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A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on how the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the enlargement of the European Union (EU) may affect U.S. allies' ability to sustain or increase their defense budgets, focusing on: (1) projected defense spending for several European countries; (2) budgetary effects of EMU implementation and EU enlargement; and (3) other significant factors that may affect countries' ability to share in the costs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) over the long run."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program, focusing on: (1) the underlying problems in the program that led to test failures; (2) whether program restructuring efforts address these underlying problems; and (3) how this restructuring will affect THAAD's User Operational Evaluation System."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on additional matters it identified in its audit of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) custodial financial statements for fiscal year (FY) 1998 regarding accounting procedures and internal controls that could be improved."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether space-station-related commercial activities could generate revenue capable of reducing the station's annual cost of operations, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates will average $1.3 billion, or $13 billion over a 10-year mission life after the space station is fully assembled in 2004."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) availability of .50 caliber semiautomatic rifles; (2) ability to acquire certain types of ammunition used in such rifles; and (3) possible criminal misuse of such rifles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on how military .50 caliber ammunition, including armor-piercing and armor-piercing incendiary ammunition, becomes available for civilian purchase, focusing on the: (1) process by which the Department of Defense (DOD) disposed of the .50 caliber ammunition; (2) initial process used by the contractor that demilitarized the ammunition; and (3) contractor's manufacturing and marketing practices for the demilitarized ammunition."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) proposal to expand the definition of "poor performing" nursing homes to include homes with repeated actual harm violations (G-level deficiencies)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the contractual relationship between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the BioPort Corporation for production of the anthrax vaccine, focusing on: (1) DOD's investment in BioPort's biologic facility and contracts to produce the vaccine; (2) BioPort's cash flow situation; and (3) proposals to improve the company's financial health."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to integrate and coordinate its various year 2000 end-to-end test activities, focusing on whether: (1) DOD's plans recognize relationships and dependencies among these test and evaluation activities; and (2) DOD has established the management controls to ensure that its various year 2000 end-to-end test and evaluation activities are effectively integrated."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Bureau of Indian Affairs' methods of establishing the lease value of Indian land, focusing on: (1) how the Bureau uses appraisals and other methods to establish the lease value of Indian land; (2) how its appraisal methods compare to those of other federal and state agencies and of private appraisers and what other methods are used to value federal, state, and private leases; (3) what impediments to leasing Indian trust land have been identified; (4) what alternatives to appraisals could be used to establish the lease value of Indian land, including any changes in federal laws and regulations that would be required; and (5) what efforts the Bureau has made to improve its appraisal methods."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the American Fisheries Act, focusing on whether the act had negatively affected the market for pollock fillets, including any reduction in their supply."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) and the Indian Health Service's (IHS) management of contract support funding under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, focusing on: (1) to what extent and for what reasons contract support costs and the associated funding shortfalls changed over the past decade, and what can be expected in the future for these costs; (2) how the shortfalls in funding for contract support costs affected tribes; and (3) whether the act's provisions for contract support costs have been consistently implemented."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the increasing outbreaks of harmful algae, focusing on the: (1) available information on harmful algae and their effects on human health and the environment; and (2) status of federal efforts to address the problem of harmful algae, particularly the coordination of research and management strategies among the federal agencies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the financial statements of the Bank Insurance Fund, the Savings Association Insurance Fund, and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation Resolution Fund for the years ended December 31, 1998 and 1997. GAO also reviewed: (1) the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) management's assertions regarding the effectiveness of its internal control as of December 31, 1998; and (2) FDIC's compliance with laws and regulations during 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, focusing on: (1) changes in CSE welfare collections since 1994; (2) the net savings/cost experiences of state and federal CSE programs; (3) those states that have experienced declines in CSE welfare collections and how these declines affected their state's CSE program funding; and (4) the future implications of caseload declines and welfare reform changes for the CSE program."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed House Resolution (H.R.) 2245, the Federalism Act of 1999, focusing on the agency rulemaking and performance measurement requirements of the bill."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) progress in implementing its recent initiatives to strengthen efforts to ensure the quality of care provided by the nation's nursing homes."

The purpose of this scoping calculation is to support preliminary design of the Waste Package (WP) transporter radiation shield configuration. Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) is highly radioactive and site personnel must be protected during the period that the WPs are emplaced. Personnel protection is accomplished via a heavily shielded WP transporter that moves the waste from the surface to the emplacement drift. All previous WP transporter shielding calculations have assumed a Design Basis Fuel (DBF) in which the fuel burnup is uniform (e.g. Ref. 7.3, Ref. 7.4, and Ref. 7.12). In reality, SNF burnup varies significantly from one end of the fuel assembly to the other. Since source strengths are dependent upon fuel burnup, a model which varies the fuel burnup along the assembly axis will produce a more accurate depiction of the radiation field surrounding the WP transporter. The objective of this calculation is to determine the need for using the actual axial profile, as opposed to the uniform burnup assumption, in the WP transporter shield design. The scope of the calculation is as follows: (1) Determine the impact of axial source term variation on WP transporter contact dose rates. (2) Determine appropriate shielding modifications to account for expected …

This project is designed to develop a family of novel NO{sub x} control technologies, called Second Generation Advanced Reburning which has the potential to achieve 90+ NO{sub x} control in coal fired boilers at a significantly lower cost than Selective Catalytic Reduction. The seventh reporting period in Phase II (April 1-June 30, 1999) included experimental activities and combined chemistry-mixing modeling on advanced gas reburning. The goal of combustion tests was to determine the efficiency of advanced reburning using coal as the reburning fuel. Tests were conducted in Boiler Simulator Facility (BSF). Several coals were tested. The modeling effort was focused on the description of N-agent injection along with overfire air. Modeling identified process parameters that can be used to optimize the AR-Lean process.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory developed the geometric correction system (GCS) as a state-of-the-art solution for removing distortions from multispectral line scanner data caused by aircraft motion. The system operates on Daedalus AADS-1268 scanner data acquired from fixed-wing and helicopter platforms. The aircraft attitude, altitude, acceleration, and location are recorded and applied to the data, thereby determining the location of the earth with respect to a given datum and projection. The GCS has yielded a positional accuracy of 0.5 meters when used with a 1-meter digital elevation model. Data at this level of accuracy are invaluable in making precise areal estimates and as input into a geographic information system. The combination of high-spatial resolution and accurate geo-rectification makes the GCS a unique tool in identifying and locating environmental conditions, finding targets of interest, and detecting changes as they occur over time.

The field of microfluidics is undergoing rapid growth in terms of new device and system development. Among the many methods of fabricating microfluidic devices and systems, surface micromachining is relatively underrepresented due to difficulties in the introduction of fluids into the very small channels produced, packaging problems, and difficulties in device and system characterization. The potential advantages of using surface micromachining including compatibility with the existing integrated circuit tool set, integration of electronic sensing and actuation with microfluidics, and fluid volume minimization. In order to explore these potential advantages we have developed first generation surface micromachined microfluidic devices (channels) using an adapted pressure sensor fabrication process to produce silicon nitride channels, and the SUMMiT process to produce polysilicon channels. The channels were characterized by leak testing and flow rate vs. pressure measurements. The fabrication processes used and results of these tests are reported in this paper.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was awarded ten Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) research grants in fiscal year 1996, six in fiscal year 1997, and eight in fiscal year 1998. This section summarizes how each grant addresses significant U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) cleanup issues, including those at the Hanford Site. The technical progress made to date in each of these research projects is addressed in more detail in the individual progress reports contained in this document. This research is focused primarily in five areas: Tank Waste Remediation, Decontamination and Decommissioning, Spent Nuclear Fuel and Nuclear Materials, Soil and Groundwater Clean Up, and Health Effects.

The program objective was the development of equipment and processes to produce compressed natural gas (CNG) from liquified natural gas (LNG) for heavy duty vehicular applications. The interest for this technology is a result of the increased use of alternative fuels for the reduction of emissions and dependency of foreign energy. Technology of the type developed under this program is critical for establishing natural gas as an economical alternative fuel.