Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "There are over 30 police forces currently operating in the District of Columbia, many of which have authority or jurisdiction within the Capitol Hill area. Three of these, the Library of Congress (LOC) Police, the Government Printing Office (GPO) Police, and the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), are part of the legislative branch. Merging the LOC Police and/or the GPO Police with the USCP is feasible for several reasons. First, although each force has unique responsibilities, their overall missions are similar enough that a merged force could assume both the unique and common responsibilities. Another reason is their common geographic area with overlapping jurisdictions. USCP officials also believe it is possible to merge the other forces into its existing force, and the labor committees of the departments support a merger. Nevertheless, if LOC and/or GPO police were to be merged with the USCP, issues to be addressed include gaining LOC and/or GPO management support, resolving differences in retirement systems, and integrating training and security systems. A merger between the LOC and/or GPO police forces and the USCP would incur significant costs if the intent of a merger is to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act gives Native American Indian tribes the option to administer Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs, either alone or as part of a consortium with other tribes, rather than receiving benefits and services from state TANF programs. Because of the difficult economic circumstances on many reservations, the law also gives tribal TANF programs more flexibility than it gives to states. Tribes have used various strategies to stimulate economic development, but despite these efforts, unemployment and poverty rates on reservations remain high and prospects for economic growth may be limited. To improve economic conditions on reservations, tribes operate enterprises in a range of commercial sectors. Nationally, the number of American Indian families receiving TANF assistance has declined in recent years; however, in some states, American Indians represent a large and increasing share of the state TANF caseload. To date, 174 tribes, either alone or as part of a consortium, are administering their own TANF programs and have used the flexibility in the act to tailor their tribal TANF programs to meet TANF requirements. However, many tribes have found …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant to replace the previous welfare program and help welfare recipients transition into employment. To this end, states are required to enforce work requirements, and face financial penalties if a minimum percentage of adults receiving cash assistance do not participate in work or work-related activities each year. This federal participation rate requirement has increased each year, reaching 50 percent for all families in fiscal year 2002, but it can be adjusted if caseload declines. In addition to work requirements, TANF places a 60 month lifetime limit on the amount of time families with adults can receive cash assistance. To receive TANF block grants, each state must also spend a specified amount of its own funds, referred to as state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) funds. The law allows states considerable flexibility to exclude families from work requirements and time limits. In addition, states may provide cash assistance to families and exempt them from work requirements and time limits by using state MOE in specified ways. States provided cash assistance funded by federal TANF or state MOE dollars to 2.1 …

Effective management of available groundwater resources and strategies for remediation of water impacted by past nuclear testing practices depend on knowledge about the migration of radionuclides in groundwater away from the sites of the explosions. A primary concern is to assess the relative mobilities of the different radionuclide species found near sites of underground nuclear tests and to determine the concentration, extent, and speed of this movement. Ultimately the long term transport behavior of radionuclides with half-lives long enough that they will persist for decades, their interaction with groundwater, and the resulting flux of these contaminants is of paramount importance. As part of a comprehensive approach to these assessments, more than three decades of site-specific sites studies have been undertaken at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) which have focused on the means responsible for the observed or suspected movement of radionuclides away from underground nuclear tests (RNM, 1983). More recently regional and local models of groundwater flow and radionuclide transport have been developed as part of a federal and state of Nevada program to assess the long-term effects of underground nuclear testing on human health and environment (e.g., U.S. DOE/NV, 1997a; Tompson et al., 1999; Pawloski et al., 2001). Necessary …

The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on MULTIPHOTON PROCESSES was held at Tilton School, Tilton, NH. Emphasis was placed on current unpublished research and discussion of the future target areas in this field.

This final report summarizes the activities of the DOE Inventions and Innovations sponsored project, ''A New Energy Saving Method of Manufacturing Ceramic Products from Waste Glass.'' The project involved an innovative method of lowering energy costs of manufacturing ceramic products by substituting traditional raw materials with waste glass. The processing method is based on sintering of glass powder at {approx}750 C to produce products which traditionally require firing temperatures of >1200 C, or glass-melting temperatures >1500 C. The key to the new method is the elimination of previous processing problems, which have greatly limited the use of recycled glass as a ceramic raw material. The technology is aligned with the DOE-OIT Glass Industry Vision and Roadmap, and offers significant energy savings and environmental benefits compared to current technologies. A U.S. patent (No. 6,340,650) covering the technology was issued on January 22, 2002. An international PCT Patent Application is pending with designations made for all PCT regions and countries. The goal of the project was to provide the basis for the design and construction of an energy-efficient manufacturing plant that can convert large volumes of waste glass into high-quality ceramic tile. The main objectives of the project were to complete process …

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A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

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This study determines safety hazards associated with using a 300-mW 785-nm near-IR Raman laser for sample analysis. Most safety concerns are associated with excessive sample heating resulting from sample illumination. Thermography experiments were designed to quantitatively assess which visible surface colors heat most when exposed to the Raman laser. Temperatures achieved after illuminating 216 color patches with the unfocussed laser are presented. Figures contained in this report allow a field agent to rapidly determine the thermal hazards associated with Raman analysis of unknown colored samples. Dark colors tended to heat the most when exposed to the Raman laser. Studies were also conducted with a flammable organic solvent mixed with a near-IR absorbing dye to evaluate the magnitude of solution heating. Heating was minimal and Raman analysis was not considered a likely ignition hazard. The next series of experiments examined the tendency of propellants and military explosives, as well as mixtures of these explosives with IR-opaque dyes or matrix materials, to deflagrate upon illumination. All neat military explosives studied and most mixtures could be analyzed safely; however, an occasional mixture exhibited self-sustained deflagration, emphasizing safety hazards exist. Safety protocols include assessing the thermal consequences of sample analysis by referencing the thermography …

We have developed the Scaled Thermal Explosion Experiment (STEX) to provide a database of reaction violence from thermal explosion for explosives of interest. Such data are needed to develop, calibrate, and validate predictive capability for thermal explosions using simulation computer codes. A cylinder of explosive 25, 50 or 100 mm in diameter, is confined in a steel cylinder with heavy end caps, and heated under controlled conditions until reaction. Reaction violence is quantified through non-contact micropower impulse radar measurements of the cylinder wall velocity and by strain gauge data at reaction onset. Here we describe the test concept, design and diagnostic recording, and report results with HMX- and RDX-based energetic materials.

Ultra-intense laser-matter interactions provide a unique source of temporally short, broad spectrum electrons, which may be utilized in many varied applications. One such, which we are pursuing, is as part of a novel diagnostic to trace magnetic field lines in a magnetically-confined fusion device. An essential aspect of this scheme is to have a detailed characterization of the electron angular and energy distribution. To this effect we designed and constructed a compact electron spectrometer that uses permanent magnets for electron energy dispersion and over 100 scintillating fibers coupled to a 1024 x 1024 pixel CCD as the detection system. This spectrometer has electron energy coverage from 10 keV to 2 MeV. We tested the spectrometer on a high intensity (10{sup 17} to 10{sup 21} W/cm{sup 2}) short pulse (< 100 fs) laser, JanUSP, at Lawrence Livermore National laboratory using various solid targets. The details of the spectrometer and the experimental results will be reported.

This morning I will describe a program that we refer to as STARS, for Science and Technology to Advance Regional Security, in Central Asia. It is a program that is based on cooperative, bilateral and multilateral, science and technology projects. It is our premise that such cooperative projects provide an opportunity for engagement while addressing real problems that could otherwise lead to destabilizing tensions in the region. The STARS program directly supports USCENTCOM's activities and objectives in environmental security. In fact, we think that STARS is a great vehicle for implementing and amplifying USCENTCOM's environmental security objectives and activities. We are very grateful and very pleased to have General DeLong's support in this matter. I am going to briefly describe the program. I want to stress again that it is a cooperative program. We would like to get input, suggestions, and feedback from the Central Asians here today so we can move forward together.

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Report on issues with the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in the state of Texas.

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Increases in total federal debt are driven by government deficits (which increase debt held by the public) and by the surpluses credited to (and federal accounting for) debt-holding federal accounts, mostly federal trust funds such as the Social Security, Medicare, Transportation, and Civil Service trust funds.

Legislation has been proposed in the 107th Congress to combat the use and abuse of Ecstasy (MDMA) and other “club drugs.” In a 2001 survey, 12% of 12th graders reported ever having taken the drug. The Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000, enacted by the 106th Congress, directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to increase penalties for Ecstasy offenses. As of March 2001, MDMA penalties became more severe than for powder cocaine but less severe than for heroin.

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