Consolidation of many Federal research and development (R&D) activities into a Department of Science and Technology (S&T) has been proposed repeatedly since World War D, including in the last Congress. The trend, however, has been toward the creation of mission agencies with supporting R&D capabilities. Analyses of arguments for and against consolidation indicate that valid reasons exist on both sides of the issue. Specific consolidation proposals may be considered again during the 104th Congress.

On July 31, 1995, in passing H.R.2099, the VA-HUD-Independent Agencies Appropriation Bill for FY1996, the House approved numerous legislative riders, or provisions in bill language, which would prohibit EPA from spending FY1996 funds on a number of regulatory and enforcement activities. In passing H.R. 2099 on September 27, 1995, the Senate did not accept the House-passed riders but did include several other riders. On November 2, 1995, the House approved a motion to instruct the House conferees to strike the 17 major House-passed riders.

The United States and Japan are closely tied economically. Japan ranks second only to Canada as the largest U.S. export market. Japan is the leading market for American agricultural exports, such as corn and meat; for U.S. crude materials such as wood; and for U.S.-produced aircraft. Japan is also the second largest supplier of U.S. imports. These include cars, consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment, and computers. The United States ranks as Japan's number one export market and import supplier.

The Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is a pilot project to return idle or underused industrial and commercial facilities back to productive use, in situations where redevelopment is complicated by potential environmental contamination. The program is flexible, allowing cities to use a variety of approaches in utilizing grants of up to $200,000 to develop abandoned and underused sites, neighborhoods, and small regional areas. States and Indian tribes are eligible as well as local governments.

Political Situation. The Philippines gained independence in 1946 following the end of the Japanese occupation in World War II. President Ramon Magsaysay defeated the communist-inspired Huk Rebellion (1946-1953) and began efforts at land reform. Following Magsaysay's death in 1957, President Carlos P. Garcia (1957-1961) adopted a policy of economic nationalism and President Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965) pursued economic reforms.

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Measured in dollars, Japan's global trade surplus stands at a record level. Also in recent months the Japanese yen has appreciated markedly against the dollar. The two events seem to foster a sizable degree of concern among many Americans, perhaps, taken to be evidence of Japan's economic success and the United States' economic failure. Things need not be as they seem, however.

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.

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.

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 property owner who is blind under fifty-five years of age, and employed full-time qualifies for additional homestead exemptions under section 11.13, subsections (c) and (d) of the Tax Code (RQ-796)

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 private security guards and of—duty peace officers are prohibited from carrying firearms on the premises of racetracks by section 46.03 of the Penal Code (RQ-699)

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 article V, section 53 of the 1993 General Appropriations Act authorizes the Texas Workers' Compensation Commission to obtain liability insurance for its employees and whether the purchase of director's and officer's liability insurance by a state agency as authorized by that provision constitutes a waiver of the state's sovereign immunity (RQ-770)

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 the Texas Railroad Commission is required to pay certain fees requested by county clerks (RQ-701)

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 children's trust fund created pursuant to chapter 74 of the Human Resources Code may be abolished under section 403.094 of the Government Code, and related questions (ID# 30789)

The Petroleum Marketing Monthly (PMM) provides information and statistical data on a variety of crude oils and refined petroleum products. The publication presents statistics on crude oil costs and refined petroleum products sales for use by industry, government, private sector analysts, educational institutions, and consumers. Data on crude oil include the domestic first purchase price, the f.o.b. and landed cost Of imported crude oil, and the refiners` acquisition cost of crude oil. Refined petroleum product sales data include motor gasoline, distillates, residuals, aviation fuels, kerosene, and propane. The Petroleum Marketing Division, Office of Oil and Gas, Energy Information Administration ensures the accuracy, quality, and confidentiality of the published data in the Petroleum Marketing Monthly.

The VAMP{trademark} Area Radiation Monitors, in addition to functioning as radiation monitors for process upsets, as required by the OSR, provide monitoring in order to detect and alarm increasing radiation for the purpose of controlling exposure of personnel to radiation. Operational Safety Requirements (DPW-86-103) requires that area radiation monitors be provided in the vicinity of all waste tanks to ensure safe operation. The current location of area radiation monitors provide the coverage required by the OSR criteria and, with few exceptions, these monitors also provide the necessary coverage for personnel protection. The exceptions to the coverage for personnel protection are listed along with the proposed action to bring the facility into compliance with the DOE Radiological Manual. The exceptions are based upon the assumptions, which HLWE believes are conservative, used to develop the coverage maps generated by Health Physics Technology (HPT). No change to the 9B5 Manual reporting criteria relating to area radiation monitors is required. No change to transfer procedures to provide additional VAMP coverage for personnel protection is required for a source term greater than assumed in this report. It is expected that this Technical Report will provide the basis for future assessment when changes to the facility …

Fluid flow is conventionally modeled by finite difference or finite element approximations to the Navier-Stokes equations. The key problem in such calculations is devising an efficient computational mesh on which to solve the equations; if the geometry is complex, extensive human intervention is usually necessary. Thus these methods are unsuitable for problems such as the motion of solid particulates in suspension, where there may be many thousands of objects whose positions are constantly varying over the course of the simulation. Over the past few years I have developed an alternative strategy for modeling solid-fluid flows, based on a discrete Boltzmann model, in which the particle velocities are sampled from a small well-chosen set, commensurate with the underlying spatial lattice. This leads to a simple and fast numerical algorithm which can solve fluid flow problems with high accuracy on relatively crude spatial meshes. Thus it has been possible to track the motion of around 1000 hydrodynamically interacting particles on a desktop workstation. A preliminary account of some of this work was published in Physical Review Letters; a complete account of the method is given in two papers published by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Status of weak matrix elements is reviewed. In particular, e{prime}/e, B {yields} K*{gamma}, B{sub B} and B{sub B}, are discussed and the overall situation with respect to the lattice effort and some of its phenomenological implications are summarised. For e{prime}/e the need for the relevant matrix elements is stressed in view of the forthcoming improved experiments. For some of the operators, (e.g. O{sub 6}), even bound on their matrix elements would be very helpful. On B {yields} K{degrees}{gamma}, a constant behavior of T{sub 2} appears disfavored although dependence of T{sub 2} could, of course, be milder than a simple pole. Improved data is badly needed to settle this important issue firmly, especially in view of its ramification for extractions of V{sub td} from B {yields} {rho}{gamma}. On B{sub {kappa}}, the preliminary result from JLQCD appears to contradict Sharpe et al. JLQCD data seems to fit very well to linear {alpha} dependence and leads to an appreciably lower value of B{sub {kappa}}. Four studies of B{sub {kappa}} in the {open_quotes}full{close_quotes} (n{sub f} = 2) theory indicate very little quenching effects on B{sub {kappa}}; the full theory value seems to be just a little less than the quenched result. Based on expectations …

The Department of Energy (DOE) has identified a need to improve the management of wastewater resulting from high explosives (HE) research and development work at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). LANL`s current methods off managing HE-contaminated wastewater cannot ensure that discharged HE wastewater would consistently meet the Environmental Protection Agency`s (EPA`s) standards for wastewater discharge. The DOE needs to enhance He wastewater management to e able to meet both present and future regulatory standards for wastewater discharge. The DOE also proposes to incorporate major pollution prevention and waste reduction features into LANL`s existing HE production facilities. Currently, wastewater from HE processing buildings at four Technical Areas (TAs) accumulates in sumps where particulate HE settles out and barium is precipitated. Wastewater is then released from the sumps to the environment at 15 permitted outfalls without treatment. The released water may contain suspended and dissolved contaminants, such as HE and solvents. This Environmental Assessment (EA) analyzes two alternatives, the Proposed Action and the Alternative Action, that would meet the purpose and need for agency action. Both alternatives would treat all HE process wastewater using sand filters to remove HE particulates and activated carbon to adsorb organic solvents and dissolved HE. Under either …

This is the fourth Technical Progress Report for DOE Contract No. DE-AC02-94CE50389 awarded to Ford Motor Company on July 1, 1994. The overall objective of this contract is to advance the Proton-Exchange-Membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology for automotive applications. Specifically, the objectives resulting from this contract are to: (1) Develop and demonstrate on a laboratory propulsion system within 2-1/2 years a fully functional PEM Fuel Cell Power System (including fuel cell peripherals, peak power augmentation and controls). This propulsion system will achieve, or will be shown to have the growth potential to achieve, the weights, volumes, and production costs which are competitive with those same attributes of equivalently performing internal combustion engine propulsion systems; (2) Select and demonstrate a baseline onboard hydrogen storage method with acceptable weight, volume, cost, and safety features and analyze future alternatives; and (3) Analyze the hydrogen infrastructure components to ensure that hydrogen can be safely supplied to vehicles at geographically widespread convenient sites and at prices which are less than current gasoline prices per vehicle-mile; (4) Identify any future R&D needs for a fully integrated vehicle and for achieving the system cost and performance goals.