This report discusses the vote on H.R. 2400, the "Building Efficient Surface Transportation and Equity Act of 1997"(BESTEA), an omnibus bill to fund surface transportation into the next century.

This report describes the procedures under which committee funding resolutions are considered in the two chambers. A table at the end of the report shows funds approved for the 105th Congress, and the funds requested, recommended, and approved for the 106th Congress for each House committee. The Senate agreed to temporary funding extensions for its committees pending a decision to shift to a fiscal year-based funding process.

For constituents who want to learn more about the topics that interest them, the Congressional Research Service has prepared this guide to locate information in libraries. It includes sources of background information (encyclopedias, almanacs, business directories, statistics, and biographical directories), current information from newspapers and magazines, organizations, foundations, government, politics, legislation, and books and periodicals. It lists a number of Internet search engines. This report will be updated from time to time.

since the mid-1950s, China has made strong efforts within its limited economic and technical capabilities to develop a modest nuclear force and related delivery systems in order to: help deter superpower or regional aggression and intimidation;

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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; Whether an individual whose juvenile files may not be sealed by virtue of section 51.16(j) of the Family Code has an affirmative duty to disclose his prior criminal history in an application for employment, information, or licensing (RQ-2188)

Quarterly publication of the Texas Comptroller's Office regarding sales and use tax in the state of Texas, including an analysis by county, analysis by industry, and related notes.

Quarterly publication of the Texas Comptroller's Office regarding sales and use tax in the state of Texas, including an analysis by county, analysis by industry, and related notes.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the long-standing challenges facing the Department of Veterans Affairs in administering programs that provide financial and other benefits to veterans, their dependents, and survivors, focusing on: (1) recent progress the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has made; (2) areas in which progress is lacking; and (3) changes in program design that could hold potential for greater gains."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the U.S. Capitol Police's administrative operations, focusing on: (1) the U.S. Capitol Police's existing organizational strategies, structures, systems and processes; (2) the evaluation of the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of systems, processes, controls, and information for each administrative operation; and (3) opportunities for improving the operational efficiency and effectiveness of each administrative operation. GAO selected Booz-Allen and Hamilton to conduct the evaluation."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed how Congress can use the Government Performance and Results Act to facilitate agency performance plans to oversee early childhood programs, focusing on: (1) how the Results Act can assist in management and congressional oversight, especially in areas where there are multiple programs; (2) how the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services (HHS)--which together administer more than half of the federal early childhood program funds--addressed early childhood programs in their strategic and fiscal year 1999 and 2000 performance plans and the extent to which recent plans show progress in coordinating early childhood programs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed how best to ensure the long-term viability of the Social Security Program."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) single-family mortgage insurance program, focusing on: (1) the activities of FHA's home mortgage insurance program, including the extent to which home buyers use FHA insurance, the characteristics of these home buyers--including whether they were first-time home buyers--and how many of them might also qualify for private mortgage insurance; (2) comparing the insurance terms available through FHA's principal single-family mortgage insurance program with private mortgage insurance and guarantees from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA); and (3) examining the challenges FHA faces in ensuring the financial health of its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Education's new rule on providing assistance to states for the education of children with disabilities and the early intervention program for infants and toddlers with disabilities. GAO noted that: (1) the final rule would implement changes made to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Part B) and the Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (Part C of the act) by the 1997 amendments to the act; (2) the rule would revise the requirements on state complaint procedures under the Parts B and C programs; and (3) Education complied with applicable requirements in promulgating the rule."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Air Traffic Control Modernization Program, focusing on: (1) the causes of the problems that have plagued FAA's modernization program for nearly two decades; (2) recent agency efforts to overcome these problems; and (3) the readiness of FAA and others to meet year 2000 requirements."

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports an applied superconductivity program entitled ''Superconductivity Program for Electric Power Systems.'' Activities within this program contribute to development of the high-temperature superconductor (HTS) technology needed for industry to proceed with the commercial development of electric power applications such as motors, generators, transformers, transmission cables, and current limiters. Research is conducted in three categories: wire development, systems technology development, and Superconductivity Partnership Initiative (SPI). Wire development activities are devoted to improving the critical current density (J{sub c}) of short-length HTS wires, whereas systems technology development focuses on fabrication of long-length wires, coils, and on magnets. The SPI activities are aimed at development of prototype products. Significant progress has been made in the development of (HTSs) for various applications: some applications have already made significant strides in the marketplace, while others are still in the developmental stages. For successful electric power applications, it is very important that the HTS be fabricated into long-length conductors that exhibit desired superconducting and mechanical properties. Several parameters of the PIT technique must be carefully controlled to obtain the desired properties. Long lengths of Bi-2223 tapes with respectable superconducting properties have been fabricated by a carefully designed thermomechanical treatment process. …

The Natural Gas Monthly (NGM) highlights activities, events, and analyses of interest to public and private sector organizations associated with the natural gas industry. Volume and price data are presented each month for natural gas production, distribution, consumption, and interstate pipeline activities. Producer-related activities and underground storage data are also reported. From time to time, the NGM features articles designed to assist readers in using and interpreting natural gas information.

This manual describes a set of tools that can be used to develop software for EPICS based control systems. It provides the following features: Multiple applications; the entire system is composed of an arbitrary number of applications: Source/Release Control; all files created or modified by the applications developers can be put under sccs (a UNIX Source/Release control utility): Multiple Developers; it allows a number of applications developers to work separately during the development phase but combine their applications for system testing and for a production system; Makefiles: makefiles are provided to automatically rebuild various application components. For C and state notation programs, Imagefiles are provided.

Microbeam Technologies Incorporated (MTI) is working with Prairie View to develop and demonstrate a new method to remove deposits from coal-fired utility boilers. MTI is providing background information on fuel properties, ash formation, ash deposition, and ash removal. In addition, MTI is providing deposits collected from a full scale utility boilers. Ash deposits on fireside heat exchange surfaces of power plants significantly decrease plant efficiency and are aggravated by variability in coal quality. Deposit formation is related to coal quality (chemical and physical characteristics of the inorganic material), system operating conditions, and system design. Variations in coal quality can significantly influence ash deposition on heat transfer surfaces resulting in decreased plant performance and availability. Ash accumulations on heat transfer surfaces require annual or semi-annual shutdowns for cleaning which result in cleaning costs and lost revenues from being off-line. In addition, maintaining slag flow in wet bottom boilers and cyclone-fired boilers can require co-firing of other fuels and outages to remove frozen slag resulting in decreased efficiency and availability. During this reporting period MTI performed analysis of deposits collected from full-scale utility boilers. Deposit samples were obtained from Basin Electric and from Northern States Power (NSP). The analyses were conducted using …

New computational physics methods for estimating constitutive property parameterizations in ground water aquifers were developed and demonstrated in this project. The dynamical and statistical axioms of physics, embodied in partial differential equations (PDES) of kinetic theory, are employed to constrain interpolations of hydraulic head (pressure) and transmissivity (permeability) between sparsely measured datum points. These methods can apparently be applied in numerous approaches to parameter estimation. To demonstrate the basic concepts and techniques developed in this work, examples are considered for steady-state, two-dimensional, heterogeneous, ground water flow models, given (i) discrete borehole observations of hydraulic head and transmissivity and (ii) governing kinetic equations for Darcy flow behavior. Estimations of spatially dependent parameters from sparsely measured data are treated as mathematically ill- posed problems because infinitely many parameter distributions (realizations) that are consistent with the data generally exist. Potential difficulties associated with ill-posedness in mean flow realizations are mitigated by requiring that acceptable realizations respect the observed data, are solutions of forward and inverse PDEs for physical continuity, respect information sampling principles, and are distributed by spatial interpolations that themselves are optimal solutions of the governing PDEs between measured datum points. To accomplish these requisites, adaptive numerical grid Galerkin techniques were applied …

This supporting document has been prepared to make the Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company Project W-320 Tank 106-C Waste Retrieval Study Analysis Session Report readily retrievable. This facilitated session was requested by Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) to review the characterization data and select the best alternatives for a double-shell receiver tank and for a sluicing medium for Tank 106-C waste retrieval. The team was composed of WHC and Kaiser Engineers Hanford Company (KEH) personnel knowledgeable about tank farm operations, tank 106-C requirements, tank waste characterization and analysis, and chemical processing. This team was assembled to perform a structured decision analysis evaluation and recommend the best alternative-destination double-shell tank between tanks 101-AY and 102-AY, and the best alternative sluicing medium among dilute complexant (DC), dilute noncomplexant (DNC), and water. The session was facilitated by Richard Harrington and Steve Bork of KEH and was conducted at the Bookwalter Winery in Richland from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from July 27 through July 29, 1993. Attachment 1 (Scope Statement Sheet) identifies the team members, scope, objectives, and deliverables for the session.

The Hanford Site, located adjacent to and north of Richland, Washington, is operated by the US Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (RL). The 324 Building is located in the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. The 324 Building was constructed in the 1960s to support materials and chemical process research and development activities ranging from laboratory/bench-scale studies to full engineering-scale pilot plant demonstrations. In the mid-1990s, it was determined that dangerous waste and waste residues were being stored for greater than 90 days in the 324 Building Radiochemical Engineering Cells (REC) and in the High-Level Vault/Low-Level Vault (HLV/LLV) tanks. [These areas are not Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) permitted portions of the 324 Building.] Through the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri-Party Agreement) Milestone M-89, agreement was reached to close the nonpermitted RCRA unit in the 324 Building. This closure plan, managed under TPA Milestone M-20-55, addresses the identified building areas targeted by the Tri-Party Agreement and provides commitments to achieve the highest degree of compliance practicable, given the special technical difficulties of managing mixed waste that contains high-activity radioactive materials, and the physical limitations of working remotely in the areas within the subject …

The Spent Nuclear Fuel MCO is a single-use container that consists of a cylindrical shell, five to six fuel baskets, a shield plug, and features necessary for maintaining the structural integrity of the MCO while providing criticality control and fuel processing capability.