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This report discusses how the total debt of the federal government can increase, provides an historical overview of debt limits, and explains how the current economic slowdown has led to higher deficits and thereby a series of debt limit increases, also discusses the legislation related to these increases.

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This report first describes how pertinent rules and practices regulate the daily sessions of Congress and their adjournments and recesses, including discussion of the "legislative day." It then develops a corresponding discussion for the annual sessions of Congress, which addresses, among other things, the use of "pro forma sessions." The report clarifies certain situations in which terms may simultaneously apply in different ways in relation to the daily session and to the annual session. Finally, the report notes some of the most important implications of the occurrence of sessions, adjournments, and recesses in relation to such matters as presidential action on legislation, recess appointments by the President, the operation of statutory expedited procedures ("fast track" procedures), and "lame duck" (post-election) sessions.

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This report provides a basic description of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), including some of the widely discussed issues.

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K-DEMO is being studied by South Korean researchers as a follow-on to ITER and the next step toward the construction of a commercial fusion power plant. The K-DEMO mission defines a staged approach targeting operation with an initial testing phase for plasma facing components and critical operating systems to be followed by a second phase which centers on upgrading the in-vessel components for operation at 200 to 600 MWe with a planned 70% availability.

Development of a nanostructured synthetic carbons materials that have been synthesized by thermal-decomposition of aromatic rich polyether such as poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) is reported. These polymers based nanostructured carbons efficacious for gas adsorption and storage and have Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of more than 3000 m2/g, and with average pore diameter of < 2nm. Surface-area, pore characteristics, and other critical variables for selecting porous materials of high gas adsorption capacities are presented. Analysis of the fragments evolved under various carbonization temperatures, and the correlation between the activation and carbonization temperatures provides a mechanistic perspective of the pore evolution during activation. Correlations between gas (N2 and H2) adsorption capacity and porous texture of the materials have been established. The materials possess excellent hydrogen storage properties, with hydrogen storage capacity up to 7.4 wt% (gravimetric) and ~ 45 g H2 L-1 (volumetric) at -196oC and 6.0 MPa.

The Rub pathway is a conserved protein modification pathway. RUB (called Rubp1 in budding yeast, Nedd8 in animals and RUB in plants) is a ubiquitin-like 76-amino acid protein. It covalently attaches to protein using an enzymatic machinery analogous to the enzymes that attach ubiquitin to its substrate proteins. However, the nature of the complement of Rub-modified proteins in organisms was not clear. From bioinformatics analyses, one can identify a Rub activating enzymes and Rub conjugating enzymes. However, in many cases, their biochemical properties were not described. In DOE-funded work, we made major advances in our understanding of the Rub pathway in yeast and plants, work that is applicable to other organisms as well. There is a multi-subunit enzyme called SCF in all eukaryotes. The SCF consists of several subunits that serve as a scaffold (the cullin, SKP and RBX subunits) and one subunit that interacts with the substrate. This cullin protein (called Cdc53p in yeast and CULLIN 1 in plants and animals) was a known Rub target. In this work, we identified additional Rub targets in yeast as the other cullin-like proteins Cul3p and Rtt101p. Additionally we described the conservation of the Rub pathway because plant RUB1 can conjugated to …

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This report addresses several options being considered by Congress to address the financing needs of local communities for wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects and to decrease or close the gap between available funds and projected needs.

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Computational chemistry was used to help provide a molecular level description of the interactions of Gram-negative microbial membranes with subsurface materials. The goal is to develop a better understanding of the molecular processes involved in microbial metal binding, microbial attachment to mineral surfaces, and, eventually, oxidation/reduction reactions (electron transfer) that can occur at these surfaces and are mediated by the bacterial exterior surface. The project focused on the interaction of the outer microbial membrane, which is dominated by an exterior lipopolysaccharide (LPS) portion, of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with the mineral goethite and with solvated ions in the environment. This was originally a collaborative project with T.P. Straatsma and B. Lowery of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The University of Alabama effort used electronic structure calculations to predict the molecular behavior of ions in solution and the behavior of the sugars which form a critical part of the LPS. The interactions of the sugars with metal ions are expected to dominate much of the microscopic structure and transport phenomena in the LPS. This work, in combination with the molecular dynamics simulations of Straatsma and the experimental electrochemistry and microscopy measurements of Lowry, both at PNNL, is providing new insights into the detailed …

The report discusses the Necessary and Proper Clause, Commerce Clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 10, spending Clause and Military Clause.

Tanks 241-AN-102 and 241-AN-107 supernatants contain soluble Sr-90 and transuranic elements that require removal prior to vitrification to comply with the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant immobilized low-activity waste specification (WTP Contract, DE-AC27-01RV 14136, Specification 2.2.2.8, "Radionuclide Concentration Limitations") and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission provisional agreement on waste incidental to reprocessing (letter, Paperiello, C. J., "Classification of Hanford Low-Activity Tank Waste Fraction"). These two tanks have high concentrations of organics and organic complexants and are referred to as complexant concentrate tanks. A precipitation process using sodium permanganate (NaMnO{sub 4}) and strontium nitrate (Sr(NO{sub 3}){sub 2}) was developed and tested with tank waste samples to precipitate Sr-90 and transuranic elements from the supernate (PNWD-3141, Optimization of Sr/TRU Removal Conditions with Samples of AN-102 Tank Waste). Testing documented in this report was conducted to further evaluate the use of the strontium nitrate/sodium permanganate process in tank farms with a retention time of up to 12 months. Previous testing was focused on developing a process for deployment in the ultrafiltration vessels in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. This environment is different from tank farms in two important ways: the waste is diluted in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant to ~5.5 …

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To develop a high temperature Thermal Storage System (TES) based on graphite and able to provide both economical and technical advantages with respect to existing solutions contributing to increase the share of Concentrated Solar Plants (CSP).