A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the establishment of a pilot program to provide a ballot by electronic mail to military personnel serving overseas.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to allowing a municipal electric utility to enter into hedging contracts for certain commodities.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States is the largest global food aid donor, accounting for over half of all food aid supplies to alleviate hunger and support development. Since 2002, Congress has appropriated an average of $2 billion per year for U.S. food aid programs, which delivered an average of 4 million metric tons of food commodities per year. Despite growing demand for food aid, rising business and transportation costs have contributed to a 52 percent decline in average tonnage delivered over the last 5 years. These costs represent 65 percent of total emergency food aid, highlighting the need to maximize its efficiency and effectiveness. Based on analysis of agency documents, interviews with experts and practitioners, and fieldwork, this report examines some key challenges to the (1) efficiency of U.S. food aid programs and (2) effective use of U.S. food aid."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO prepared this report under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative to assist Congress. Federal real property is a high-risk area due to excess and deteriorating property, reliance on costly leasing, unreliable data, and security challenges. GAO's objectives were to determine (1) what progress the administration and major real property-holding agencies have made in strategically managing real property and addressing long-standing problems and (2) what problems and obstacles, if any, remain to be addressed. GAO reviewed documents and interviewed officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and nine agencies that hold 93 percent of federal property."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In a previous report and testimony, GAO identified issues related to title insurance markets, including questions about the extent to which premium rates reflect underlying costs, oversight of title agent practices, and the implications of recent state and federal investigations. This report addresses those issues by examining (1) the characteristics of title insurance markets across states, (2) factors influencing competition and prices within those markets, and (3) the current regulatory environment and planned regulatory changes. To conduct this review, GAO analyzed available industry data and studies, and interviewed industry and regulatory officials in a sample of six states selected on the basis of differences in size, industry practices, regulatory environments, and number of investigations."

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This report provides an overview on Coordinated Party Expenditures in Federal Elections.Federal campaign finance law provides political parties with three main options :direct contributions,coordinated expenditures,independent expenditures.

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This report provides an overview of the lower court decisions in the two cases, coupled with a discussion of the factors that the Supreme Court is likely to consider on review.

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This report provides an overview of each National and Community Service Act(NCSA) and Domestic Volunteer Service Act(DVSA) program and compares Corporation for National and Community Service(CNCS) funding from the FY2006 Appropriation, the FY2007 budget request, and the FY2007 Appropriation.

This report provides background and issues for congress related to Coast Guard operations of Homeland Security.

This report addresses California action and the regional Greenhouse Gas initiative related to Greenhouse Gas reductions.

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The development and use of a Safety Input Review Committee (SIRC) process promotes consistent and disciplined Accident Analysis (AA) development to ensure that it accurately reflects facility design and operation; and that the credited controls are effective and implementable. Lessons learned from past efforts were reviewed and factored into the development of this new process. The implementation of the SIRC process has eliminated many of the problems previously encountered during Safety Basis (SB) document development. This process has been subsequently adopted for use by several Savannah River Site (SRS) facilities with similar results and expanded to support other analysis activities.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Laboratory currently does not have on site facilities for handling radioactive evidentiary materials and there are no established FBI methods or procedures for decontaminating high explosive (HE) evidence while maintaining evidentiary value. One experimental method for the isolation of HE residue involves using solid phase microextraction or SPME fibers to remove residue of interest. Due to their high affinity for organics, SPME fibers should have little affinity for most metals. However, no studies have measured the affinity of radionuclides for SPME fibers. The focus of this research was to examine the affinity of dissolved radionuclide ({sup 239/240}Pu, {sup 238}U, {sup 237}Np, {sup 85}Sr, {sup 133}Ba, {sup 137}Cs, {sup 60}Co and {sup 226}Ra) and stable radionuclide surrogate metals (Sr, Co, Ir, Re, Ni, Ba, Cs, Nb, Zr, Ru, and Nd) for SPME fibers at the exposure conditions that favor the uptake of HE residues. Our results from radiochemical and mass spectrometric analyses indicate these metals have little measurable affinity for these SPME fibers during conditions that are conducive to HE residue uptake with subsequent analysis by liquid or gas phase chromatography with mass spectrometric detection.

This report provides information on groundwater monitoring at the Solid Waste Landfill during the quarterly time period October through December 2006. Conditions remain very similar to those reported in the previous quarterly report. Four background threshold values, two WAC 173-200 Groundwater Quality Criteria, and one WAC 246-290-310 maximum contaminant level were exceeded. The results that exceed applicable limits are consistent with the type of waste disposed to the landfill.

The objective of this paper is to share the Savannah River Site lessons learned on Safeguards and Security (S&S) program integration with K-Area Complex (KAC) safety basis. The KAC Documented Safety Analysis (DSA), is managed by the Washington Savannah River Company (WSRC), and the S&S program, managed by Wackenhut Services, Incorporated--Savannah River Site (WSI-SRS). WSRC and WSI-SRS developed a contractual arrangement to recognize WSI-SRS requirements in the KAC safety analysis. Design Basis Threat 2003 (DBT03) security upgrades required physical modifications and operational changes which included the availability of weapons which could potentially impact the facility safety analysis. The KAC DSA did not previously require explicit linkage to the S&S program to satisfy the safety analysis. WSI-SRS have contractual requirements with the Department of Energy (DOE) which are separate from WSRC contract requirements. The lessons learned will include a discussion on planning, analysis, approval of the controls and implementation issues.

This Project Final Report serves to document the project structure and technical results achieved during the 3-year project titled Advanced Autothermal Reformer for US Dept of Energy Office of Industrial Technology. The project was initiated in December 2001 and was completed March 2005. It was a joint effort between Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, CA), Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR) (Houston, TX) and Süd-Chemie (Louisville, KY). The purpose of the project was to develop an experimental capability that could be used to examine the propensity for soot production in an Autothermal Reformer (ATR) during the production of hydrogen-carbon monoxide synthesis gas intended for Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) applications including ammonia, methanol, and higher hydrocarbons. The project consisted of an initial phase that was focused on developing a laboratory-scale ATR capable of reproducing conditions very similar to a plant scale unit. Due to budget constraints this effort was stopped at the advanced design stages, yielding a careful and detailed design for such a system including ATR vessel design, design of ancillary feed and let down units as well as a PI&D for laboratory installation. The experimental effort was then focused on a series of measurements to evaluate rich, high-pressure burner behavior at pressures …