This report is a guide to basic sources useful in tracking federal legislation and regulations. It has been prepared primarily for the use of constituents who wish to follow the federal government's legislative or regulatory activities at the local level. Brief annotations for the selected printed, telephone, electronic, and related sources describe their scope, focus, and frequency, include publisher contact information, and provide Internet addresses where available.

This report provides an overview of the financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare programs.

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Report summarizing federal aid for elementary and secondary education, with a focus on the proposals of Goals 2000.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a juvenile court's authority under Family Code section 51.12(b) to "control the conditions and terms of a county contract with a private corporation regarding the operation of the county juvenile detention facility (RQ-921)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Jim Mattox, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Can the county legally buy culverts and resell them to private citizens? ; Can the county legally buy culverts and resell them to property owners for use in accessing private property from a county road? ; When the county purchases a steel culvert and installs it on the county right of way going onto private driveways is it legal for the property owners to reimburse the county for the cost of the steel culvert? ; When a property owner needs a culvert installed to access his private property from a county road is he responsible for purchasing the culvert or is the county responsible? To whom does the culvert belong?

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) community assistance program for minimizing the impact of downsizing its contractor workforce, focusing on: (1) how much funding DOE had committed to spend and spent in support of its worker and community assistance program for fiscal years (FY) 1994 through 1998; (2) who received benefits during FY 1997 and FY 1998; (3) comparing DOE's separation benefits with the benefit packages of other federal and nonfederal organizations; and (4) what effect DOE's criteria had on determining which communities received assistance."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) progress in implementing performance-based contracting at its national laboratories, focusing on: (1) the status of performance-based contracting in DOE's national laboratory contracts; and (2) DOE's efforts to determine the impact of performance-based contracting."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Transportation's (DOT) performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000, focusing on: (1) the usefulness of DOT's plan in providing a clear picture of intended performance across the Department; (2) the strategies and resources that DOT will use to achieve its goals; and (3) whether DOT's performance information will be credible."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on: (1) the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) monitoring of general aviation airports' compliance with federal land-use requirements; and (2) FAA's use of enforcement tools to resolve cases of noncompliance."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) how the International Energy Agency (IEA) prepares its world oil market statistics; and (2) what accounted for the missing barrels in IEA's historical world oil market statistics in 1998."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the United States Olympic Committee for the year ended December 31, 1997, focusing on whether the audit report complied with the financial reporting requirements of the law."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Women's Army Corps Veterans Association for the fiscal year June 30, 1998, focusing on whether the audit report complied with the financial reporting requirements of the law."

This workshop was requested by Dr. Robert Marianelli, Director of the DOE-BES Chemical Sciences Division, to update the findings of the Workshop on Molecular Environmental Sciences (MES) held at Airlie, VA, in July 1995. The Airlie Workshop Report defined the new interdisciplinary field referred to as Molecular Environmental Science (MES), reviewed the synchrotron radiation methods used in MES research, assessed the adequacy of synchrotron radiation facilities for research in this field, and summarized the beam time requirements of MES users based on a national MES user survey. The objectives of MES research are to provide information on the chemical and physical forms (speciation), spatial distribution, and reactivity of contaminants in natural materials and man-made waste forms, and to develop a fundamental understanding of the complex molecular-scale environmental processes, both chemical and biological, that affect the stability, transformations, mobility, and toxicity of contaminant species. These objectives require parallel studies of ''real'' environmental samples, which are complicated multi-phase mixtures with chemical and physical heterogeneities, and of simplified model systems in which variables can be controlled and fundamental processes can be examined. Only by this combination of approaches can a basic understanding of environmental processes at the molecular-scale be achieved.

We present an overview of the electroweak physics program of the SLD experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). A data sample of 550K Z{sup 0} decays has been collected. This experiment utilizes a highly polarized electron beam, a small interaction volume, and a very precise pixel vertex detector. It is the first experiment at a linear electron collider. We present a preliminary result for the weak mixing angle, sin{sup 2}({theta}{sub W}{sup eff}) = 0.23110 {+-} 0.00029. We also present a preliminary result for the parity violating parameter, A{sub b} = 0.898 {+-} 0.029. These measurements are used to test for physics beyond the Standard Model.

Vehicles powered by fuel cells operate more efficiently, more quietly, and more cleanly than internal combustion engines (ICEs). Furthermore, methanol-fueled fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) can utilize major elements of the existing fueling infrastructure of present-day liquid-fueled ICE vehicles (ICEVs). DOE has maintained an active program to stimulate the development and demonstration o fuel cell technologies in conjunction with rechargeable batteries in road vehicles. The purpose of this study is to identify and assess the availability of data on FCVs, and to develop a vehicle subsystem structure that can be used to compare both FCVs and ICEV, from a number of perspectives--environmental impacts, energy utilization, materials usage, and life cycle costs. This report focuses on methanol-fueled FCVs fueled by gasoline, methanol, and diesel fuel that are likely to be demonstratable by the year 2000. The comparative analysis presented covers four vehicles--two passenger vehicles and two urban transit buses. The passenger vehicles include an ICEV using either gasoline or methanol and an FCV using methanol. The FCV uses a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell, an on-board methanol reformer, mid-term batteries, and an AC motor. The transit bus ICEV was evaluated for both diesel and methanol fuels. The transit bus FCV runs …

Environmental planning and management was an integral part of the ACWA Program planning process. To ensure that environmental protection issues could be addressed expeditiously and not delay the demonstrations, the PMACWA scaled the technology demonstrations such that simplified regulatory processes and existing research and development facilities could be used. The use of enclosed facilities for the demonstrations prevents any uncontrolled discharges to the environment and made it possible to conduct environmental assessments relatively quickly. The PMACWA also arranged for public briefings to ease any community concerns over the operations with chemical weapons. These steps precluded regulatory and community resistance to the ACWA activities. The cooperation of the regulators and stakeholders has been a key element in enabling the ACWA Program to move with the speed that it has to date. Technology demonstrations are currently underway and are scheduled to be completed in late May 1999. The data collected during these demonstrations will be used to prepare and submit a summary report to Congress by August 1999. The challenge continues for the ACWA management to guide the demonstrations to completion and to plan for possible pilot testing. As the scale of the ACWA facilities increase in size, the ease of reduced …

We have built monitors for use as beam diagnostics in the narrow gap of an undulator for an FEL experiment. They utilize an intercepting screen of doped YAG scintillating crystal to make light that is imaged through a periscope by conventional video equipment. The absolute position can be ascertained by comparing the electron beam position with the position of a He:Ne laser that is observed by this pop-in monitor. The optical properties of the periscope and the mechanical arrangement of the system mean that beam can be spatially determined to the resolution of the camera, in this case approximately 10 micrometers. Our experience with these monitors suggests improvements for successor designs, which we also describe.

We describe a Fourier analysis of the diffusion-synthetic acceleration (DSA) and transport-synthetic acceleration (TSA) iteration schemes for a spatially periodic, but otherwise arbitrarily heterogeneous, medium. Both DSA and TSA converge more slowly in a heterogeneous medium than in a homogeneous medium composed of the volume-averaged scattering ratio. In the limit of a homogeneous medium, our heterogeneous analysis contains eigenvalues of multiplicity two at ''resonant'' wave numbers. In the presence of material heterogeneities, error modes corresponding to these resonant wave numbers are ''excited'' more than other error modes. For DSA and TSA, the iteration spectral radius may occur at these resonant wave numbers, in which case the material heterogeneities most strongly affect iterative performance.

The DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program employs both upward- and downward-looking remote-sensing instruments to measure the horizontal and vertical distributions of clouds across its Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. No single instrument is capable of completely determining these distributions over the scales of interest to ARM's Single Column Modeling (SCM) and Instantaneous Radiative Flux (IRF) groups; these groups embody the primary strategies through which ARM expects to achieve its objectives of developing and testing cloud formation parameterizations (USDOE, 1996). Collectively, however, the data from ARM's cloud-detecting instruments offer the potential for such a three-dimensional characterization. Data intercomparisons, like the ones illustrated in this paper, are steps in this direction. Examples of some initial comparisons, involving satellite, millimeter cloud radar, whole sky imager and ceilometer data, are provided herein. that many of the lessons learned can later be adapted to cloud data at the Boundary and Extended Facilities. Principally, we are concerned about: (1) the accuracy of various estimates of cloud properties at a single point, or within a thin vertical column, above the CF over time, and (2) the accuracy of various estimates of cloud properties over the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site, which can then be reduced …