This report provides a side-by-side comparison of the reported versions of H.R. 2621 and S. 1269, 105 Congress bills that would provide the President with trade negotiating authority and accord certain resulting agreements and implementing bills expedited -- or “fast-track” -- legislative consideration.

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Married couples filing joint tax returns are liable individually and as a couple for all taxes due on the return with a limited exemption for innocent spouses. This report discusses joint and several liability, which has been the subject of much criticism and calls for reform or elimination.

Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W) is participating in the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Transuranic Waste Program in support of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The Laboratory's support currently consists of intrusive characterization of a selected population of drums containing transuranic waste. This characterization is performed in a complex of alpha containment gloveboxes termed the Waste Characterization Gloveboxes. Made up of the Waste Characterization Chamber, Sample Preparation Glovebox, and the Equipment Repair Glovebox, they were designed as a small production characterization facility for support of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). This paper presents salient features of these gloveboxes.

An intense, pulsed, relativistic electron beam can heat a thin metal plate to a plasma state as it traverses. This rapid heating creates a large radial temperature gradient in the material. As heat flow is primarily by electron motion, currents arise because of the thermal gradient. This effect magnetizes the target material during the course of the beam. If this magnetization exceeds that of the vacuum field of the electron beam then it dominates beam dynamics within the material. Plasmas of interest easily cancel the space charge of the electron beam, so target magnetization would either add to the self-pinch of the electron beam, or cancel it and cause beam expansion. The analysis described here finds that target heating causes beam expan

This is a quick-look eye-safety assessment for the Short Range (SR) lidar, a system under development for standoff biological aerosol detection in the outdoor environment. The ground-vehicle-mounted SR lidar system will scan a sector of the nearby atmosphere with a repetitively pulsed, multiple-wavelength, UV/IR laser beam. This laser is not intrinsically eye-safe, and hence the SR lidar system requires a protection system to minimize the risk of eye exposures above the ANSI-standard maximum permissible exposure within a nominal hazard zone. The nominal ocular hazard distance for the UV/IR laser itself was calculated to be 6 km. The protection system, which will include a scan-stop detector and a laser beam path interrogator, currently is conceptual only. Until the complete protection system is designed, evaluated, and tested, and a more detailed safety assessment has been performed, the eye-safety issue for the SR lidar system cannot be resolved.

The Phase 1 privatization contracts require that the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC) contractors, on behalf of the US Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (RL), deliver the appropriate quantities of the proper composition of feed on schedule to the Privatization contractors (DOE-RL 1996). The type of feed needed, the amount of feed needed, and the overall timing of when feed is to be delivered to the Privatization contractor are specified by the contract. Additional requirements are imposed by the interface control document (ICD) for low-activity waste (LAW) feed (PHMC 1997a). The Tank Waste Remediation System Operation and Utilization Plan (TWRSO/UP) as updated by the Readiness-to-Proceed (RTP) deliverable establishes the baseline operating scenario for the delivery of feed to two Privatization contractors for the first twelve LAW batches. The project master baseline schedule (PMBS) and corresponding logic diagrams that will be used to implement the operating scenario have been developed and are currently being refined. The baseline operating scenario in the TWRSO/UP/RTP specifies which tanks will be used to provide feed for each specific feed batch, the operational activities needed to prepare and deliver each feed batch, and the timing of these activities. This operating scenario has considered such factors …

This Integrity Assessment Report (IAR) is prepared by Fluor Daniel Northwest (FDNW) under contract to Lockheed-Martin Hanford Company (LMHC) for Waste Management Hanford (WMH), the 242-A Evaporator (facility) operations contractor for Fluor Daniel Hanford, and the US Department of Energy, the system owner. The contract specifies that FDNW perform an interim (5 year) integrity assessment of the facility and prepare a written IAR in accordance with Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-303-640. The WAC 173-303 defines a treatment, storage, or disposal (TSD) facility tank system as the ``dangerous waste storage or treatment tank and its ancillary equipment and containment.`` This integrity assessment evaluates the two tank systems at the facility: the evaporator vessel, C-A-1 (also called the vapor-liquid separator), and the condensate collection tank, TK-C-100. This IAR evaluates the 242-A facility tank systems up to, but not including, the last valve or flanged connection inside the facility perimeter. The initial integrity assessment performed on the facility evaluated certain subsystems not directly in contact with dangerous waste, such as the steam condensate and used raw water subsystems, to provide technical information. These subsystems were not evaluated in this IAR. The last major upgrade to the facility was project B-534. The facility modifications, …

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This report describes the fundamentals of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which was enacted in 1952 and significantly amended since, most recently by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

Married couples filing joint tax returns are liable individually and as a couple for all taxes due on the return with a limited exemption for innocent spouses. This report discusses joint and several liability, which has been the subject of much criticism and calls for reform or elimination.

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This report provides a side-by-side comparison of the reported versions of H.R.2621 and S. 1269, 105th Congress bills that would provide the President with trade negotiating authority and accord certain resulting agreements and implementing bills expedited legislative consideration.

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