The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is required to provide assistance to 20 specified agricultural commodities, to achieve three primary objectives: to support prices, supplement incomes, and manage supplies. Supporters contend that financial help to the farm sector also ensures consumers an abundant supply of reasonably priced food. But critics believe that basic U.S. farm policies, conceived in the 1930s, no longer meet the needs of modern agriculture or society as a whole. This report discusses the various programs available for different commodities.

Under an agreement announced in January 1991, the Government of Japan committed itself to increase substantially the amount of support that it provides for U.S. military forces based there. Among other things, Japan agreed by 1995 to absorb 100 percent of the cost of Japanese nationals employed at U.S. military facilities and to pay for all utilities supplied to U.S. bases, to increase the amount of military and family housing construction that it is providing to support U.S. forces, to continue to provide facilities at no charge to the United States and to waive taxes and fees that might otherwise apply to U.S. activities.

Early in the post-Cold War era, the willingness of the United States to use military force was tested by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. U.S. actions and those of allied nations suggested that the international community had the will and ability to respond to serious aggressions and some other threats to international order. The United States appeared to be showing the way toward a post-Cold War international system whose demonstrated ability to respond to such threats was expected to deter at least some of them.

The new post-Cold War world and the role of the United States will be shaped by action on a wide variety of foreign policy and defense issues. The 104th Congress will debate many of these issues and help determine the outcome as it considers the National Security Act proposed by House Republicans in the Contract with America and takes up bills on foreign policy and defense agencies, programs, and budgets.

This report is on The issue for 18 mahogany species is whether any qualifies for regulation under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). (1) Pessimists on this issue say "yes," while optimists see the abundance of species in parts of their range and therefore say "no." Both camps question the accuracy of data supplied by the other side. Both agree that the presence of mahogany trees may provide local governments with an incentive to retain rain forests, especially since mahogany cultivation has not been particularly successful.

The Forest Service sells some timber at prices that are less than the agency costs to administer the timber program. This report discusses these "below-cost" timber sales that have been debated by Congress for more than a decade, but no policy to address the issue has been adopted legislatively or administratively.

Kim Il Sung died on July 8, 1994, the only leader North Korea had since its founding in 1948. His death raises several questions about future stability and the strong U.S. interests on the Korean Peninsula.

This report reviews data that the Administration has provided to Congress on the costs of U.S. forces based abroad and on the value of host nation support contributions. It analyzes the data in order to assess potential defense budget savings from measures now under congressional consideration. The report concludes that, because of shortcomings in the data, estimates of savings in the U.S. defense budget from increased host nation contributions are often overstated. Some commonly accepted assertions frequently cited in the congressional burdensharing debate, therefore, are of doubtful validity.

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.

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.

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.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: What court is the proper forum for prosecutions brought under House Bill 1084, Acts 1993, 73d Leg., ch. 88, at 175-76 (RQ-629)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Tarrant County criminal district court bailiffs must be licensed by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education, whether the bailiffs may carry firearms, and related questions.

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a municipality lying within the territory of a municipal utility district is authorized to require the district to obtain its permission before commencing construction or maintenance work within the area of both entities (ID# 23394)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a commissioners court is authorized to require a county purchasing agent to make purchases by and for a county-wide hospital district (RQ-506)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Authority of municipal police to enforce truancy laws, and related questions (ID# 24829)

Calculations of indirect drive Inertial Confinement Fusion target experiments require an integrated approach in which laser irradiation and radiation transport in the hohlraum are solved simultaneously with the symmetry, implosion and burn of the fuel capsule. The Implicit Monte Carlo method has proved to be a valuable tool for the two dimensional radiation transport within the hohlraum, but the impact of statistical noise on the symmetric implosion of the small fuel capsule is difficult to overcome. We present an angular biasing technique in which an increased number of low weight photons are directed at the imploding capsule. For typical parameters this reduces the required computer time for an integrated calculation by a factor of 10. An additional factor of 5 can also be achieved by directing even smaller weight photons at the polar regions of the capsule where small mass zones are most sensitive to statistical noise.

In the July 19, 1988, Federal Register [52 FR 27290] the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule that conditionally exempted waste samples used in small-scale treatability studies from regulation under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The final rule was intended to promote the development of new technologies for the treatment of hazardous wastes. However, in order to minimize danger to human health and the environment, it also imposed limitations and conditions on the amount of wastes that may be exempted from RCRA Subtitle C regulations for use in treatability studies. On July 7, 1993, EPA proposed amendments to the existing regulations that would increase the quantity limits for certain types of waste. In addition, EPA proposed to extend the period of time for which laboratories may conduct treatability studies involving bioremediation technologies from 1 year to 2 years. This bulletin summarizes the provisions of the revised rule.

This report describes the development of an invention for measuring the concentration of ozone by measuring the heat evolved when the ozone is catalyzed and converted back to oxygen. This ozone monitor evolved through a number of prototype as described in the final report. The final instrument is accurate, reliable and can be installed as a part of a control system. This instrument can be built and calibrated for any necessary specific ozone concentration range. This instrument uses inexpensive parts and would be simple to maintain. the manufacturing cost is less than any equally reliable and accurate ozone monitor presently available. The advantage this system has is that the ozone is directly measured as the temperature of the catalyst. It does not need UV lamps (which continually degrade in use and have a variable life) or use any chemistry where a material is continuously used up. This new ozone monitor directly measures the heat that is generated from the ozone as it converts back into oxygen as the gas mixture flows through the catalyst. The catalyst has theocratically an infinite life. It can clog if the system it is installed in, is dusty. But in systems that produce ozone, it …

This Acceptance Test Report (ATR) documents the results of acceptance testing of a newly upgraded compressed air system at 241-U Farm. The system was installed and the test successfully performed under work package 2W-92-01027.

Under the sponsorship of the US Department of Energy`s (DOE`s) Transportation Management Division (EM-261), the Transportation Technologies Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has designed and developed an expert system prototype application of the hazardous materials transportation regulations. The objective of this task was to provide a proof-of-concept for developing a computerized expert system that will ensure straightforward, consistent, and error-free application of the hazardous materials transportation regulations. The expert system prototype entailed the analysis of what an expert in hazardous materials shipping information could/should do. From the analysis of the different features required for the expert system prototype, it was concluded that the developmental efforts should be directed to a Windows{trademark} 3.1 hypermedia environment. Hypermedia technology usually works as an interactive software system that gives personal computer users the ability to organize, manage, and present information in a number of formats--text, graphics, sound, and full-motion video.

This report summarized the results of structural evaluations conducted for the three high-level waste storage tanks, filtration building, and four above ground transfer lines associated with the ITP facility. The evaluations are performed to assure that demands resulting from normal operating and natural phenomena hazard loads do not exceed the structural capacities when evaluated to current criteria and the revised usage classifications.

This paper describes recent development of the UEDGE code in three important areas. (1) Non-orthogonal grids allow accurate treatment of experimental geometries in which divertor plates intersect flux surfaces at oblique angles. (2) Radating impurities are included by means of one or more continuity equations that describe transport and sources, and sinks due to ionization and recombination processes. (3) Advanced iterative methods that reduce storage and execution time allow us to find fully converged solutions of larger problems (i.e., finer grids). Sample calculations are presented to illustrate these development.

The PI of this research program came to Cornell University from Hannover (Germany) in July 1987. Beginning in Fall 1987 a new research group and a new research facilities were built up at Cornell. The program {open_quotes}Defects and Transport in Mixed Oxides{close_quotes} was started in July 1988. The last progress report for this program was written on September 30, 1993 and submitted to DOE with the last renewal proposal. Significant progress has been made in the areas of: (i) the nonstoichiometry of quasi-binary spinels, (ii) the cation tracer diffusion in oxide solid solutions of the type (Fe,Me){sub 3{minus}{delta}}O{sub 4}, (iii) the Monte-Carlo simulation of the cation diffusion in spinel solid solutions, (iv) interdiffusion measurements in the spinel solution (Fe,Mn){sub 3{minus}{delta}}O{sub 4}, and (v) defect-related properties of Co{sub 1{minus}{delta}}O.