Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "More than 60,000 Americans and foreign nationals work at about 260 diplomatic posts worldwide. Since the mid-1990s, GAO has highlighted the need for State and other federal agencies to establish a systematic process for determining their overseas staffing levels, particularly after the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. GAO was asked to discuss three reports, including two being issued today, on rightsizing--that is, realigning the number and location of staff--at U.S. embassies and consulates: (1) the rightsizing framework GAO developed last year, (2) follow-on work to further test the framework, and (3) the processes to project staffing levels for new embassy construction and the proposals to share construction costs among U.S. agencies."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony responds to the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States for information on GAO's work in transportation security. It addresses (1) transportation security before September 2001; (2) what the federal government has done since September 11th to strengthen transportation security, particularly aviation, mass transit, and port security; and (3) what long-term institutional challenges face the federal agencies responsible for transportation security. The testimony is based on a body of work that GAO has performed over the years."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), charities are increasingly turning to vehicle donation programs as a fund- raising activity, resulting in increased solicitations for donated vehicles. Therefore, to make informed decisions about donating their vehicles, taxpayers should be aware of how vehicle donation programs operate, the role of fund- raisers and charities in the vehicle donation process, and IRS rules and regulations regarding allowable tax deductions. Due to the increased use of vehicle donation programs, GAO was asked to describe (1) the vehicle donation process, (2) the amount of proceeds received by charities and fund-raisers, (3) donor tax deductions, and (4) taxpayer cautions and guidance."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration (SBA) is responsible for oversight of its 7(a) loan program lenders, including those who participate in the Preferred Lenders Program or PLP. SBA delegates full authority to preferred lenders to make loans without prior SBA approval. In fiscal year 2002, preferred lenders approved 55 percent of the dollar value of all 7(a) loans--about $7 billion. Small businesses are certainly a vital part of the nation's economy. According to SBA, they generate more than half of the nation's gross domestic product and are the principal source of new jobs in the U.S. economy. In turn, SBA's mission is to maintain and strengthen the nation's economy by aiding, counseling, assisting, and protecting the interests of small businesses. Providing small businesses with access to credit is a major avenue through which SBA strives to fulfill its mission. Strong oversight of lenders by SBA is needed to protect SBA from financial risk and to ensure that qualified borrowers get 7(a) loans. SBA has a total portfolio of about $46 billion, including $42 billion in direct and guaranteed small business loans and other guarantees. Because SBA guarantees up to …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Coast Guard is one of 22 agencies being placed in the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). With its key roles in the nation's ports, waterways, and coastlines, the Coast Guard is an important part of enhanced homeland security efforts. But it also has important nonsecurity missions, such as search and rescue, fisheries and environmental protection, and drug and migrant interdiction. GAO has conducted a number of reviews of the Coast Guard's missions and was asked to testify about the Coast Guard's most recent level of effort for its various missions and the major operational and organizational challenges facing the agency during its transition into the newly created DHS."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Paperwork Reduction Act requires federal agencies to minimize the paperwork burden they impose on the public. The act also requires agencies to obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before collecting covered information. GAO examined changes during the past fiscal year in federal agencies' paperwork burden estimates and their causes, focusing on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). GAO also examined changes in the number of violations of the Paperwork Reduction Act."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 2001, letters contaminated with anthrax resulted in 23 cases of the disease, 5 deaths, and the contamination of numerous U.S. Postal Service facilities, including the Southern Connecticut Processing and Distribution Center in Wallingford, Connecticut (the Wallingford facility). GAO was asked to address, among other matters, whether (1) the Postal Service followed applicable guidelines and requirements for informing employees at the facility about the contamination and (2) lessons can be learned from the response to the facility's contamination."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Potentially dangerous sealed sources containing greater-than-Class-C radioactive material pose a threat to national security because terrorists could use them to make "dirty bombs." Public Law 99-240 requires the Department of Energy (DOE) provide a facility for disposing of unwanted sources. Because DOE has no disposal facility for these sources, its Off-Site Source Recovery Project is recovering and temporarily storing them at Los Alamos, New Mexico. GAO was asked to determine (1) the number of unwanted sealed sources that DOE plans to recover through 2010 and the estimated cost, (2) the status of recovery efforts and any problems that DOE may face, and (3) the status of DOE's efforts to provide a disposal facility for these sealed sources"

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Taxpayers rated the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) ability to provide clear and easy-to-use forms and instructions among the lowest of 27 indicators of service in 1993. Due to continuing concerns about unclear forms and instructions, GAO was asked to determine (1) whether and how often IRS tests the clarity of new and revised individual income tax forms and instructions; (2) the benefits, if any, of testing forms and instructions for clarity prior to their use; and (3) whether any factors limit IRS's ability to do more tests and if so, how they can be addressed."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Successful strategic human capital management requires the integration of human capital approaches with strategies for accomplishing organizational missions and program goals. Such integration allows the agency to ensure that its core processes efficiently and effectively support mission-related outcomes. Based on the recommendations of various human capital experts, GAO identified six executive branch agencies that had taken key actions to integrate their human capital approaches with their strategic planning and decision making. The agencies were the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the General Services Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Geological Survey. These key actions may prove helpful to other agencies as they seek to ensure that their human capital approaches are aligned with their program goals."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) spends more than $1.7 billion each year to move and store over 600,000 household goods shipments when relocating military personnel. It conducted and evaluated several pilot program studies aimed at fixing its problem-plagued program and, in 2002, issued a report to Congress with three recommendations. The 1997 Defense Appropriations Act Conference Report directed GAO to validate the results achieved by the pilot programs. In response, GAO examined the extent to which DOD's recommendations to Congress (1) offer solutions to long-standing problems in the current program and (2) are supported by the evaluation's findings and should be implemented. GAO also assessed the soundness of methodologies used by DOD to develop cost estimates to implement the recommendations."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under section 1308 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, the Department of Defense is to submit an annual report to Congress on its Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program no later than the first Monday in February of each year. The Department of Defense, however, submitted its CTR annual report for fiscal year 2003 to Congress on January 8, 2003, more than 11 months after the submission date mandated by law. The legislation also requires the Comptroller General to provide Congress with an assessment of the report's multiyear plan setting forth the amount and purpose of funding to be provided over the 5-year term of the plan and describing the department's efforts to ensure that CTR assistance is accounted for and used as intended. We reviewed the fiscal year 2003 annual CTR report and compared it with our assessment of the 2002 annual report. As with the 2002 report, we analyzed the 2003 report to determine whether it (1) provides a 5-year plan that sets forth the funding requirements for the program and includes key federal strategic planning elements and (2) describes the methods used …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to certain requirements of the Haitain Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 1998 that authorized certain Haitian nationals and their dependents to apply to adjust their status to legal permanent residence. Section 902(k) of the act requires the Comptroller General to report every 6 months on the number of Haitian nationals who have applied and been approved to adjust their status to legal permanent residence. The reports are to contain a breakdown of the number of Haitians who applied and the number who were approved as asylum applicants, parolees, children without parents, orphaned children, or abandoned children; or as the eligible dependents of these applicants, including spouses, children, and unmarried sons or daughters. Reports are to be provided until all applications have been finally adjudicated."

This report discusses Test Campaign TC11 of the Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. (KBR) Transport Gasifier train with a Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation (Siemens Westinghouse) particle filter system at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) located in Wilsonville, Alabama. The Transport Gasifier is an advanced circulating fluidized-bed gasifier designed to operate as either a combustor or a gasifier in air- or oxygen-blown mode of operation using a particulate control device (PCD). Test run TC11 began on April 7, 2003, with startup of the main air compressor and the lighting of the gasifier start-up burner. The Transport Gasifier operated until April 18, 2003, when a gasifier upset forced the termination of the test run. Over the course of the entire test run, gasifier temperatures varied between 1,650 and 1,800 F at pressures from 160 to 200 psig during air-blown operations and around 135 psig during enriched-air operations. Due to a restriction in the oxygen-fed lower mixing zone (LMZ), the majority of the test run featured air-blown operations.

The purpose of this document is to summarize the primary results of the Hg compatibility research in support of the SNS target. In the absence of possible synergisms resulting from beam/irradiation effects, wetting of 316L/316LN stainless steel under SNS conditions by the Hg target is expected to be very limited. As a result, significant interactions such as dissolution, mass transfer, and embrittlement affecting general compatibility are not anticipated. A wide range of experiments on 316L/316LN stainless steel, including thermal convection and pumped loops, confirmed low corrosion/penetration rates in Hg up to 305 C and little or no wetting or mass transfer below about 250 C. A variety of standard mechanical tests comparing behavior of 316L in air and Hg revealed limited wetting and no degradation of mechanical properties such as reduced elongation or development of brittle fracture features. Preliminary fatigue tests indicated a negative effect (reduced cycles to failure and intergranular cracking) at very high loads for 316LN, but little or no effect at more modest loading. Annealed 316LN was found to be somewhat susceptible to cavitation-erosion damage, but significant improvement was realized with a kolsterizing surface treatment or coldworking the material. Within the scope of these test conditions, no …

The primary objective of this study was to measure the effect of adding triethanolamine (TEA) to caustic leaching solutions to improve the solubility of aluminum in actual tank-waste sludge. High-level radioactive waste sludge that had a high aluminum assay was used for the tests. This waste, which originated with the processing of aluminum-clad/aluminum-alloy fuels, generates high levels of heat because of the high {sup 90}Sr concentration and contains hard-to-dissolve boehmite phases. In concept, a chelating agent, such as TEA, can both improve the dissolution rate and increase the concentration in the liquid phase. For this reason, TEA could also increase the solubility of other sludge components that are potentially problematic to downstream processing. Tests were conducted to determine if this were the case. Because of its relatively high vapor pressure, process design should include methods to minimize losses of the TEA. Sludge was retrieved from tank 12H at the Savannah River Site by on-site personnel, and then shipped to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the study. The sludge contained a small quantity of rocky debris. One slate-like flat piece, which had approximate dimensions of 1 1/4 x 1/2 x 1/8 in., was recovered. Additional gravel-like fragments with approximate diameters ranging …

Injection of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) into saline aquifers has been proposed as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (geological carbon sequestration). The injection process can be classified as immiscible displacement of an aqueous phase by a less dense and less viscous gas phase. Under disposal conditions (supercritical CO{sub 2}) the viscosity of carbon dioxide can be less than the viscosity of the aqueous phase by a factor of 15. Because of the lower viscosity, the CO{sub 2} displacement front will have a tendency towards instability so that waves or rounded lobes of saturation may appear and grow into fingers that lead to enhanced dissolution, bypassing, and possibly poor sweep efficiency. This paper presents an analysis, through high-resolution numerical simulations, of the onset of instabilities (viscous fingering) during injection of CO{sub 2} into saline aquifers. We explore the influence of viscosity ratio, relative permeability functions, and capillary pressure on finger growth and spacing. In addition, we address the issues of finger triggering, convergence under grid refinement and boundary condition effects. Simulations were carried out on scalar machines, and on an IBM RS/6000 SP (a distributed-memory parallel computer with 6080 processors) with a parallelized version of TOUGH2.

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Ecosystem CO{sub 2} exchange and atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) mixing are correlated diurnally and seasonally. Tracer transport models predict that these covariance signals produce a meridional gradient of annual mean CO{sub 2} concentration in the marine boundary layer that is half as strong as the signal produced by fossil fuel emissions. This rectifier effect has been predicted by many inversion models. However, observations to constrain the strength of the rectifier effect in nature are lacking. The fundamental objective of this project was to measure the strength of these covariance signals between ecosystem CO{sub 2} flux and ABL dynamics by employing ABL profiling systems at eddy flux tower sites. We found that (1) the observed diurnal and seasonal covariance between ecosystem CO{sub 2} fluxes and ABL turbulent mixing are strong; (2) the inversion model underestimates the diurnal and seasonal covariance; (3) the rectifier effect in the model appears to be too weak. However, these results are subject to significant uncertainties associated with the use of a point measurement to represent an area, fair weather bias among the data and instruments, and nonlinear transport processes between continental and marine boundary layers.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the statewide financial statements accurately reflect the balances and activities for the State of Texas for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2002, and to complying with federal requirements to conduct a Statewide Single Audit.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Department of Public Safety's plan will achieve compliance with Rider 51, and whether the Department's methodology for developing its Legislative Appropriations Request exceptional item for 170 additional troopers was reasonable.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to the total amount of school district bonds guaranteed by the Permanent School Fund's (PSF) Bond Guarantee Program (Program), whether these exceeded the limits established by state statute and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and following up on related issues from the previous year.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Texas Education Agency (Agency) has information technology systems adequate to support the administration of the Foundation School Program, inputs accurate data into its Foundation School Program model, incorporates all legislative mandates in its funding model (and whether that model functions properly), distributes funds to school districts in a timely and accurate manner, and accurately adjusts school districts' funding through a post-funding adjustment process