None

The Department of Defense operates six environmental programs: cleanup of past contamination at military facilities, acceleration of cleanup at military bases designated for closure, compliance with environmental laws and regulations that apply to ongoing military operations, pollution prevention, natural resource conservation, and environmental technology. In addition to these activities, the Department of Energy is responsible for managing defense nuclear waste and remediating contaminated sites. This report discusses the federal laws that established these programs, describes their scope and purpose, provides a history of appropriations, indicates the President’s budget request for FY2001, examines authorization and appropriations legislation for FY2001, and discusses other relevant legislation considered in the 106th Congress.

None

This report provides information about the Proposals for Change on Federal Deposit and Share Insurance since deposit insurance for holders of accounts at banks and thrift institutions are under scrutiny for the last several congresses.

None

None

None

None

None

Congressional Research Service (CRS) report entailing information about Constitutional issues in regards to student drug testing. Topics include, controversies, the Tecumseh Public School District, Trinadad School District No.1 v. Lopez, etc..

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Strategic human capital management is critical to maximizing government's performance and ensuring its accountability for the benefit of the American people. The early years of the 21st century are proving to be a period of profound transition being driven by several key trends, including global interdependence; diverse, diffuse, and asymmetrical security threats; rapidly evolving science and technology; dramatic shifts in age and composition of the population; important quality of life issues; the changing nature of the economy; and evolving governmental structures and concepts. GAO designated strategic human capital management as a governmentwide high-risk area because of a long-standing lack of a consistent strategic approach to marshaling, managing, and maintaining the human capital needed for government to deliver on its promises. Three broad human capital reform opportunities are instrumental to agency transformation efforts: aligning individual and organizational performance, implementing results-oriented pay reform, and sustaining agency transformation efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Critical infrastructure protection (CIP) involves activities that enhance the security of the nation's cyber and physical public and private infrastructures that are essential to national security, economic activity, and public health and safety. At least 50 federal organizations within 13 major departments and agencies mentioned in Presidential Decision Directive 63 are involved in CIP activities that include setting policy, analyzing vulnerabilities and intelligence information, disseminating alerts and warnings on potential and actual infrastructure attacks, developing remediation plans, responding to incidents, and performing research and development. Although most organizations could identify their relationships with other key CIP entities, relationships among all organizations performing similar activities were not consistently established. Most of the organizations in GAO's review do not receive appropriations specifically designated for cyber CIP and, therefore, do not track these funds. A complicating factor in tracking funds spent on cyber CIP activities is that organizational totals often include funds spent on physical, cyber, and agency-specific CIP spending."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed information systems general controls in the calendar year 2001 financial statement audits of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) Bank Insurance Fund, Savings Association Insurance Fund, and Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation Resolution Fund. FDIC made progress in correcting information security weaknesses previously identified and has taken steps to improve security. Nevertheless, GAO identified new weaknesses in its information systems controls that affect the corporation's ability to safeguard electronic access to critical financial and other sensitive information. FDIC did not adequately limit access to data and programs by controlling mainframe access authority, providing sufficient network security, or establishing a comprehensive program to monitor access activities. Further, other information systems control weaknesses were identified that could hinder FDIC's ability to provide physical security for its computer facility, appropriate segregation of computer functions, effective control of system software changes, or continuity of operations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides air-ground voice and data communications for pilots and air traffic controllers to safely coordinate all flight operations, ground movement of aircraft at airports, and in-flight separation distances between aircraft. However, the anticipated growth in air traffic, coupled with FAA's efforts to reduce air traffic delays and introduce new air traffic services, will create a demand for additional channels of voice communications that FAA's current system cannot provide. FAA and the aviation industry agree that the existing communications system, even with enhancements, cannot meet aviation's expanding need for communications. To ensure that the technology it wants to use for Next Generation Air/Ground Communications (NEXCOM) will meet its future needs, FAA, in collaboration with the aviation industry, conducted a comparative analysis of numerous technologies, to assess each one's ability to meet technical requirements, minimize program risk, and meet the agency's schedule. However, before making a final decision on the technology for NEXCOM, FAA will need to efficiently address three major issues: whether the preferred technology is technically sound and will operate as intended, if the preferred technology and the equipment it requires …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report examines how best practices offer improvements to the way the Department of Defense (DOD) develops new weapons systems, primarily the design and manufacturing aspects of the acquisition process. Knowledge about a product's design and producibility facilitates informed decisions about whether to significantly increase investments and reduces the risk of costly design changes later in the program. Leading commercial companies employ practices to capture design and manufacturing knowledge in time to make key decisions during product development. First, the companies kept the degree of the design challenge manageable before starting a new product development program by using an evolutionary approach. Second, the companies captured design and manufacturing knowledge before the two critical decision points in product development: when the design was demonstrated to be stable--the second knowledge point--and when the product was demonstrated to be producible at an affordable cost--the third knowledge point. DOD has made changes to its acquisition policy in an attempt to improve its framework for developing weapons systems, but the policy does not require the capture of design or manufacturing knowledge or sufficient criteria to enter the system demonstration and production …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 required each federal agency to issue a regulation adjusting its covered maximum civil monetary penalties for inflation by October 23, 1996. The act also required agencies to make necessary adjustments at least once every 4 years thereafter. During a review of the act's implementation, GAO found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of the General Counsel indicated that four of the agency's civil penalties are covered by the act but that the agency had not adjusted them for inflation. FERC's Office of the General Counsel stated that the agency has several other statutory penalties that appear not to be covered by the Inflation Adjustment Act. GAO's review did not reveal any FERC regulations that increased the agency's civil penalties for inflation."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Amtrak provides an Annual Operations Report to Congress that shows revenue, cost, and profit or loss on all its train routes in the form of route profitability schedules and an annual audited financial statement. In addition, Amtrak periodically receives congressional requests to provide route profitability schedules at different times of the year. In November 2001, Amtrak changed the way it prepared its route profitability schedules and applied this new method to information previously provided for fiscal years 1999 and 2000. Based on the initial information requested and provided, the schedule totals could not be readily reconciled to the audited financial statements for the corresponding periods. According to Amtrak officials, in order to focus on the operating profitability of Amtrak's routes, they excluded certain items included in the financial statement amounts in preparing the route schedule data. As a result, the totals for both sets of schedules did not tie directly to the audited financial statements. Amtrak also allocated certain profits from its other business activities to its routes as a reduction in route net cost. The allocation of these profits from other business activities undermines the ability to …

As cleanup workers excavate pits and tear down buildings at the Fernald site in southwest Ohio, site ecologists are working side-by-side to create thriving wetlands and develop the early stages of forest, prairie, and savanna ecosystems to restore natural resources that were impacted by years of site operations. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Energy-Fernald Office (DOE-FN) and its cleanup contractor, Fluor Fernald, Inc., initiated several ecological restoration projects in perimeter areas of the site (e.g., areas not used for or impacted by uranium processing or waste management). The projects are part of Fernald's final land use plan to restore natural resources over 904 acres of the 1,050-acre site. Pete Yerace, the DOE-FN Natural Resource Trustee representative is working with the Fernald Natural Resource Trustees in an oversight role to resolve the state of Ohio's 1986 claim against DOE for injuries to natural resources. Fluor Fernald, Inc., and DOE-FN developed the ''Natural Resource Restoration Plan'', which outlines 15 major restoration projects for the site and will restore injured natural resources at the site. In general, Fernald's plan includes grading to maximize the formation of wetlands or expanded floodplain, amending soil where topsoil has been removed during excavation, and establishing native …

Roof bolting is the most popular method for underground openings in the mining industry, especially in the bedded deposits such as coal, potash, salt etc. In fact, all U.S. underground coal mine entries are roof-bolted as required by law. However, roof falls still occur frequently in the roof bolted entries. The two possible reasons are: the lack of knowledge of and technology to detect the roof geological conditions in advance of mining, and lack of roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems. This research is to develop a method for predicting the roof geology and stability condition in real time during roof bolting operation. Based on such information, roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems will be developed for implementation in real time. Field tests have been performed in two underground coal mines in this quarter. It also found from the tests that the non-drilling thrust and torque should be deducted from the acquired drilling data. The non-drilling torque is actually higher than that is used to overcome the shear strength is proportional to the rotation rate.

Throughout the utility industry, there is high interest in subsurface imaging of plastic, ceramic, and metallic objects because of the cost, reliability, and safety benefits available in avoiding impacts with the existing infrastructure and in reducing inappropriate excavations. Industry interest in locating plastic pipe has resulted in funding available for the development of technologies that enable this imaging. Gas Technology Institute (GTI) proposes to develop a compact and inexpensive capacitive tomography imaging sensor that takes the form of a flat plate or flexible mat that can be placed on the ground to image objects embedded in the soil. A compact, low-cost sensor that can image objects through soil could be applied to multiple operations and will produce a number of cost savings for the gas industry. In a stand-alone mode, it could be used to survey an area prior to excavation. The technology would improve the accuracy and reliability of any operation that involves excavation by locating or avoiding buried objects. An accurate subsurface image of an area will enable less costly keyhole excavations and other cost-saving techniques. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has been applied to this area with limited success. Radar requires a high-frequency carrier to be injected into …

This quarterly report documents significant achievements in the Enhanced Practical Photosynthetic CO{sub 2} Mitigation project during the period from 4/2/2001 through 7/01/2002. Most of the achievements are milestones in our efforts to complete the tasks and subtasks that constitute the project objectives, and we are currently on schedule to complete Phase I activities by 10/2002, the milestone date from the original project timeline. As indicated in the list of accomplishments below, our efforts are focused on improving the design of the bioreactor test system, evaluating candidate organisms and growth surfaces, and scaling-up the test facilities from bench scale to pilot scale. Specific results and accomplishments for the second quarter of 2002 include: Organisms and Growth Surfaces: (1) Our collection of cyanobacteria, isolated in YNP was increased to 15 unialgal cultures. (2) Illumination rate about 50 {micro}E/m{sup 2}/sec is not saturated for the growth of 1.2 s.c. (2) isolate. The decrease of illumination rate led to the decrease of doubling time of this isolate. (3) The positive effect of Ca{sup 2+} on the growth of isolate 1.2 s.c. (2) without Omnisil was revealed, though Ca{sup 2+} addition was indifferent for the growth of this isolate at the presence of Omnisil. (4) …

The US Department of Energy is characterizing a potential repository site for nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain (NV). In its current design, the nuclear waste containers consist of a double metallic layer. The external layer would be made of NO6022 or Alloy 22 (Ni-22Cr-13Mo-3W-3Fe). Since over their lifetime, the containers may be exposed to multi-ionic aqueous environments, a potential degradation mode of the outer layer could be environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) or stress corrosion cracking (SCC). In general, Alloy 22 is extremely resistant to SCC, especially in concentrated chloride solutions. Current results obtained through slow strain rate testing (SSRT) shows that Alloy 22 may suffer SCC in simulated concentrated water (SCW) at applied potentials approximately 400 mV more anodic than the corrosion potential (E{sub rr}).

Water vapor profiles from NASA's Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) system acquired during the ARM/FIRE Water Vapor Experiment (AFWEX) are used to characterize upper troposphere (UT) water vapor measured by ground-based Raman lidars, radiosondes, and in situ aircraft sensors. Initial comparisons showed the average Vaisala radiosonde measurements to be 5-15% drier than the average LASE, Raman lidar, and DC-8 in situ diode laser hygrometer measurements. They show that corrections to the Raman lidar and Vaisala measurements significantly reduce these differences. Precipitable water vapor (PWV) derived from the LASE water vapor profiles agrees within 3% on average with PWV derived from the ARM ground-based microwave radiometer (MWR). The agreement among the LASE, Raman lidar, and MWR measurements demonstrates how the LASE measurements can be used to characterize both profile and column water vapor measurements and that ARM Raman lidar, when calibrated using the MWR PWV, can provide accurate UT water vapor measurements.

A modified solvent has been developed at Oak Ridge National laboratory (ORNL) for a caustic-side solvent extraction (CSSX) process that removes cesium (Cs) from Savannah River Site (SRS) tank waste. The modified solvent was evaluated using the same CSSX flowsheet, SRS simulant, and 33-stage minicontactor (2-cm centrifugal contactor) that had been used to test the previous CSSX solvent. As with the previous solvent, the key process goals were achieved: (1) the Cs was removed from the waste with decontamination factors greater than 40,000 and (2) the recovered Cs was concentrated by a factor of 15 in dilute nitric acid. Thus, the modified CSSX solvent can be used in place of the previous solvent while maintaining satisfactory hydraulic performance and still achieving process requirements at the bench scale.