A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Most lobbyists were able to provide documentation to demonstrate compliance with disclosure requirements. This finding is similar to GAO’s results from prior reviews. There are no specific requirements for lobbyists to create or maintain documentation related to disclosure reports they file under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 as amended (LDA). Nonetheless, and similar to last year’s results, for two key elements of the reports (income and expenses), GAO estimates that lobbyists could provide documentation to support approximately 93 percent of the disclosure reports for the third and fourth quarters of 2010 and the first and second quarters of 2011. According to documentation lobbyists provided for income and expenses, GAO estimates that the amounts disclosed were properly reported and supported for 63 percent of the quarterly lobbying disclosure (LD-2) reports. For lobbyists and lobbying firms listed on the LD-2 report, an estimated 86 percent filed year-end 2010 or midyear 2011 reports of federal political campaign contributions (LD-203) reports as required. For LD-203 political contributions reports, GAO estimates that a minimum of 4 percent of all LD-203 reports omitted one or more reportable political contributions that were …

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai, to address corruption within the Afghan government. The report also includes discussion of election fraud and corruption in Afghanistan.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO’s analysis of the Office of Air and Marine (OAM) data found that OAM met 73 percent of the 38,662 air support requests and 88 percent of the 9,913 marine support requests received in fiscal year 2010. The level of support differed by location, customers, and type of mission. For example, in its northern region OAM met air support requests 77 percent of the time and in its southeast region, it met these requests 60 percent of the time. The main reasons for unmet air and marine support requests were maintenance and adverse weather, respectively. OAM has taken actions, such as developing an aircraft modernization plan and purchasing all-weather vessels, to address these issues."

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Congress has long been concerned about whether U.S. policy advances the national interest in reducing the role of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles that could deliver them. China has taken some steps to mollify U.S. concerns about its role in weapons proliferation. Skeptics question whether China's cooperation in weapons nonproliferation has warranted President Bush's pursuit of stronger bilateral ties. This report discusses the national security problem of China's role in weapons proliferation and issues related to the U.S. policy response, including legislation, since the mid-1990s.

The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) carried out a small-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) injection test in a sandstone within the Clore Formation (Mississippian System, Chesterian Series) in order to gauge the large-scale CO2 storage that might be realized from enhanced oil recovery (EOR) of mature Illinois Basin oil fields via miscible liquid CO2 flooding. As part of the MGSC’s Validation Phase (Phase II) studies, the small injection pilot test was conducted at the Bald Unit site within the Mumford Hills Field in Posey County, southwestern Indiana, which was chosen for the project on the basis of site infrastructure and reservoir conditions. Geologic data on the target formation were extensive. Core analyses, porosity and permeability data, and geophysical logs from 40 wells were used to construct cross sections and structure contour and isopach maps in order to characterize and define the reservoir architecture of the target formation. A geocellular model of the reservoir was constructed to improve understanding of CO2 behavior in the subsurface. At the time of site selection, the Field was under secondary recovery through edge-water injection, but the wells selected for the pilot in the Bald Unit had been temporarily shut-in for several years. The most recently shut-in …

Mixed Electron and Carbonate ion Conductor (MECC) membranes have been proposed as a means to separate CO{sub 2} from power plant flue gas. Here a modified MECC CO{sub 2} capture process is analyzed that supplements retentate pressurization and permeate evacuation as a means to create a CO{sub 2} driving force with a process assisted by the catalytic combustion of syngas on the permeate side of the membrane. The combustion reactions consume transported oxygen, making it unavailable for the backwards transport reaction. With this change, the MECC capture system becomes exothermic, and steam for electricity production may be generated from the waste heat. Greater than 90% of the CO{sub 2} in the flue gas may be captured, and a compressed CO{sub 2} product stream is produced. A fossil-fueled power plant using this process would consume 14% more fuel per unit electricity produced than a power plant with no CO{sub 2} capture system, and has the potential to meet U.S. DOE's goal that deployment of a CO{sub 2} capture system at a fossil-fueled power plant should not increase the cost of electricity from the combined facility by more than 30%.

The main goal (long term) of this work is to perform computational dynamics analysis and quantify uncertainty from vector fields computed directly from measured data. Global analysis based on observed spatiotemporal evolution is performed by objective function based on expected physics and informed scientific priors, variational optimization to compute vector fields from measured data, and transport analysis proceeding with observations and priors. A mathematical formulation for computing flow fields is set up for computing the minimizer for the problem. An application to oceanic flow based on sea surface temperature is presented.

This report is categorized into seven categories: (I) Background, (II) Member Mail Allowances, (III) Regulation, (IV) Costs, (V) Legislation in the 112th Congress, (VI) Legislation in the 111th Congress and (VII) Legislation in the 110th Congress.

This report seeks to provide an overview of Congress's ability to participate in litigation before Article III courts.

The purpose of this project was to provide administrative and technical support for the completion of energy efficiency projects that reduce energy intensity and create or save Wisconsin industrial jobs. All projects have been completed. Details in the attached reports include project management, job development, and energy savings for each project.

This report contains the information about The Davis-Bacon Act. It further discusses the comparison of David-Bacon Prevailing Wages with Average Hourly Wages from the occupational employment statistics (OES) survey.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The following is a list of the specific data elements that we requested DOD provide an updated status as of December 31, 2011, for each of the ERPs."

The goal of this study is to demonstrate how a DPSS laser beam's quality parameters can be simultaneously optimized through pump current tuning. Two DPSS lasers of the same make and model were used where the laser diode pump current was first varied to ascertain the lowest RMS noise region. The lowest noise was found to be 0.13% in this region and the best M{sup 2} value of 1.0 and highest laser output power were simultaneously attained at the same current point. The laser manufacturer reported a M{sup 2} value of 1.3 and RMS noise value of .14% for these lasers. This study therefore demonstrates that pump current tuning a DPSS laser can simultaneously optimize RMS Noise, Power and M{sup 2} values. Future studies will strive to broaden the scope of the beam quality parameters impacted by current tuning.

This report discusses about the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 that authorizes most federal farm and food policies. It also discusses Programs Without Baseline After FY2012.

The discovery of bright gamma-ray emission coincident with supernova remnant (SNR) W51C is reported using the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. W51C is a middle-aged remnant ({approx}10{sup 4} yr) with intense radio synchrotron emission in its shell and known to be interacting with a molecular cloud. The gamma-ray emission is spatially extended, broadly consistent with the radio and X-ray extent of SNR W51C. The energy spectrum in the 0.2-50 GeV band exhibits steepening toward high energies. The luminosity is greater than 1 x 10{sup 36} erg s{sup -1} given the distance constraint of D > 5.5 kpc, which makes this object one of the most luminous gamma-ray sources in our Galaxy. The observed gamma-rays can be explained reasonably by a combination of efficient acceleration of nuclear cosmic rays at supernova shocks and shock-cloud interactions. The decay of neutral p mesons produced in hadronic collisions provides a plausible explanation for the gamma-ray emission. The product of the average gas density and the total energy content of the accelerated protons amounts to {bar n}{sub H} W{sub p} {approx_equal} 5 x 10{sup 51} (D/6 kpc){sup 2} erg cm{sup -3}. Electron density constraints from the radio and X-ray bands …

Observations by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi mission of diffuse {gamma}-rays in a mid-latitude region in the third quadrant (Galactic longitude l from 200{sup o} to 260{sup o} and latitude |b| from 22{sup o} to 60{sup o}) are reported. The region contains no known large molecular cloud and most of the atomic hydrogen is within 1 kpc of the solar system. The contributions of {gamma}-ray point sources and inverse Compton scattering are estimated and subtracted. The residual {gamma}-ray intensity exhibits a linear correlation with the atomic gas column density in energy from 100 MeV to 10 GeV. The measured integrated {gamma}-ray emissivity is (1.63 {+-} 0.05) x 10{sup -26} photons s{sup -1}sr{sup -1} H-atom{sup -1} and (0.66 {+-} 0.02) x 10{sup -26} photons s{sup -1}sr{sup -1} H-atom{sup -1} above 100 MeV and above 300 MeV, respectively, with an additional systematic error of {approx}10%. The differential emissivity from 100 MeV to 10 GeV agrees with calculations based on cosmic ray spectra consistent with those directly measured, at the 10% level. The results obtained indicate that cosmic ray nuclei spectra within 1 kpc from the solar system in regions studied are close to the local interstellar spectra inferred from …

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Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GPOs are subject to certain federal laws that HHS, DOJ, and FTC are responsible for enforcing. According to HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) officials, since 2004, the office has not routinely exercised its authority to request and review disclosures related to GPOs’ contract administrative fees, but it has collected information on GPOs’ contract administrative fees while conducting audits of hospitals’ cost reports. While HHS-OIG is responsible for enforcing the Anti-Kickback statute, the law and regulation do not require routine monitoring of GPO written agreements and disclosures. HHS-OIG officials told us that even if they requested this information from GPOs, it would not necessarily be sufficient to determine whether a GPO violated the Anti-Kickback statute. Officials from HHS-OIG also told us that, since 2004, it participated in two case investigations with DOJ that involved allegations that certain GPOs did not comply with safe harbor requirements and violated the Anti-Kickback statute. Officials told us that HHS-OIG has not imposed administrative penalties on any GPOs since 2004. DOJ and FTC have investigated complaints related to federal antitrust laws, and we identified one lawsuit filed by DOJ against a GPO in …

Mercury (Hg) has been identified as a 'persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic' pollutant with widespread impacts throughout North America and the world (EPA. 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 2000). Although most of the mercury in the environment is inorganic Hg, a small proportion of total Hg is transformed through the actions of aquatic microbes into methylmercury (MeHg). In contrast to virtually all other metals, MeHg biomagnifies or becomes increasingly concentrated as it is transferred through aquatic food chains so that the consumption of mercury contaminated fish is the primary route of this toxin to humans. For this reason, the ambient water quality criterion (AWQC) for mercury is based on a fish tissue endpoint rather than an aqueous Hg concentration, as the tissue concentration (e.g., < 0.3 {mu}g/g fillet) is considered to be a more consistent indicator of exposure and risk (EPA, 2001). Effective mercury remediation at point-source contaminated sites requires an understanding of the nature and magnitude of mercury inputs, and also knowledge of how these inputs must be controlled in order to achieve the desired reduction of mercury contamination in biota necessary for compliance with AWQC targets. One of the challenges to remediation is that mercury body burdens in fish are …

The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) Smart Meter Pilots provided invaluable information and experience for future deployments of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), including the deployment planned as part of LIPA’s Smart Grid Demonstration Project (DE-OE0000220). LIPA will incorporate lessons learned from this pilot in future deployments, including lessons relating to equipment performance specifications and testing, as well as equipment deployment and tracking issues. LIPA ultimately deployed three AMI technologies instead of the two that were originally contemplated. This enabled LIPA to evaluate multiple systems in field conditions with a relatively small number of meter installations. LIPA experienced a number of equipment and software issues that it did not anticipate, including issues relating to equipment integration, ability to upgrade firmware and software “over the air” (as opposed to physically interacting with every meter), and logistical challenges associated with tracking inventory and upgrade status of deployed meters. In addition to evaluating the technology, LIPA also piloted new Time-of-Use (TOU) rates to assess customer acceptance of time-differentiated pricing and to evaluate whether customers would respond by adjusting their activities from peak to non-peak periods. LIPA developed a marketing program to educate customers who received AMI in the pilot areas and to seek voluntary …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Certain financial incentive programs are permitted within the framework of federal fraud and abuse laws, but stakeholders GAO spoke with reported that the laws, regulations, and agency guidance have created challenges for program design and implementation. The Stark law and anti-kickback statute, which restrict financial relationships among providers, have statutory and regulatory exceptions and safe harbors, respectively, that permit financial incentive programs that meet specific criteria. However, there are no exceptions or safe harbors specifically for financial incentive programs intended to improve quality and efficiency, and legal experts reported that the constraints of existing exceptions and safe harbors make it difficult to design and implement a comprehensive program for all participating physicians and patient populations. The CMP law prohibits hospitals from paying physicians to reduce or limit services, and OIG has interpreted the law to apply to the reduction or limitation of any services, whether or not those services are medically necessary. The CMP law does not include statutory exceptions to this prohibition, and OIG does not have the authority to create exceptions through regulation. Through its advisory opinion process, OIG, however, has indicated that it …