Congressional Research Service (CRS) report entailing information about Qualified Zone Academy Bonds vs. traditional tax-exempt bonds in regards to funding school renovations. The report goes over the side effects of the $1.6 billion Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB), like revenue loss. Tables begin on page 4, and the report ends with a summary concluding that the QZAB program is more beneficial to tax payers and borrowers than traditional tax-exempt municipal bonds.

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The U.S. tax code’s Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) provisions provided a tax benefit for U.S. exporters. However, the European Union (EU) in 1997 charged that the provision was an export subsidy and thus contravened the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. A WTO ruling upheld the EU complaint, and to avoid WTO sanctioned retaliatory tariffs, U.S. legislation in November 2000 replaced FSC with the “extraterritorial income” (ETI) provisions, consisting of a redesigned export tax benefit of the same magnitude as FSC. The EU maintained that the new provisions are also not WTO-compliant and asked the WTO to rule on the matter.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Management of Medicare has come under increasing scrutiny. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has had mixed success running the program. The agency has developed payment methods that have contained cost growth, and HCFA has paid fee-for-service claims quickly and at low administrative cost. However, HCFA has had difficulty ensuring that it paid claims appropriately. In addition, Medicare claims administration contractors have done a poor job of communicating with Medicare providers. HCFA has taken important steps to address some of these shortcomings, including strengthening payment safeguards, but several factors have hampered its efforts. Despite its growing responsibilities, HCFA suffers from staffing shortages. The agency also continues to rely on archaic computer systems. At the same time, HCFA has faltered in its attempts to adopt a results-based approach to agency management. Constraints on the agency's contracting authority have limited its use of full and open competition to select claims administration contractors and assign administrative tasks. Rising expectations among Medicare beneficiaries and providers are putting pressure on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to modernize and improve agency operations. Such improvements will require HCFA to begin a performance-based management …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress faces critical decisions about the future of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) and intercity passenger rail. In GAO's view, the goal of a national system, much like Amtrak's current system, and the goal of operational self-sufficiency appear to be incompatible. In fact, Amtrak was created because other railroads were unable to profitably provide passenger service. In addition, Amtrak needs more capital funding than has been historically provided in order to operate a safe, reliable system that can attract and retain customers. Developing a high-speed rail system is also costly, requiring additional tens of billions of dollars. If intercity passenger rail is to have a future in the nation's transportation system, Congress needs realistic assessments of the expected public benefits and the resulting costs of these investments as compared with investments in other modes of transportation. Such analyses would provide sound bases for congressional action in defining the national goals that will be pursued, the extent that Amtrak and other intercity passenger rail systems can contribute to meeting these goals, and whether federal and state money would be available to sustain such systems over the long term."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) is an important element of the U.S.' strategy to protect the nation's infrastructures from hostile attacks, especially computer-based attacks. This testimony discusses the key findings of a GAO report on NIPC's progress in developing national capabilities for analyzing cyber threats and vulnerability data and issuing warnings, enhancing its capabilities for responding to cyber attacks, and establishing information-sharing relationships with governments and private-sector entities. GAO found that progress in developing the analysis, warning, and information-sharing capabilities has been mixed. NIPC began various critical infrastructure protection efforts that have laid the foundation for future governmentwide efforts. NIPC has also provided valuable support and coordination related to investigating and otherwise responding to attacks on computers. However, the analytical and information-sharing capabilities that are needed to protect the nation's critical infrastructures have not yet been achieved, and NIPC has developed only limited warning capabilities. An underlying contributor to the slow progress is that the NIPC's roles and responsibilities have not been fully defined and are not consistently interpreted by other entities involved in the government's broader critical infrastructure protection strategy. This report summarized an April report …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although the short-term outlook of Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund improved in the last year, Medicare's long-term prospects have worsened. The Medicare Trustee's latest projections, released in March, use more realistic assumptions about health care spending in the years ahead. These latest projections call into question the program's long-term financial health. The Congressional Budget Office also increased its long-term estimates of Medicare spending. The slowdown in Medicare spending growth in recent years appears to have ended. In the first eight months of fiscal year 2001, Medicare spending was 7.5 percent higher than a year earlier. This testimony discusses several fundamental challenges to Medicare reform. Without meaningful entitlement reform, GAO's long-term budget simulations show that an aging population and rising health care spending will eventually drive the country back into deficit and debt. The addition of a prescription drug benefits would boost spending projections even further. Properly structured reform to promote competition among health plans could make Medicare beneficiaries more cost conscious. The continued importance of traditional Medicare underscores the need to base adjustments to provider payments on hard evidence rather than on anecdotal information. Similarly, reforms in the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. government is one of the world's largest property owners, with a real estate portfolio of more than 400,000 defense and civilian buildings and more than one-half billion acres of land. Each year, the federal government spends billions of dollars to maintain its buildings. Even so, the General Services Administration (GSA) contends that it needs $4 billion, over and above these expenditures, to maintain its existing inventory. This report identifies the potential benefits to the federal government of entering into public-private partnerships on real property--an arrangement in which the federal government contributes real property and a private entity contributes financial capital and borrowing ability to redevelop or renovate the real property. GAO found that public-private partnership authority could be an important management tool to address problems in deteriorating federal buildings, but further study of how the tool would actually work and its benefits compared to other options is needed. Potential net benefits to the federal government of entering into these public-private partnerships include better space, lower operating costs, and increased revenue without up-front federal capital expenditures if further analysis shows that they would not be …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Capacity problems and other disruptions at the securities and options exchanges have caused processing delays within the U.S. securities markets in recent years. These exchanges and clearing organizations have also been concerned about unwarranted access by hackers and other unauthorized users. To address these issues, the securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) created its automation review policy program in 1989. The program calls for the exchanges and clearing organizations that act as self-regulatory organizations to voluntarily follow SEC guidance and submit to oversight of their information systems. The program includes two key policy statements that provide voluntary guidelines to these organizations, periodic on-site inspections by SEC staff, and independent reviews of systems by internal auditors or external organizations. In addition, self-regulatory organizations are expected to provide SEC with reports of system outages and notices of system modifications. This report reviews SEC's effectiveness in its oversight roles. GAO found that the program reasonably ensures that self-regulatory organizations address capacity, security, and other information systems issues. However, SEC could improve its program oversight by consolidating criteria used by program staff into a comprehensive guide. Overall, SEC's inspections addressed the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Current plans for identifying spectrum to support third generation mobile wireless systems by July 30, 2001, and to auction licenses by September 30, 2002, are premature. GAO agrees with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Commerce that delaying the identification of spectrum and the auction of licenses for third generation wireless systems could serve the public interest. Adequate information is not currently available to fully identify and address the uncertainties and risks of reallocation. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the federal government could make decisions affecting national security without knowing the full extent of risks they face or steps available to reduce those risks. Extending the current schedule for the identification and auction of licenses for this portion of the spectrum would allow DOD to complete technical and operational assessments and to consider the nation's future spectrum requirements. In addition, a delay would allow time to further consider the adequacy of existing national spectrum strategies affecting international agreements and for DOD overseas military operations to modify these strategies as necessary and to incorporate them into the nation's long-range spectrum plan."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress created the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 to reduce the number of uninsured poor children whose families incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid. Congress appropriated $40 billion over 10 years (fiscal years 1998 through 2007) for SCHIP. Each state's SCHIP allotment is available as a federal match based on state expenditures. Although the SCHIP statute generally targets children in families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, 13 states' programs cover children in families above 200 percent of the federal poverty level. This report provides information on (1) enrollment and federal expenditures for SCHIP and estimates of the number of and costs to enroll eligible unenrolled children and income-eligible pregnant women and (2) factors that may influence states' future expenditures for SCHIP and the availability of funding for any program expansion."

The Subsurface Ventilation System supports the construction and operation of the subsurface repository by providing air for personnel and equipment and temperature control for the underground areas. Although the system is located underground, some equipment and features may be housed or located above ground. The system ventilates the underground by providing ambient air from the surface throughout the subsurface development and emplacement areas. The system provides fresh air for a safe work environment and supports potential retrieval operations by ventilating and cooling emplacement drifts. The system maintains compliance within the limits established for approved air quality standards. The system maintains separate ventilation between the development and waste emplacement areas. The system shall remove a portion of the heat generated by the waste packages during preclosure to support thermal goals. The system provides temperature control by reducing drift temperature to support potential retrieval operations. The ventilation system has the capability to ventilate selected drifts during emplacement and retrieval operations. The Subsurface Facility System is the main interface with the Subsurface Ventilation System. The location of the ducting, seals, filters, fans, emplacement doors, regulators, and electronic controls are within the envelope created by the Ground Control System in the Subsurface Facility System. …

A compact neutron generator based on D-D or D-T fusion reactions is being developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The deuterium or tritium ions are produced in a radio-frequency (RF) driven multicusp plasma source. Seven beamlets are extracted and are accelerated to energy of 100 keV by means of a three-electrode electrostatic accelerator column. The ion beam then impinges on a titanium coated copper target where either the 2.4 MeV D-D or 14 MeV D-T neutrons are generated by fusion reaction. The development of the neutron tube is divided into three phases. First, the accelerator column is operated at hydrogen beam intensity of 15 mA. Second phase consists of deuterium beam runs at pulsed, low duty cycle 150 mA operation. The third phase consists of deuterium or tritium operation at 1.5 A beam current. Phase one is completed and the results of hydrogen beam testing are discussed. Low duty cycle 150 mA deuterium operation is being investigated. Neutron flux will be measured. Finally the phase three operation and the advance neutron generator designs are described.

The Fermilab Electron Cooling project involves interacting a 4.3 MeV, 0.5 A DC electron beam with 8.9 GeV/c antiprotons in the FNAL Recycler Ring. This interaction occurs through a 20-meter long cooling section consisting of 10 solenoid modules. This cooling process would lead to an increase in the Tevatron collider luminosity needed to support RunIIb parameters. There are several important engineering aspects of this cooling section including: solenoid design, vacuum system design, magnetic shielding, support system, and alignment methods. Details of the engineering issues related to each of these areas is discussed.

The Waste Emplacement/Retrieval System transports Waste Packages (WPs) from the Waste Handling Building (WHB) to the subsurface area of emplacement, and emplaces the WPs once there. The Waste Emplacement/Retrieval System also, if necessary, removes some or all of the WPs from the underground and transports them to the surface. Lastly, the system is designed to remediate abnormal events involving the portions of the system supporting emplacement or retrieval. During emplacement operations, the system operates on the surface between the WHB and North Portal, and in the subsurface in the North Ramp, access mains, and emplacement drifts. During retrieval or abnormal conditions, the operations areas may also extend to a surface retrieval storage site and South Portal on the surface, and the South Ramp in the subsurface. A typical transport and emplacement operation involves the following sequence of events. A WP is loaded into a WP transporter at the WHB, and coupled to a pair of transport locomotives. The locomotives transport the WP from the WHB, down the North Ramp, and to the entrance of an emplacement drift. Once docked at the entrance of the emplacement drift, the WP is moved outside of the WP transporter, and engaged by a WP …

There is a fugitive on the loose. Its name is Quark-Gluon Plasma, alias the QGP. The QGP is a known informant with knowledge about the fundamental building blocks of nature that we wish to extract. This briefing will outline the status of the pursuit of the elusive QGP. We will cover what makes the QGP tick, its modus operandi, details on how we plan to hunt the fugitive down, and our level of success thus far.

This paper compares simulated versus recorded data for the RPM-SIM simulator, developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's National Wind Technology Center. The simulator was used to study the system dynamics of a wind/diesel hybrid power system. We also provide information on newly developed simulator modules that will be released. The simulator performed extremely well, demonstrating flexibility in making modifications and including specialized modules required for problem solving. We also outline several possible applications for this tool.

Thirty years ago, July 1, 1971, significant enhancement of negative ion emission from a gas discharge following an admixture of cesium was observed for the first time. This observation became the basis for the development of Surface Plasma Sources (SPS) for efficient production of negative ions from the interaction of plasma particles with electrodes on which adsorbed cesium reduced the surface work-function. The emission current density of negative ions increased rapidly from j {approximately} 10 mA/cm{sup 2} to 3.7 A/cm{sup 2} with a flat cathode and up to 8 A/cm{sup 2} with an optimized geometrical focusing in the long pulse SPS, and to 0.3 A/cm{sup 2} for DC SPS, recently increased up to 0.7 A/cm{sup 2}. Discovery of charge-exchange cooling helped decrease the negative ion temperature T below 1 eV, and increase brightness by many orders to a level compatible with the best proton sources, B = j/T> 1 A/cm{sup 2} eV. The combination of the SPS with charge-exchange injection improved large accelerators operation and has permitted beam accumulation up to space-charge limit and overcome this limit several times. The early SPS for accelerators have been in operation without modification for {approximately} 25 years. Advanced version of the SPS for …

The following work was performed: (1) Identified three test areas for Phase I, (2) Selected nine surface exploration methods for comparison, (3) contracted six geochemical companies for laboratory analysis and interpretation, (4) sub-contracted one surface geochemical method for field collection and analysis, (5) Acquired free data for one surface exploration method, (6) Collected samples from 27 sites in Area 7 and 210 sites in Area 6, and (7) Began the database creation, comparison, mapping, and interpretation of all data from the two sampled areas.

The Fermilab Electron Cooling Program requires a 20-m solenoidal region to interact 8-GeV antiprotons with an escorting beam of 4.3-MeV electrons to improve the phase-space quality of the antiproton beam. The solenoidal section with additional transport lines to take and return a 0.5-A electron beam from an electrostatic accelerator, for energy recovery, must be precisely aligned and adjusted. For the initial setup and study, and later testing of this line, a 12.4-keV H{sup {minus}} beam can be used to simulate the 4.3 MeV electron beam. For this purpose a high-brightness H{sup {minus}} ion source has been developed and tested. The source, a semiplanatron type, with a hollow cathode discharge and spherical cathode focusing of the emitted ions to the emission aperture has given an emission current density up to 0.7 A/cm{sup 2}. Continuous operation of 4 weeks has been demonstrated. Such an optimized source could have many applications for tandem accelerators, ion beam lithography and ion implantation.

A new proton injection kicker system is required for the Tevatron in the Run II era. The new system was designed to supply 1.25 kG-m into a magnetic aperture of 48 mm vertical x 71 mm horizontal x 5 m long with a 396 ns bunch spacing. The system was designed to be upgraded to 132 ns bunch spacing with additional pulse supplies. The design of the magnet incorporated some novel features in order to meet these requirements. These include adjustable bus spacing to set the inductance and balanced positive and negative high voltage buses. This system has been installed in the Tevatron.

A new proton injection kicker system is required for the Tevatron in the Run II era. The new system was designed to supply 1.25 kG-m into a magnetic aperture of 48 mm vertical x 71 mm horizontal x 5 m long with a 396 ns bunch spacing. The system was designed to be upgraded to 132 ns bunch spacing with additional pulse supplies. The system design tradeoffs needed to meet these goals is discussed. These include the system topology, the system impedance and the number of magnets. This system has been installed in the Tevatron.

A simple beam loading compensation system was installed for the Fermilab Main Injector Coalescing Cavities. This paper describes the design and implementation of the feedback system. These modifications improved the linear dynamic range of operation of the ferrite loaded cavity.

Three high voltage modulators used during testing and operation of the Tevatron Electron Lens (TEL) at Fermilab will be described. Short high voltage (0 to {approximately} 20kV) pulses from these modulators vary the anode-cathode voltage of the TEL electron gun to control the magnitude of the electron beam current. The trio of modulators include a low repetition rate MOSFET-based pulser, a fast ionization device, and a high average power tetrode modulator. The characteristics of each device will be discussed and typical outputs from each type of modulator is shown.