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At DOE’s request, ORAU conducted confirmatory surveys of the K-33 sub-slab soil during the period of August 2011 through May 2012. The survey activities included visual inspections and measurement and sampling activities. LSRS was forthcoming with information relating to surface scan results. Scans performed by the contractor were of adequate coverage and overall data appear to represent actual site conditions. However, the LSRS technicians failed to identify several areas of elevated direct gamma radiation. Most of the samples taken by ORAU at locations of elevated instrument response were above the remediation concentration for one or more radionuclides of concern (ROC). The contractor was, however, quick to perform additional remediation of areas identified to have contamination above the guidelines. Further investigation by ORAU was not requested once additional remediation was completed. It is presumed the remediation contractor’s future PCCR will present detailed and conclusive evidence that K-33 sub-slab soils either comply or do not comply with record of decision (ROD) criteria. However, ORAU concludes, based on both independent verification (IV) data and data provided by LSRS, that the remediation contractor followed appropriate and applicable procedures and that the associated data adequately represent site conditions.

This report provides background on the Congress-EP relationship and the role of the TLD. It also explores potential future options should an effort to strengthen ties between the two bodies gain momentum.

This report discusses the current political and foreign policy status of Morocco, especially with regard to its relationship with the United States and its struggles combating terrorism.

Some concerns regarding Senegal include the running of the current Senegalese President for a third term and U.S. financial assistance. The United States has viewed Senegal as an anchor of regional stability and a potential partner in combating transnational security threats, such as terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and maritime piracy. Senegal is a significant contributor of troops to international peacekeeping missions, and thousands of Senegalese peacekeepers have received U.S. training through the State Department's Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program. Congress plays a role in guiding U.S. policy toward Senegal through its authorization, appropriation, and oversight of foreign assistance and executive branch policies.

This report discusses how the total debt of the federal government can increase, an historical overview of debt limits, and how the current economic slowdown has led to higher deficits and thereby a series of debt limit increases, as well as legislation related to these increases.

We have studied the use of a metallic pipe with small corrugations for the purpose of passively dechirping, through its wakefield, a short, intense electron bunch. The corrugated pipe is attractive for this purpose because its wake: (i) has near maximal possible amplitude for a given aperture and (ii) has a relatively large oscillation wave length, even when the aperture is small. We showed how the corrugated structure can satisfy dechirping requirements encountered in the NGLS project at LBNL. We found that a linear chirp of -40 MeV/mm can be induced by an NGLS-like beam, by having it pass through a corrugated, metallic pipe of radius 3 mm, length 8.2 m, and corrugation parameters full depth 450 {mu}m and period 1000 {mu}m. This structure is about 15 times as effective in the role of dechirper as an S-band accelerator structure used passively.

The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) will use colemanite bearing concrete neutron absorber panels credited with attenuating neutron flux in the criticality design analyses and shielding operators from radiation. The Savannah River National Laboratory is tasked with measuring the total density, partial hydrogen density, and partial boron density of the colemanite concrete. Sample PBC-44.2 was received on 9/20/2012 and analyzed. The average total density measured by the ASTM method C 642 was 2.03 g/cm{sup 3}, within the lower bound of 1.88 g/cm3. The average partial hydrogen density was 6.64E-02 g/cm{sup 3} as measured using method ASTM E 1311 and met the lower bound of 6.04E-02 g/cm{sup 3}. The average measured partial boron density was 1.70E-01 g/cm{sup 3} which met the lower bound of 1.65E-01 g/cm{sup 3} measured by the ASTM C 1301 method.

The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) will use colemanite bearing concrete neutron absorber panels credited with attenuating neutron flux in the criticality design analyses and shielding operators from radiation. The Savannah River National Laboratory is tasked with measuring the total density, partial hydrogen density, and partial boron density of the colemanite concrete. Samples poured 8/29/12 were received on 9/20/2012 and analyzed. The average total density of each of the samples measured by the ASTM method C 642 was within the lower bound of 1.88 g/cm{sup 3}. The average partial hydrogen density of samples 8.6.1, 8.7.1, and 8.5.3 as measured using method ASTM E 1311 met the lower bound of 6.04E-02 g/cm{sup 3}. The average measured partial boron density of each sample met the lower bound of 1.65E-01 g/cm{sup 3} measured by the ASTM C 1301 method. The average partial hydrogen density of samples 8.5.1, 8.6.3, and 8.7.3 did not meet the lower bound. The samples, as received, were not wrapped in a moist towel as previous samples and appeared to be somewhat drier. This may explain the lower hydrogen partial density with respect to previous samples.

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This report discusses the use of wind as a power source, including: production tax credits (PTC), U.S. electricity demand growth, and the price of natural gas. Issues for Congress include whether or not the PTC will be extended.

This report contains information on the pay procedure and recent adjustments. It also contains historical information on the rate of pay for Members of Congress since 1789; the adjustments projected by the Ethics Reform Act as compared to actual adjustments in Member pay; details on past legislation enacted with language prohibiting the annual pay adjustment; and Member pay in constant and current dollars since 1992.

U.S. employers in various industries argue that they need to hire foreign workers to perform lower-skilled jobs, while others maintain that many of these positions could be filled by U.S. workers. While the discussion of current guest worker programs in this report focuses on the H-2A and H- 2B visas, it also covers the Summer Work Travel (SWT) program, the largest of several programs under the J-1 visa for participants in work- and study-based exchange visitor programs. The SWT program is particularly relevant because participants work largely in unskilled jobs, including H-2B-like seasonal jobs at resorts and amusement parks.

The massive Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, caused extensive damage in northeastern Japan, including damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power installation, which resulted in the release of radiation. Concerns have arisen about the potential effects of this released radiation on the U.S. marine environment and resources. This report discusses these concerns.

The report discusses the board committee, advisory committees, fees, CCP Rules, Committee recommendations, Protection of Assets etc.

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In order to enhance the resilience of the Nation and its ability to protect itself in the face of natural and human-caused hazards, the ability of the critical infrastructure (CI) system to withstand specific threats and return to normal operations after degradation must be determined. To fully analyze the resilience of a region and the CI that resides within it, both the actual resilience of the individual CI and the capability of the Emergency Services Sector (ESS) to protect against and respond to potential hazards need to be considered. Thus, a regional resilience approach requires the comprehensive consideration of all parts of the CI system as well as the characterization of emergency services. This characterization must generate reproducible results that can support decision making with regard to risk management, disaster response, business continuity, and community planning and management. To address these issues, Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sector Specific Agency - Executive Management Office, developed a comprehensive methodology to create an Emergency Services Sector Capabilities Index (ESSCI). The ESSCI is a performance metric that ranges from 0 (low level of capabilities) to 100 (high). Because an emergency services program has a high …

This report discusses how Congress has focused on ways to help end or mitigate the effects of conflicts and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including several hearingw which have become law. The main issue is related to "conflict minerals," the so-called “3TGs”: ores of tantalum and niobium, tin, tungsten, and gold, and their derivatives.

This report reviews the types of air emissions from livestock and poultry operations and their human health and environmental impacts. It then discusses provisions of several federal laws concerned with environmental impacts, beginning with the Clean Water Act, because protecting water resources has been the primary regulatory focus regarding livestock and animal operations.

From an environmental quality standpoint, much of the interest in animal agriculture has focused on impacts on water resources, because animal waste, if not properly managed, can harm water quality through surface runoff, direct discharges, spills, and leaching into soil and groundwater. A more recent issue is the contribution of emissions from animal feeding operations (AFO), enterprises where animals are raised in confinement, to air pollution. AFOs can affect air quality through emissions of gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, hazardous air pollutants, and odor. These pollutants and compounds have a number of environmental and human health effects. This report reviews key issues associated with the Air Compliance Agreement.

The report is categorized into four categories: (I) CERLA and EPCRA, (II) Enforcement Against AFO's, (III) Congressional Interest and (IV) Policy Issue.

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Recently the new ENDF/B-VII.1 library was released; this completely replaces the earlier ENDF/B-VII.0 library. One of the first questions we ask about a new library is: What's Different? Here I attempt to at least partially answer this question. I present results in both tabulated form (so you can quickly determine if any evaluations of interest to you have changed), and graphic form (so that you can see how much evaluations have changed and in what energy ranges). For the table I have compared what I refer to as the ENDF neutron data, namely MF=1 through 6. Here I did a character-by-character comparison of the same sections (MF/MT) that appear I both ENDF/B-VII.0 and VII.1; here I found differences in 170 evaluations. For the plots I have only compared the total cross sections for all evaluations that are common to both libraries, and I found that of the 423 evaluations in ENDF/B-VII.1, 120 of these have total cross sections that differ by 1% or more from the evaluation of the same isotope in ENDF/B-VII.0. This should be considered only a preliminary comparison; obviously there can be more subtle important differences that do not effect of total cross sections. Here I present …

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