In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), also known as the McCain-Feingold law, establishing increased contribution limits for congressional candidates whose opponents significantly self-finance their campaigns. This provision is frequently referred to as the "Millionaire's Amendment." The Court found that the burden imposed on expenditures of personal funds is not justified by the compelling governmental interest of lessening corruption or the appearance of corruption and, therefore, held that the law is unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Reserve Board's (FRB) Regulation B, which implements the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (ECOA), generally prohibits lenders from collecting certain data from loan applicants, such as their race or gender, for nonmortgage loans (e.g., small business loans). FRB has stated that this provision of Regulation B minimizes the chances that lenders would use such data in an unlawful and discriminatory manner. However, others argue that the prohibition limits the capacity of researchers and regulators to identify possible discrimination in nonmortgage lending. This testimony is based on the GAO report, Fair Lending: Race and Gender Data Are Limited for Nonmortgage Lending (GAO-08-698, June 27, 2008). Specifically, GAO analyzes (1) studies on possible discrimination in nonmortgage lending and the data used in them, (2) FRB's 2003 decision to retain the prohibition of voluntary data collection, and (3) the benefits and costs of a data collection and reporting requirement. For this work, GAO conducted a literature review; reviewed FRB documents; analyzed issues involving the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), which requires lenders to collect and publicly report data on personal characteristics for mortgage loan applicants; and interviewed FRB …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program is intended to provide federal contracting opportunities to qualified small business firms in order to stimulate development in economically distressed areas. As manager of the HUBZone program, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is responsible for certifying whether firms meet HUBZone program requirements. To participate in the HUBZone program, small business firms must certify that their principal office (i.e., the location where the greatest number of employees work) is located in a HUBZone and that at least 35 percent of the firm's employees live in HUBZones. Given the Committee's concern over fraud and abuse in the HUBZone program, GAO was asked to (1) proactively test whether SBA's controls over the HUBZone application process were operating effectively to limit program certification to eligible firms and (2) identify examples of selected firms that participate in the HUBZone program even though they do not meet eligibility requirements. To perform its proactive testing, GAO created four bogus businesses with fictitious owners and employees and applied for HUBZone certification. GAO also selected 17 HUBZone firms based on certain criteria, such as receipt of HUBZone contracts, and investigated …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration's (SBA) Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program provides federal contracting assistance to small firms located in economically distressed areas, with the intent of stimulating economic development. Questions have been raised about whether the program is targeting the locations and businesses that Congress intended to assist. This testimony focuses on (1) the criteria and process that SBA uses to identify and map HUBZone areas; (2) the mechanisms SBA uses to ensure that only eligible small businesses participate in the program; and (3) the actions SBA has taken to assess the results of the program and the extent to which federal agencies have met HUBZone contracting goals. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed statutory provisions as well as SBA, Census, and contracting data and interviewed SBA and other federal and local officials."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "About 43,000 traffic fatalities occur annually, and another 290,000 people are seriously injured on the nation's roads. To reduce these numbers, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) nearly doubled funding for the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), authorizing $5.1 billion for 2006 through 2009. SAFETEA-LU also added requirements for states to develop strategic highway safety plans that cover all aspects of highway safety, including infrastructure, behavioral (education and enforcement), and emergency medical services projects; develop crash data analysis systems; and publicly report on the top 5 percent of hazardous locations on all their public roads. SAFETEA-LU also set aside funds for a legacy rail-highway crossing program and a new high-risk rural road program. This testimony provides preliminary information on the implementation of HSIP since SAFETEA-LU. It is based on ongoing work that addresses (1) states' implementation of HSIP following SAFETEA-LU, (2) FHWA's guidance and assistance for states, and (3) results of HSIP to date, including for the two set-aside programs. To conduct this study, GAO visited 6 states, judgmentally selected based on highway safety attributes, analyzed plans …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past several years, a serious effort has begun to comprehensively reevaluate how the United States maintains its nuclear deterrent and what the nation's approach should be for transforming its aging nuclear weapons complex. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), is responsible for overseeing this weapons complex, which comprises three nuclear weapons design laboratories, four production plants, and the Nevada Test Site. In December 2007, NNSA issued a draft report on potential environmental impacts of alternative actions to transform the nuclear weapons complex, which NNSA refers to as Complex Transformation. NNSA's preferred action is to establish a number of "distributed centers of excellence" at sites within the existing nuclear weapons complex, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory for plutonium capabilities, the Y-12 Plant for uranium capabilities, and the Pantex Plant for weapons assembly, disassembly, and high explosives manufacturing. NNSA would continue to operate these facilities to maintain and refurbish the existing nuclear weapons stockpile as it makes the transition to a smaller, more responsive infrastructure. GAO was asked to discuss NNSA's Complex Transformation proposal. This testimony is …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "New Orleans faces many challenges in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina including the challenge of reestablishing the health care system and hospitals within the system. Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, and the subsequent flooding caused by the failure of the New Orleans levee systems, resulted in the sudden closure, damage, or disruption in services at many of the New Orleans hospitals. On August 1, 2007, officials representing five New Orleans hospitals that have been the main health care providers in the region since the hurricane, testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The officials stated that since the hurricane they have experienced significant operating losses and that they expect the losses to continue. The official from one of the hospitals that was designated to present an overview of the specific problems facing the five hospitals stated in his testimony that the hospitals expected to experience a combined operating loss of $135 million in calendar year 2007. This operating loss estimate was calculated using operating revenue and expense amounts for all five hospitals for January through May 2007 …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) provides loans, loan guarantees, and insurance to support U.S. exports, and its support for small businesses has been a long-standing issue of congressional interest. Most recently in 2006, Congress required Ex-Im to develop, and GAO to review, performance standards for Ex-Im's assistance to small businesses, especially those owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and by women. In response to the mandate, GAO evaluated the extent to which Ex-Im's standards address the functions referred to in the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2006's (2006 Reauthorization Act) requirement for performance standards; how well Ex-Im is measuring its achievement of the standards, including those related to small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and by women; and Ex-Im's use of performance information to improve operations and results."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures the retirement future of over 44 million people. As a federal guarantor of private defined benefit plans, PBGC finances its operations through insurance premiums, investment income, and funds from terminated pension plans. PBGC is governed by a board of directors comprised of the Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, and Treasury, who are responsible for providing policy direction and oversight but often rely on board representatives. In 2004, PBGC began reviewing its investment policy biennially and recently decided to broaden the range of asset classes in which it invests. GAO reviewed PBGC's procedures for developing and implementing its investment policies, and examined PBGC's most recent investment policy. To address these issues, GAO reviewed and analyzed PBGC policies and data, assessed the analysis informing the recent policy change, and interviewed agency officials and other experts."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "At the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, the United States and more than 180 world leaders pledged to halve the total number of undernourished people worldwide from the 1990 level---a commitment that they reaffirmed in 2000 when they established the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which included a target to halve the proportion or the percentage of the world's population that is undernourished by 2015. More than a decade later, however, the number of undernourished people has not decreased significantly, and about 850 million people, including 170 million children, remain undernourished, according to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Furthermore, the number of undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa has increased from about 170 million in the period of 1990 to 1992 to over 200 million in the period of 2001 to 2003. Since early 2007, food-related riots have occurred in 15 countries, including 7 in sub-Saharan Africa, leading both the UN Secretary-General and the head of the World Food Program (WFP) to express concern about the impact of chronic undernourishment, or food insecurity, on world peace and security. In January 2008, world leaders meeting …

This report addresses the concern about the health of the U.S. economy regarding the depreciation of the dollar and examines the likely reasons for the dollar's fall, the effects the depreciating currency could have on the economy, and possible policy responses that could be considered to attempt to alter the dollar's path if needed.

This report is a guide to one of the regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense. This report summarizes the status of defense authorization and appropriation bills, their scope, major issues, funding levels, and related congressional activity.

This report begins with a brief outline of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) statute and the regulations. It also assesses the costs and the benefits of the 1977 act. The report then turns to regulatory agencies’ recent CRA compliance rules. The two last sections of the report briefly summarize the provisions of the Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2007 and conclude with some implications.

This report addresses issues for Congress and Policy options related to Foreign Aid Reform.

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Contamination of downstream hydrogen production plants or other users of high-temperature heat is a concern of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project. Due to the high operating temperatures of the NGNP (850-900 C outlet temperature), tritium produced in the nuclear reactor can permeate through heat exchangers to reach the hydrogen production plant, where it can become incorporated into process chemicals or the hydrogen product. The concentration limit for tritium in the hydrogen product has not been established, but it is expected that any future limit on tritium concentration will be no higher than the air and water effluent limits established by the NRC and the EPA. A literature survey of tritium permeation barriers, capture systems, and mitigation measures is presented and technologies are identified that may reduce the movement of tritium to the downstream plant. Among tritium permeation barriers, oxide layers produced in-situ may provide the most suitable barriers, though it may be possible to use aluminized surfaces also. For tritium capture systems, the use of getters is recommended, and high-temperature hydride forming materials such as Ti, Zr, and Y are suggested. Tritium may also be converted to HTO in order to capture it on molecular sieves or getter …

The Nevada Test Site (NTS) is a test bed for implementation of the Safeguards First Principles Initiative (SFPI), a risk-based approach to Material Control & Accountability (MC&A) requirements. The Comprehensive Assessment of Safeguards Strategies (COMPASS) model is used to determine the effectiveness of safeguards systems under SFPI. Under this model, MC&A is divided into nine primary elements. Each element is divided into sub-elements. Then, each sub-element is assigned two values, effectiveness and contribution, that are used to calculate the rating. Effectiveness is a measure of sub-element implementation and how well it meets requirements. Contribution is a relative measure of the importance, and functions as a weighting factor. The COMPASS model provides the methodology for calculation of element and subelement, but not the actual criteria. Each site must develop its own criteria. For the rating to be meaningful, the effectiveness criteria must be objective and based on explicit, measurable criteria. Contribution (weights) must reflect the importance within the MC&A program. This paper details the NTS approach to system effectiveness and contribution values, and will cover the following: the basis for the ratings, an explanation of the contribution weights, and the objective, performance-based effectiveness criteria. Finally, the evaluation process will be described.

The supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO{sub 2}) Brayton cycle is under development at Argonne National Laboratory as an advanced power conversion technology for Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors (SFRs) as well as other Generation IV advanced reactors as an alternative to the traditional Rankine steam cycle. For SFRs, the S-CO{sub 2} Brayton cycle eliminates the need to consider sodium-water reactions in the licensing and safety evaluation, reduces the capital cost of the SFR plant, and increases the SFR plant efficiency. Even though the S-CO{sub 2} cycle has been under development for some time and optimal sets of operating parameters have been determined, those earlier development and optimization studies have largely been directed at applications to other systems such as gas-cooled reactors which have higher operating temperatures than SFRs. In addition, little analysis has been carried out to investigate cycle configurations deviating from the selected 'recompression' S-CO{sub 2} cycle configuration. In this work, several possible ways to improve S-CO{sub 2} cycle performance for SFR applications have been identified and analyzed. One set of options incorporates optimization approaches investigated previously, such as variations in the maximum and minimum cycle pressure and minimum cycle temperature, as well as a tradeoff between the component sizes and the …

This study evaluates parameters relevant to River Protection Project secondary waste streams generated during Early Low Activity Waste operations and recommends a strategy for secondary waste management that considers groundwater impact, cost, and programmatic risk. The recommended strategy for managing River Protection Project secondary waste is focused on improvements in the Effiuent Treatment Facility. Baseline plans to build a Solidification Treatment Unit adjacent to Effluent Treatment Facility should be enhanced to improve solid waste performance and mitigate corrosion of tanks and piping supporting the Effiuent Treatment Facility evaporator. This approach provides a life-cycle benefit to solid waste performance and reduction of groundwater contaminants.

A new rapid separation method for radiostrontium in emergency milk samples was developed at the Savannah River Site (SRS) Environmental Bioassay Laboratory (Aiken, SC, USA) that will allow rapid separation and measurement of Sr-90 within 8 hours. The new method uses calcium phosphate precipitation, nitric acid dissolution of the precipitate to coagulate residual fat/proteins and a rapid strontium separation using Sr Resin (Eichrom Technologies, Darien, IL, USA) with vacuum-assisted flow rates. The method is much faster than previous method that use calcination or cation exchange pretreatment, has excellent chemical recovery, and effectively removes beta interferences. When a 100 ml sample aliquot is used, the method has a detection limit of 0.5 Bq/L, well below generic emergency action levels.

California's target for greenhouse gas reduction in part relies on the development of viable low-carbon fuel alternatives to gasoline. It is often assumed that cellulosic ethanol--ethanol made from the structural parts of a plant and not from the food parts--will be one of these alternatives. This study examines the physical viability of a switchgrass-based cellulosic ethanol industry in California from the point of view of the physical requirements of land, water, energy and other material use. Starting from a scenario in which existing irrigated pastureland and fiber-crop land is converted to switchgrass production, the analysis determines the total acreage and water supply available and the resulting total biofuel feedstock output under different assumed yields. The number and location of cellulosic ethanol biorefineries that can be supported is also determined, assuming that the distance from field to biorefinery would be minimized. The biorefinery energy input requirement, available energy from the fraction of biomass not converted to ethanol, and energy output is calculated at various levels of ethanol yields, making different assumptions about process efficiencies. The analysis shows that there is insufficient biomass (after cellulose separation and fermentation into ethanol) to provide all the process energy needed to run the biorefinery; hence, …

Most current scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) have the ability to analyze samples in a low vacuum mode, whereby a partial pressure of water vapor is introduced into the SEM chamber, allowing the characterization of nonconductive samples without any special preparation. Although the presence of water vapor in the chamber degrades electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) patterns, the potential of this setup for EBSD characterization of nonconductive samples is immense. In this chapter we discuss the requirements, advantages and limitations of low vacuum EBSD (LV-EBSD), and present how this technique can be applied to a two-phase ceramic composite as well as hydrated biominerals as specific examples of when LV-EBSD can be invaluable.