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The European Union (EU) experienced significant changes in 2004 as it enlarged from 15 to 25 members and continued work on a new constitutional treaty to institute internal reforms and further EU political integration. In 2005, the EU is expected to build on these efforts and seek to implement several recent foreign policy and defense initiatives. This report describes the current status of the EU’s “constitution,” EU enlargement, the EU’s evolving foreign and defense policies, and possible implications for U.S.-EU relations.

This report provides answers to key questions related to the European Union (EU). It describes the EU’s evolution, its governing institutions, trade policy, and efforts to forge common foreign and defense policies. The report also addresses the EU-U.S. and EU-NATO relationships.

In June 2004, the European Union (EU) concluded work on a constitutional treaty that contains changes to the EU’s governing institutions and decision-making processes. This new “constitution” grew out of the 2002-2003 Convention on the Future of Europe and previous EU efforts to institute internal reforms ahead of the Union’s expansion from 15 members to 25 in May 2004. The “constitution” aims to enable a larger EU to operate effectively and prevent gridlock, but it must still be ratified by all member states before it enters into force. This report provides background information on the Convention and describes the EU “constitution,” its key provisions, next steps, and possible implications for the U.S.-EU relationship.

Mexico has a population of slightly over 100 million people making it the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world and the third most populous country in the Western Hemisphere. Based on a gross domestic product (GDP) of $677 billion in 2004 (about six percent of U.S. GDP), Mexico has a free market economy with a strong export sector that is very sensitive to changes in the U.S. economy. Mexico’s economy is relatively small compared to the U.S. economy. Economic conditions in Mexico are important to the United States because of the close trade and investment interactions, and because of other social and political issues that could be affected by economic conditions, such as immigration.

The connections between trade and migration areas longstanding as the historic movements of goods and people. The desire for commerce may often be the principal motivation, but they need to send people to facilitate the transactions soon follows. Recognition of this phenomenon is incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which includes provisions for aliens who are entering the The United States solely as “treaty traders” and “treaty investors.” Although the United States has not created a common market for the movement of labor with our trading partners, there are immigration provisions in existing free trade agreements (FTAs) that spell out reciprocal terms regulating the “temporary entry of business persons.”

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In late 2002, Brazil initiated a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement case (DS267) against specific provisions of the U.S. cotton program. This report provides background to the dispute, as well as details of the WTO dispute settlement case. It will not be updated. For information on the U.S. response to panel recommendations and their implications for the U.S. cotton sector, see CRS Report RS22187, U.S. Agricultural Policy Response to WTO Cotton Decision.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From 1987 to 2003, the United States provided economic aid to the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) through a Compact of Free Association. A previous GAO report found little accountability for the assistance provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior under this compact. In 2004, amended compacts with the FSM and RMI went into effect and will provide $3.5 billion in assistance over 20 years, consisting of grants and contributions to trust funds that are to replace the grants after 2023. The amended compacts include funding and accountability requirements that were not present in the original compact. To better understand the status of the compacts' implementation, GAO evaluated actions taken by the U.S., FSM, and RMI governments since fiscal year 2004 to (1) meet funding requirements and plan for the use of this funding, (2) meet accountability requirements, and (3) establish operations to implement the new agreements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the past, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has experienced declines in enforcement productivity as measured by cases closed per Full Time Equivalent. Increasing enforcement productivity through a variety of enforcement improvement projects is one strategy being pursued by IRS. Evaluating the benefits of different projects requires good measures of productivity. In addition, IRS's ability to correctly measure its productivity has important budget implications. GAO was asked to illustrate available methods to better measure productivity at IRS. Specifically, our objectives were to (1) describe challenges that IRS faces when measuring productivity, (2) describe alternative methods that IRS can use to improve its productivity measures, and (3) assess the feasibility of using these alternative methods by illustrating their use with existing IRS data."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Millions of taxpayers ask IRS questions about tax law each year. While the accuracy of IRS's answers has improved in some cases, it is still not always what taxpayers or Congress expect. Concerns about accuracy have raised questions about the adequacy of the training IRS provides to its taxpayer assistance staff. Because of these questions, GAO was asked to assess the extent to which IRS's planning and evaluation of its taxpayer assistor training conformed to guidance published by GAO and others. Planning and evaluation are part of a feedback loop whereby lessons from one year can be applied to making improvements in future years."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1992, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has focused the Cash Transfer Program in Egypt on supporting economic reform activities to move Egypt toward a more liberal and market-oriented economy. USAID has provided funds to Egypt's government as it completed agreed-on economic reform activities. In fiscal year 2002, the Department of State and USAID conducted a review of U.S. economic assistance in Egypt that led USAID to renegotiate the program's terms. USAID and Egypt signed a new agreement in March 2005. GAO's review of the Cash Transfer Program focused on the program's disbursement of funds and Egypt's completion of agreed-on activities, factors affecting the program's influence on Egypt's economic reform, USAID's efforts to evaluate the program's impact, and USAID's changes to the program in response to the 2002 review by the Department of State and USAID. GAO received comments on a draft of this report from USAID. USAID stated that the draft was fair and clear but that Egypt's completion of about 70 percent of the activities resulted from the program's structure rather than shortcomings in Egypt's policy reforms. USAID also stated that extending …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The events of September 11, 2001, have resulted in a greater focus on the role of first responders in carrying out the nation's emergency management efforts. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the primary federal entity responsible for ensuring that first responders, such as police, fire, emergency medical, and public health personnel, have the capabilities needed to provide a coordinated, comprehensive response to any large-scale crisis. In the last 4 years DHS has awarded $11.3 billion to state and local governments to enhance capabilities, primarily to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism. Presidential directives instruct DHS to develop a national all-hazards approach--preparing all sectors of society for any emergency event including terrorist attacks and natural or accidental disasters. This report addresses the following questions: (1) What actions has DHS taken to provide policies and strategies that promote the development of the all-hazards emergency management capabilities of first responders? (2) How do first responders' emergency management capabilities for terrorist attacks differ to capabilities needed for natural or accidental disasters? (3) What emphasis has DHS placed on funding awarded to state and …

Radionuclide transport was measured from high grade uranium ore boulders near the Nopal I Site, Chihuahua, Mexico. High grade uranium ore boulders were left behind after removal of a uranium ore stockpile at the Prior High Grade Stockpile (PHGS). During the 25 years when the boulder was present, radionuclides were released and transported by sheetflow during precipitation events, wind blown resuspension, and infiltration into the unsaturated zone. In this study, one of the boulders was removed, followed by grid sampling of the surrounding area. Measured gamma radiation levels in three dimensions were used to derive separate dispersion rates by the three transport mechanisms.

The proposed effort will identify genes and ultimately physiological mechanisms and pathways that are expressed under in situ conditions and are critical to functioning of aquifer dwelling anaerobic bacteria living in contaminated systems. The main objectives are: (1) Determine which Metal-reducer specific genes are important for activities in normal and contaminated subsurface sediment. To achieve these goals, we have generated a library of chromosomal mutants. These are introduced into contaminated sediments, incubated, allowed to grow, and then reisolated. A negative selection process allows us to determine which mutants have been selected against in sediments and thereby identify genes required for survival in subsurface sediments. (2) Delineate the function of these genes through GeneBank and Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) comparisons and analyze other sediment microorganisms to determine if similar genes are present in these populations. After determining the sequence of the genes identified through the previous objectives, we delineate the role of those specific genes in the physiology of G20, MR-1 and perhaps other microorganisms. (3) Determine the loss in function of a select group of mutants. Cells with mutations in known genes with testable functions are assayed for the loss of that function if specific assays are available. Mutants …

Three test wells, PB-1, PB-2, and PB-3, were drilled at the Nopal I uranium deposit as part of a natural analogue study to evaluate radionuclide transport processes during March-April 2003. The initial pumping to condition the wells was completed during December 2003. The PB-1 well, drilled immediately adjacent to the Nopal I ore body, was continuously cored to a depth of 250 m, terminating 20 m below the top of the measured water level. The PB-2 and PB-3 wells, which were drilled on opposite sides of PB-1 at a radial distance of approximately 40 to 50 m outside of the remaining projected ore body, were also drilled to about 20 m below the top of the measured water level. Each test well was completed with 4-inch (10.2-cm) diameter PVC casing with a slotted liner below the water table. Initial conditioning of all three wells using a submersible pump at low pump rates [less than 1 gallon (3.8 1) per minute] resulted in measurable draw down and recoveries. The greatest drawdown ({approx}15 m) was observed in PB-2, whereas only minor (<1 m) drawdown occurred in PB-3. For PB-1 and PB-2, the water turbidity decreased as the wells were pumped and the …

For Phase I of the Job Handling project, Tech-X has built a Grid service for processing analysis requests, as well as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) client that uses the service. The service is designed to generically support High-Energy Physics (HEP) experimental analysis tasks. It has an extensible, flexible, open architecture and language. The service uses the Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC (STAR) experiment as a working example. STAR is an experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). STAR and other experiments at BNL generate multiple Petabytes of HEP data. The raw data is captured as millions of input files stored in a distributed data catalog. Potentially using thousands of files as input, analysis requests are submitted to a processing environment containing thousands of nodes. The Grid service provides a standard interface to the processing farm. It enables researchers to run large-scale, massively parallel analysis tasks, regardless of the computational resources available in their location.

Since 1996, excess CO{sub 2} from the Sleipner natural gas field has been sequestered and injected underground into a porous saline aquifer 1000 m below the seafloor. In 2002, we carried out a high precision micro-gravity survey on the seafloor in order to monitor the injected CO{sub 2}. A repeatability of 5 {micro}Gal in the station averages was observed. This is considerably better than pre-survey expectations. These data will serve as the baseline for time-lapse gravity monitoring of the Sleipner CO{sub 2} injection site. A repeat survey has been scheduled for the summer of 2005. This report covers 9/19/04 to 3/18/05. During this time, gravity and pressure modeling were completed and work graduate student Scott Nooner began writing his Ph.D. dissertation, of which this work is a the major part. Improvements to the gravimeters are also underway that will hopefully increase the measurement precision.

The Nopal I uranium (U) deposit, Pena Blanca District, Mexico, largely consists of secondary U{sup 6+} minerals, which occur within a breccia pipe mainly hosted by the 44 Ma Nopal and Colorados volcanic formations. These two units overly the Pozos conglomerate formation and Cretaceous limestone. Three new vertical diamond drill holes (DDHs) were recently drilled at Nopal I. DDH-PB1 with continuous core was drilled through the Nopal I deposit and two additional DDHs were drilled {approx}50 m on either side of the cored hole. These DDHs terminate 20 m below the current water table, thus allowing the detection of possible gradients in radionuclide contents resulting from transport from the overlying uranium deposit. Primary uraninite within the main ore body is rare and fine-grained ({approx}50 micrometers), thus making geochronology of the Nopal I deposit very difficult. Uranium, lead and oxygen isotopes can be used to study fluid-uraninite interaction, provided that the analyses are obtained on the micro-scale. Secondary ionization mass spectrometry (SIMS) permits in situ measurement of isotopic ratios with a spatial resolution on the scale of a few {micro}m. Preliminary U-Pb results show that uraninite from the main ore body gives an age of 32 {+-} 8 Ma, whereas uraninite …

The pathway to the accessible environment at Yucca Mountain contains volcanic rocks and alluvial fill. Transport properties in alluvial fill, specifically retardation and dispersivity, may be significant in determining the overall performance of the repository. Prior relevant studies, with the exception of the Nye County Tracer Test, are almost entirely in bedrock material. The proposed study will provide field data on radionuclide migration in alluvial material. High grade uranium ore was mined at the Nopal I deposit. This mined ore (60,000 tons) was moved in 1994 to its present site as open piles on an alluvial fan in the Boquilla Colorada Microbasin. Precipitation is approximately 20 cm/year, and has caused migration of radionuclides into the subsurface. We propose partial removal of an ore pile, excavation into the alluvial fan, sampling, and determination of radionuclide mobilities from the uranium decay chain. The proposed research would be taking advantage of a unique opportunity with a known time frame for migration.

The Nopal I uranium deposit in Chihuahua, Mexico, is an excellent analogue for evaluating the fate of spent fuel, associated actinides, and fission products over long time scales for the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository. In 2003, three groundwater wells were drilled directly adjacent to (PB-1) and 50 m on either side of the uranium deposit (PB-2 and PB-3) in order to evaluate uranium-series transport in three dimensions. After drilling, uranium concentrations were elevated in all of the three wells (0.1-18 ppm) due to drilling activities and subsequently decreased to {approx}5-20% of initial values over the next several months. The {sup 234}U/{sup 238}U activity ratios were similar for PB-1 and PB-2 (1.005 to 1.079) but distinct for PB-3 (1.36 to 1.83) over this time period, suggesting limited mixing between groundwater from these wells over these short time and length scales. Regional groundwater wells located up to several km from the deposit also have distinct uranium isotopic characteristics and constrain mixing over larger length and time scales. We model the decreasing uranium concentrations in the newly drilled wells with a simple one-dimensional advection-dispersion model, assuming uranium is introduced as a slug to each of the wells and transported as …

For nuclear waste management, an important mechanism by which radioactive waste components are isolated from returning to the human environment, the biosphere, is by the geological barrier in which the effectiveness of the barrier is characterized by in-situ retardation factor, i.e., the transport rate of a radionuclide relative to that of groundwater. As part of natural analog studies of the Yucca Mountain Project of the U. S. Department of Energy, we propose such characterization by using naturally-occurring decay-series radioisotopes as an analog. We collected large-volume (>1000 liters) groundwater samples from three wells (PB, Pozos, and PB4, respectively) near the Nopal I Uranium Ore site at Pena Blanca, Mexico, by using an in-situ Mn-cartridge filtration technique for analysis of short-lived decay-series radionuclides. Results show that the activities of short-lived radioisotopes ({sup 228}Ra, {sup 224}Ra and {sup 223}Ra) and activity ratios of {sup 224}Ra/{sup 228}Ra and {sup 224}Ra/{sup 223}Ra are higher at PB and Pozos than at PB4. In contrast, the {sup 210}Po activity is much lower at PB and Pozos than at PB4. The high Ra activities and activities ratios at PB and Pozos are attributable to the high alpha-recoil input from the aquifer rocks, while the high {sup 210}Po activity …

The U.S. Department of Energy sponsored the drilling of three wells in 2003 near the Nopal I uranium deposit at the Sierra Pena Blanca, Chihuahua, Mexico. Piezometric information is being collected to understand groundwater flow at local and regional levels as part of an ongoing natural analogue study of radionuclide migration. Water level monitoring reported at these and other wells in the region is combined with archival data to provide a better understanding of the hydrology at Nopal I. Initial results suggest that the local hydrology is dependent on the regional hydrologic setting and that this groundwater system behaves as an unconfined aquifer. The region is dominated by an alternating sequence of highlands and basins that step down from west to east. The Sierra de Pena Blanca was downdropped from the cratonic block to the west during Cenozoic extension. The Nopal I area is near the intersection of two large listric faults, and the questa of ash flow tuffs that hosts the deposit has been subjected to complex structural events. The Pena Blanca Uranium District was originally characterized by 105 airborne radiometric anomalies, indicating widespread uranium mineralization. The Nopal I uranium deposit is located in the Sierra del Pena Blanca …

The significance of the Pena Blanca uranium deposits in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico as potential natural analogs for a nuclear waste repository in unsaturated welded tuff was first recognized in the 1980s. In the 1970s, the Pena Blanca region was a major target of uranium exploration and exploitation by the Mexican government. Since then the Nopal I uranium deposit has been studied extensively by researchers in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe. The Nopal I deposit represents an environment similar to that of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in many ways. Both are located in semi-arid regions. Both are located in Tertiary rhyolitic tuffs overlying carbonate rocks that have been subjected to basin and range-style tectonic deformation. Both are located in a chemically oxidizing, unsaturated zone 200 m or more above the water table. The alteration of uraninite to secondary minerals at Nopal I may be similar to the alteration of uranium fuel rods in this type of setting. Investigations at Nopal I and in the surrounding Sierra Pena Blanca have included detailed outcrop mapping, hydrologic and isotopic studies of flow and transport, studies of mineral alteration, modeling, and performance assessment.