H.R. 1977, passed by the House July 18, 1995, appropriated $87 million for FY1996 for the "orderly closure" of the Bureau of Mines within the Department of Interior. However, when the Senate passed H.R. 1977 on August 9, it approved continuation of the Bureau and appropriated $128 million for FY1996.

On November 2, 1995, U.S. banking authorities ordered the Daiwa Bank to close its banking operations in the United States, and a 24-count criminal indictment was issued against it. These actions stem from the bank's admission that Toshihide Iguchi, a rogue trader at its New York branch office, had incurred $1.1 billion in losses over eleven years from trading U.S. Treasury securities and that Daiwa managers had "directed that those losses be concealed" from U.S. regulators.

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 Forest Service currently sells timber by (a) planning and preparing the sale, (b) offering the sale, usually at an oral auction, and (c) administering the timber harvest. Many of the concerns about the timber program have focused on harvest administration, because purchasers have incentives to minimize their costs and to remove only those logs whose value for products exceeds the price paid to the Forest Service. Some critics suggest that this, together with an alleged "timber bias" and other inappropriate incentives, has contributed to environmental damages (e.g., deteriorating forest health), poor fiscal performance (e.g., below-cost timber sales), and a lack of accountability (e.g., timber theft). Possible legislative changes to the timber sale system are being considered by various interest groups and Members of Congress.

Mongolia is undergoing a fragile political and economic transition from Communist rule to a post-1990 parliamentary democracy under new constitutional rules adopted in 1992. After decades of heavy dependency on the former Soviet Union, Mongolia is seeking to broaden its foreign contact and trade.

On Oct. 7, 1992, Hong Kong's new Governor Christopher Patten unveiled proposals to expand the voting franchise in Hong Kong and broaden the scope of democratic institutions. Patten's proposals reflected a growing desire on the part of the colonial government and the people of Hong Kong that, in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Hong Kong should erect safeguards against capricious Chinese government action after 1997. The proposals were seen by the British authorities as consistent with the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration -- the agreement governing Hong Kong's transfer to Chinese rule, but Beijing disagreed.

The Clean Water Act, which was last amended in 1987, consists of two major parts: regulatory provisions that impose progressively more stringent requirements on industries and cities to abate pollution and meet the statutory goal of zero discharge of pollutants, and provisions that authorize Federal financial assistance for municipal wastewater treatment construction.

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 may erect a gate across a third-class road if the county has constructed cattle guards on the road, and a related question (ID# 25770)

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 sale or lease of county airport real property is subject to the public auction requirements or the sealed proposal requirements of chapter 263 of the Local Government Code (ID# 30137)

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 governing committee of the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan Association ("TAIPA") is subject to the Open Meetings Act, Gov't Code ch. 551 (ID# 27553)

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 State Library and Archives Commission may deny federal grant monies to a municipal library that annually lends more than 20,000 items to individuals not residing in the municipality based solely upon the municipal library's provision of services to nonresidents (RQ-834)

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 title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted to prohibit racial discrimination in federally funded programs and related questions (RQ-778)

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 a county auditor may require the county attorney to prepare and submit, for inclusion in the county budget, a projection of revenues and expenditures for the county attorney hot-check fund for the following fiscal year and related questions (RQ-791)

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 service by delivery to the premises under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 742a constitutes valid service of citation in a suit for rent joined with a suit for forcible detainer

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 recently enacted concealed handgun law, Senate Bill 60, particularly the provision to be codified as V.T.C.S. article 4413(29ee), section 32, permits a business owner or operator to post notices prohibiting license holders carrying concealed handguns from the premises of the business, and related questions (RQ-821)

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 a rapid transit authority established under V.T.C.S. article 1118x (to be recodified as Transportation Code chapter 451) may prohibit a concealed handgun licensee from carrying a concealed handgun on a public conveyance operated by the rapid transit authority; whether a city or county may prohibit a concealed handgun licensee from carrying a concealed handgun in a city or county park.

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 particular telephone conversations between members of a city council contravene the Open Meetings Act, chapter 551, Government Code, and related questions (RQ-755)

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 county is required to provide medical insurance benefits, offered as part of the county's cafeteria plan benefits program, to district judges whose jurisdictions is limited to that county (ID# 27381)

The objective of this project is to increase production from the Cretaceous ``D`` Sand in the Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin through geologically targeted infill drilling and improved reservoir management of waterflood operations. This project involves multi-disciplinary reservoir characterization using high-density 3-D seismic, detailed stratigraphy and reservoir simulation studies. Infill drilling, water-injection conversion and recompleting some wells to add short-radius laterals will be based on the results of the reservoir characterization studies. Production response will be evaluated using reservoir simulation and production tests. Technology transfer will utilize workshops, presentations and technical papers which will emphasize the economic advantages of implementing the demonstrated technologies. The success of this project and effective technology transfer should prompt-re-appraisal of older waterflood projects and implementation of new projects in oil provinces such as the D-J Basin. Three wells have been drilled by the project based on 3-D seismic and integrated reservoir characterization study. Oil production has increased in September to 54.0 m{sup 3}/D (340 bopd) after the completion of the SU 21-16-9. Combination-attribute maps from 3-D seismic data closely predicted the net-pay thickness of the new well. Inter-well tracer tests with sodium bromide indicate a high-permeability channel between two wells. An oral presentation was made at the …

This paper discusses the techniques, developed over the past year, for high spatial resolution measurement and analysis of the transmitted and/or reflected wavefront of large aperture ICF optical components. Parts up to 400 mm {times} 750 mm have been measured and include: laser slabs, windows, KDP crystals and lenses. The measurements were performed using state-of-the-art commercial phase shifting interferometers at a wavelength of 633 {mu}m. Both 1 and 2-D Fourier analysis have been used to characterize the wavefront; specifically the Power Spectral Density, (PSD), function was calculated. The PSDs of several precision optical components will be shown. The PSD(V) is proportional to the (amplitude){sup 2} of components of the Fourier frequency spectrum. The PSD describes the scattered intensity and direction as a function of scattering angle in the wavefront. The capability of commercial software is limited to 1-D Fourier analysis only. We are developing our own 2-D analysis capability in support of work to revise specifications for NIF optics. 2-D analysis uses the entire wavefront phase map to construct 2D PSD functions. We have been able to increase the signal-to-noise relative to 1-D and can observe very subtle wavefront structure.

The work on this project was initiated on September 1, 1991. The project consisted of two different tasks: (1) Development of a model to compute viscosities of coal derived liquids, and (2) Investigate new models for estimation of thermodynamic properties of solid and liquid compounds of the type that exist in coal, or are encountered during coal processing. As for task 1, a model for viscosity computation of coal model compound liquids and coal derived liquids has been developed. The detailed model is presented in this report. Two papers, the first describing the pure liquid model and the second one discussing the application to coal derived liquids, are expected to be published in Energy & Fuels shortly. Marginal progress is reported on task 2. Literature review for this work included compilation of a number of data sets, critical investigation of data measurement techniques available in the literature, investigation of models for liquid and solid phase thermodynamic computations. During the preliminary stages it was discovered that for development of a liquid or solid state equation of state, accurate predictive models for a number of saturation properties, such as, liquid and solid vapor pressures, saturated liquid and solid volumes, heat capacities of …