Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Mission in Mexico is the Department of State's largest consular operation. In fiscal year 2007, it processed 1.5 million of the 8 million nonimmigrant visas (NIV) State handled worldwide. The U.S. Mission in Mexico also provided services, including passport processing and emergency assistance, to 20,000 American citizens in fiscal year 2007. This already significant consular workload is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years as millions of NIV Border Crossing Cards issued in Mexico between fiscal years 1998 and 2002 expire and need to be renewed. In addition, the implementation of new travel requirements under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will, for the first time, require U.S. citizens to carry passports, or other approved documentation, when traveling between the United States and Mexico. This testimony addresses (1) State's estimates of the workload for consulates in Mexico through 2012 resulting from, in particular, new travel requirements and the reissue of Border Crossing Cards; and (2) the actions State has taken to ensure consulates in Mexico keep pace with projected workload increases through 2012. This testimony is based on work currently in process that involves analyzing …

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This report summarizes the Boumediene decision and analyzes several of its major implications for the U.S. detention of alien enemy combatants and legislation that limits detainees' access to judicial review.

The "Brazil cotton case" is a long-running World Trade Organization dispute settlement case initiated by Brazil - a major cotton export competitor - in 2002 against specific provisions of the U.S. cotton program. This report details the overview of the case, background on the U.S. cotton sector, a sequence of events in the case, specific claims of Brazil on the U.S. Cotton policy being against World Trade Organization ordinances, panel recommendations, and related information and figures.

This report provides a brief overview of Brazil's case against the U.S. cotton program, the evolution and current status of the case, and the potential role for Congress.

On June 2, 2008, a World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) publicly released its final report upholding a December 2007 compliance panel ruling that the United States has not fully complied with a March 2005 WTO ruling against certain U.S. cotton support programs. This AB ruling was part of a prolonged dispute settlement case (DS267) originated by Brazil against certain aspects of the U.S. cotton program in September 2002. This report provides a brief overview of Brazil's case against the U.S. cotton program, the evolution and current status of the case, and the potential role for Congress.

First measurements of the breakdown threshold in a dielectric subjected to GV/m wakefields produced by short (30-330 fs), 28.5 GeV electron bunches have been made. Fused silica tubes of 100 {micro}m inner diameter were exposed to a range of bunch lengths, allowing surface dielectric fields up to 27 GV/m to be generated. The onset of breakdown, detected through light emission from the tube ends, is observed to occur when the peak electric field at the dielectric surface reaches 13.8 {+-} 0.7 GV/m. The correlation of structure damage to beam-induced breakdown is established using an array of postexposure inspection techniques.

Bremsstrahlung sources have been utilized for various non-intrusive inspection or interrogation applications for over 100 years - with the primary focus being radiographic imaging. In the last several decades, it has become evident that photons of energy greater than 6 MeV can also provide useful photonuclear information that can extend the capabilities and information available from active inspections. These energetic inspection photons can be produced as a continuum of energies (i.e., bremsstrahlung distribution) or as a set of one or more discrete photon energies (i.e., monoenergetic distribution). This paper will discuss the photonuclear process and its energetic photon energy dependence, will discuss the photonuclear role in nuclear material detection, will present applicable photon sources along with their field deployment status, and highlight some advantages and disadvantages of bremsstrahlung and monoenergetic photons sources.

This report reviews the evolution of veterans' education benefit programs and describes the types of education benefits that have been made available under these programs. It also examines how changes in the estimated value of these benefits compares with changes in average college prices, and provides a discussion of the interaction between veterans' education benefits and federal student aid benefits made available under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended.

This report addresses the Federal Assistance Programs related to Broadband Internet Access and the Digital Divide.

This report summarizes the work conducted from September 16, 2005 through December 31, 2008 on the project entitled “Brominated Sorbents for Small Cold-Side ESPs, Hot-Side ESPs and Fly Ash Use in Concrete”. The project covers testing at three host sites: Progress Energy H.F. Lee Station and the Midwest Generation Crawford and Will County Stations. At Progress Energy Lee 1, parametric tests were performed both with and without SO{sub 3} injection in order to determine the impact on the mercury sorbent performance. In addition, tests were performed on the hot-side of the air preheater, before the SO{sub 3} is injected, with H-PAC™ sorbents designed for use at elevated temperatures. The BPAC™ injection provided the expected mercury removal when the SO{sub 3} injection was off. A mercury removal rate due to sorbent of more than 80% was achieved at an injection rate of 8 lb/MMacf. The operation with SO{sub 3} injection greatly reduced the mercury sorbent performance. An important learning came from the injection of H-PAC™ on the hot-side of the air preheater before the SO{sub 3} injection location. The H-PAC™ injected in this manner appeared to be independent of the SO{sub 3} injection and provided better mercury removal than with injecting …

This report details the information related to budget proposals for FY 2009. The contents include Budget actions, outlay, receipts, deficits, and surpluses, etc.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) requires states and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to define and determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting the goal of 100 percent academic proficiency. To address tribes' needs for cultural preservation, NCLBA allows tribal groups to waive all or part of BIE's definition of AYP and propose an alternative, with technical assistance from BIE and the Department of Education, if requested. GAO is providing information on the extent of (1) BIE schools' adoption of BIE's definition of AYP; (2) tribal groups' pursuit of alternatives and their reasons as well as reasons other tribal groups have not done so; and (3) federal assistance to tribal groups developing alternatives. To obtain this information, GAO interviewed tribal groups, federal officials, and state education officials; conducted site visits to BIE schools; and reviewed laws, regulations, and other relevant documents."

On October 19, 2007, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13449. This followed a September 25, 2007 statement by President Bush that sanctions against Burma, which have been in place since 1997, would be tightened to specifically target leading Burmese officials and impose additional financial and travel sanctions. This report provides background information on existing economic sanctions against Burma and possible options to expand sanctions.

This report provides an overview of United States policy towards Burma. The report discusses Burma - U.S. relations and the political situation in Burma.

This report details the information related to business tax issues for the year 2008.

Distinct maxima and minima in the neutron total cross section uncertainties were observed in our large scale covariance calculations using a spherical optical potential. In this contribution we investigate the physical origin of this oscillating structure. Specifically, we analyze the case of neutron reactions on {sup 56}Fe, for which total cross section uncertainties are characterized by the presence of five distinct minima at 0.1, 1.1, 5, 25, and 70 MeV. To investigate their origin, we calculated total cross sections by perturbing the real volume depth V{sub v} by its expected uncertainty {+-}{Delta}V{sub v}. Inspecting the effect of this perturbation on the partial wave cross sections we found that the first minimum (at 0.1 MeV) is exclusively due to the contribution of the s-wave. On the other hand, the same analysis at 1.1 MeV showed that the minimum is the result of the interplay between s-, p-, and d-waves; namely the change in the s-wave happens to be counterbalanced by changes in the p- and d-waves. Similar considerations can be extended for the third minimum, although it can be also explained in terms of the Ramsauer effect as well as the other ones (at 25 and 70 MeV). We discuss the …

This report provides background on the 8th Amendment and court decision to invalidate statutes authorizing the death penalty for non-homicide cases of child rape.

This report discusses carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), but not other types of carbon sequestration activities whereby CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored in vegetation, soils, or oceans.

A synergistic approach involving experiment and first-principles theory not only shows that carbon nanostructures can be used as catalysts for hydrogen uptake and release in complex metal hydrides such as sodium alanate, NaAlH{sub 4}, but also provides an unambiguous understanding of how the catalysts work. The stability of NaAlH{sub 4} originates from the charge transfer from Na to the AlH{sub 4} moiety, resulting in an ionic bond between Na{sup +} and AlH{sub 4}{sup -} and a covalent bond between Al and H. Interaction of NaAlH{sub 4} with an electro-negative substrate such as carbon fullerene or nanotube affects the ability of Na to donate its charge to AlH{sub 4}, consequently weakening the Al-H bond and causing hydrogen to desorb at lower temperatures as well as facilitating the absorption of H{sub 2} to reverse the dehydrogenation reaction. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation further reveals the time evolution of the charge transfer process with hydrogen desorption occurring when the charge transfer is complete.

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On March 19, 2008, policy makers, emergency managers, and medical and Public Health officials convened in Seattle, Washington, for a workshop on Catastrophic Incident Recovery: Long-Term Recovery from an Anthrax Event. The day-long symposium was aimed at generating a dialogue about restoration and recovery through a discussion of the associated challenges that impact entire communities, including people, infrastructure, and critical systems.

The purpose of this work is to examine the applicability of the Caustic-Side Solvent Extraction (CSSX) process for the removal of cesium from Hanford tank-waste supernatant solutions in support of the Hanford Interim Pretreatment System (IPS). The Hanford waste types are more challenging than those at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in that they contain significantly higher levels of potassium, the chief competing ion in the extraction of cesium. It was confirmed by use of the CSSX model that the higher levels of potassium depress the cesium distribution ratio (DCs), as validated by measurement of DCs values for four of eight specified Hanford waste-simulant compositions. The model predictions were good to an apparent standard error of ±11%. It is concluded from batch distribution experiments, physical-property measurements, equilibrium modeling, flowsheet calculations, and contactor sizing that the CSSX process as currently employed for cesium removal from alkaline salt waste at the SRS is capable of treating similar Hanford tank feeds. For the most challenging waste composition, 41 stages would be required to provide a cesium decontamination factor (DF) of 5000 and a concentration factor (CF) of 5. Commercial contacting equipment with rotor diameters of 10 in. for extraction and 5 in. for …

This report talks about Caustic-Side Solvent-Extraction Modeling for Hanford Interim Pretreatment System