for most of these issues.

This report identifies selected websites from the Internet on immigration topics in the United States.

Separating the metals from the glass is the first step in recycling end-of-life cadmium telluride photovoltaic modules and manufacturing scrap. We accomplished this by leaching the metals in solutions of various concentrations of acids and hydrogen peroxide. A relatively dilute solution of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide was found to be most effective for leaching cadmium and tellurium from broken pieces of CdTe PV modules. A solution comprising 5 mL of hydrogen peroxide per kg of PV scrap in 1 M sulfuric acid, gave better results than the 12 mL H{sub 2}O{sub 2}/kg, 3.2 M H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} solution currently used in the industry. Our study also showed that this dilute solution is more effective than hydrochloric-acid solutions and it can be reused after adding a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. These findings, when implemented in large-scale operation, would result in significant savings due to reductions in volume of the concentrated leaching agents (H{sub 2}SO{sub 4} and H{sub 2}O{sub 2}) and of the alkaline reagents required to neutralize the residuals of leaching.

This report includes information such as background, summary, and possible reauthorization issues of the Higher Education Act.

This report provides a brief overview of debt-limit legislation within the congressional budget process.

This report includes recent actions and organizational responsibilities related to Capitol Hill Security.

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Plans are to convert the {sup 237}Np that is currently stored as a nitrate solution at the Savannah River Site to NpO{sub 2} and then ship it to the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge for interim storage. This material will serve as feedstock for the {sup 238}Pu production program, and some will be periodically shipped to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for fabrication into targets. The safe storage of this material requires an understanding of the radiolysis of moisture that is sorbed on the oxides, which, in turn, provides a basis for storage criteria (namely, moisture content). A two-component experimental program has been undertaken at ORNL to evaluate the radiolytic effects on NpO{sub 2}: (1) moisture uptake experiments and (2) radiolysis experiments using both gamma and alpha radiation. These experiments have produced two key results. First, the water uptake experiments demonstrated that the 0.5 wt % moisture limit that has been typically established for similar materials (e.g., uranium and plutonium oxides) cannot be obtained in a practical environment. In fact, the uptake in a typical environment can be expected to be at least an order of magnitude lower than the limit. The second key result is the …

A report of an archaeological survey of a drainage within the proposed 600 acre Crandall Development Site in Kaufman County.