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Historically, federal energy policy, including energy tax policy, promoted the development of oil and gas at the expense of alternative fuels and nonconventional forms of energy. Beginning in the 1970s, there was a shift in the focus of energy tax policy away from oil and gas toward energy conservation and toward the development of alternative fuels and nonconventional forms of energy.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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, Jim Mattox, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of a university to allocate space in a campus building to be used exclusively by a private group of faculty members (RQ-1845)

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, Jim Mattox, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Rules of the Industrial Accident Board (RQ-1813)

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 the food service contract for a county jail is subjective to competitive bidding and related questions (RQ-955)

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 the Harris County Hospital District to expend funds for the temporary housing of visiting army medical personnel (RQ-1067)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on the: (1) design components of retirement programs that states offer to their general employees and compared them to the design components of the two principal retirement programs for federal employees; and (2) changes states have considered and made to their retirement programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined various issues related to the safe operation of commercial nuclear power plants, focusing on: (1) some of the challenges that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear power industry could experience in a competitive environment; (2) issues that NRC needs to resolve to implement a risk-informed regulatory approach; and (3) the status of NRC's efforts to apply a risk-informed regulatory approach to two of its oversight programs--plant safety assessments and enforcement."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1997, focusing on whether the audit report complied with the financial reporting requirements of the law."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Jewish War Veterans, U.S.A., National Memorial, Incorporated, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1998, focusing on whether the audit report complied with the financial reporting requirements of the law."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1997, focusing on whether the audit report complied with the financial reporting requirements of the law."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO investigated alleged improper personnel practices by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) at the Addeliar D. Guy III VA Ambulatory Care Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, focusing on whether Dr. Anthony Salem maintained a hit list for the purpose of disciplining or terminating ambulatory center employees known to be strong advocates of health care for veterans."

Nearly half of the US utility-owned steam electric generating capacity is cooled by once-through cooling systems. These plants withdraw cooling water primarily from surface water bodies. Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act requires that the location, design, construction, and capacity of cooling water intake structures reflect the best technology available (BTA) for minimizing adverse environmental impacts. At present, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not yet promulgated applicable implementing regulations governing intake structures; however, the Agency is required by a Consent Decree to develop such regulations. EPA has presented a draft tiered regulatory framework approach that, depending on site-specific factors, may impose various regulatory burdens on affected utilities. Potential new requirements could range from compiling and submitting existing data to demonstrate that existing conditions at each unit represent BTA to retrofitting plants with closed-cycle cooling systems (primarily cooling towers). If the final regulations require installation of cooling towers or implementation of other costly plant modifications, utilities may elect to close some generating units rather than invest the finds necessary to upgrade them to meet the Section 316(b) requirements. Potentially, some regions of the country may then have a higher proportion of closed units than others, leading to a …

We present three preliminary results from SLD on B decays: an inclusive search for the process b {r_arrow} s gluon, a measurement of the branching ratio for the process B {r_arrow} D{bar D}X, and measurements of the charged and neutral B lifetimes. All three measurements make use of the excellent vertexing efficiency and resolution of the CCD Vertex Detector and the first two make use of the excellent particle identification capability of the Cherenkov Ring Imaging Detector. The b {r_arrow} sg analysis searches for an enhancement of high momentum charged kaons produced in B decays. Within the context of a simple, Jetset-inspired model of b {r_arrow} sg, a limit of B(b {r_arrow} sg) < 7.6% is obtained. The B(B {r_arrow} D{bar D}X) analysis reconstructs two secondary vertices and uses identified charged kaons to determine which of these came from charm decays. The result of the analysis is B(B {r_arrow} D{bar D}X) = (16.2 {+-} 1.9 {+-} 4.2)%. The results of the lifetime analysis are: {tau}{sub B{sup +}} = 1.686 {+-} 0.025 {+-} 0.042 ps, {tau}{sub B{sup 0}} = 1.589 {+-} 0.026 {+-} 0.055 ps and {tau}{sub B{sup +}}/{tau}{sub B{sup 0}} = 1.061 {+-} 0.031/0.029 {+-} 0.027.

This presentation covers the strategy and analysis of an experiment to characterize a gas tungsten arc welding process. The experiment combined four uncontrolled noise factors and four controlled process parameters. A nontraditional response surface design was employed. Multiple responses were modeled. Optimal settings for the process parameters to successfully weld the widest range of the pertinent product features were identified. Thus, the process was made ''robust'' against ''noise'' factors. Comparisons are made between the experimental and analytical approach taken versus the Taguchi style of experimentation and analysis. This comparison is mainly done with respect to the information gained, such as product design criteria, incoming material specifications, and process adjustments for nonconforming material.

In this report, we summarize recent work at LLNL on the compact torus (CT) acceleration project. The CT accelerator is a novel technique for projecting plasmas to high velocities and reaching high energy density states. The accelerator exploits magnetic confinement in the CT to stably transport plasma over large distances and to directed kinetic energies large in comparison with the CT internal and magnetic energy. Applications range from heating and fueling magnetic fusion devices, generation of intense pulses of x-rays or neutrons for weapons effects and high energy-density fusion concepts.

We summarize the status of next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) calculations of the cross sections for the production of squarks, gluinos, neutralinos, charginos, and sleptons as a function of the produced particle masses in proton-antiproton collisions at the hadronic center-of-mass energy 2 TeV.

This project deals with the demonstration of a coking process using proprietary technology of Calderon, with the following objectives geared to facilitate commercialization: (1) making coke of such quality as to be suitable for use in hard-driving, large blast furnaces; (2) providing proof that such process is continuous and environmentally closed to prevent emissions; (3) demonstrating that high-coking-pressure (non-traditional) coal blends which cannot be safely charged into conventional by-product coke ovens can be used in the Calderon process; and (4) demonstrating that coke can be produced economically, at a level competitive with coke imports. The activities of the past quarter were focused on the following: Consolidation of the team of stakeholders; Move the site for the commercial demonstration to LTV Steel, Cleveland, Ohio; Permitting for new site; Site specific engineering; Cost update of the project as it relates to the Cleveland location; FETC update; DCAA audit; and Updated endorsement of Calderon process by Ohio EPA and U.S. EPA, Region 5.

Options for air compliance through pollution prevention (P2) have been identified at 14 facilities of the US Air Force Materiel Command, ranging from depots with significant light industrial activity to laboratories. Previous P2 efforts concentrated on reducing hazardous and solid wastes, with any reduction in air impacts generally being a collateral benefit. This work focused on reducing air emissions and air compliance vulnerabilities. P2 options were identified in three stages. First, potentially applicable P2 options were identified from Internet and published information. Attention was given to identifying the types of sources to which an option could be applied, the option's state of development, and constraints that could limit its application. Traditional P2 options involving technology or equipment changes and material substitution were considered. In addition, newer approaches based on administrative ''controls'' were considered. These included inserting P2 into operating permits in exchange for administrative relief, privatization, derating boilers, and reducing an installation's potential to emit and compliance vulnerability by separating sources not under the Air Force's ''common control.'' Next, criteria and toxic emissions inventories by source category were prepared from inventory data supplied by facilities. The major problems at this stage were differences in the levels of detail provided by …