This report provides an overview of how federal lands and resources are managed, the agencies that manage the lands,the authorities under which these lands are managed, and some of the issues associated with federal land management.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Each year, millions of visitors, foreign students, and immigrants come to the United States. Foreign visitors may enter on a legal temporary basis--that is, with an authorized period of admission that expires on a specific date--either (1) with temporary visas (generally for tourism, business, or work) or, in some cases, (2) as tourists or business visitors who are allowed to enter without visas. (The latter include Canadians and qualified visitors from 27 countries who enter under the visa waiver program.) The majority of visitors who are tracked depart on time, but others overstay--and since September 11, 2001, the question has arisen as to whether overstay issues might have an impact on domestic security. In this report, we (1) describe available data on the extent of overstaying, (2) report on weaknesses in the Department of Homeland Security's long-standing overstay tracking system, and (3) provide some observations on the impact that tracking system weaknesses and significant levels of overstaying may have on domestic security."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "About 7 million undocumented aliens lived in the United States in 2000, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates. Hospitals in states where many of them live report that treating them can be a financial burden. GAO was asked to examine the relationship between treating undocumented aliens and hospitals' costs not paid by patients or insurance. GAO was also asked to examine federal funding available to help hospitals offset costs of treating undocumented aliens and the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security (Homeland Security) for covering medical expenses of sick or injured aliens encountered by Border Patrol and U.S. port-of-entry officials. To conduct this work, GAO surveyed 503 hospitals and interviewed Medicaid and hospital officials in 10 states. GAO also interviewed and obtained data from Homeland Security officials."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) faces the daunting task of bringing together 22 diverse agencies to lead efforts to protect the homeland. Among the challenges posed by this transformation is integrating these agencies' diverse information technology (IT) systems: mission support, administration, and infrastructure (e.g., networks). GAO was asked to determine (1) whether DHS has defined its IT systems integration strategy and (2) how DHS is ensuring that IT investments made by component agencies (specifically focusing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Coast Guard) are aligned with the department's strategic direction."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, U.S. military and federal civilian employees overseas were included in the numbers used for apportioning Congress. Currently, the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) is assessing the practicality of counting all Americans abroad by holding a test census in France, Kuwait, and Mexico. GAO was asked to (1) assess the soundness of the test design, and (2) examine what past court decisions have held about Americans' rights and obligations abroad."

The Department of Energy is developing processes to treat Savannah River Site (SRS) radioactive waste. In the first step, personnel contact the incoming salt solution that contains entrained sludge with monosodium titanate (MST) to adsorb strontium and select actinides. They filter the resulting slurry to remove the sludge and MST. The filtrate receives further treatment to remove cesium. Previously, personnel conducted a review of solid-liquid separation technologies and identified the rotary microfilter as a plausible improvement over the tubular crossflow filter in the current baseline. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) received funding from the DOE to continue developing the rotary microfilter for SRS high level waste applications. As part of this task, the authors developed a protocol to weld stainless steel and ceramic filter disks. After they welded the disks, they placed them in the pilot-scale rotary microfilter and tested them with simulated SRS waste. The conclusions are: the rotary microfilter has now operated for over 2400 hours with no significant operational problems; filter flux with the welded disks was significantly less than the flux in comparable tests with filter disks fabricated using epoxy; the ceramic filter media produced the highest flux; the Pall filter media produced higher flux …

Theoretical investigations of plasma-based accelerators and other advanced accelerator concepts. The focus of the work was on the development of plasma based and structure based accelerating concepts, including laser-plasma, plasma channel, and microwave driven plasma accelerators.

The overall goal of this project was to evaluate either boronated EGF or anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) as delivery agents for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT).

This research has led to an understanding of the microscopic processes that are responsible for manipulation of atoms on metal surfaces.

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This report discusses concerns over financing federal elections, such as political action committees (PACs) and proposed reforms to campaign finance.

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This report provides a selection of information gateways for businesses, state and local governments, research organizations, and others that wish to pursue homeland security related business opportunities or grants from the federal government.

The evolving plan for most of the KE and KW Basin sludges is disposition to WIPP as remote handled (RH) TRU. Because the hydrogen gas concentration in the sealed transportation cask destined for WIPP is limited by flammability safety, the number of containers and shipments to WIPP likely will be driven by the rate of hydrogen generated by the contained uranium metals reaction with water. Therefore, gas generation testing with uranium metal particles of known surface area and immobilized in candidate (grout) solidification matrices was used to identify the effectiveness of various candidate solidification matrices to inhibit the rate of the uranium metal-water reaction.