This report discusses issues for Congress in FY2011, which are whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD's new KC-X competition strategy, and whether to approve, reject, or modify the Air Force's request for FY2011 research and development funding for the new KC-X program.

This report provides background information on the C-17 Aircraft program, including previous appropriations, related programs, and issues for Congress. The primary issue for Congress in FY2010 is whether to procure additional C-17s. An additional issue is whether to pass legislation relating to the airlift aircraft force structure. Congress's decisions on these issues could affect DOD capabilities and funding requirements and the U.S. military aircraft industrial base.

This report discusses the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included tax cut and spending provisions totaling at a cost of $787 billion in an attempt to mitigate the economic fallout of the housing and financial crises on the general economy. The report examines issues surrounding fiscal stimulus such as timeliness, the magnitude of stimulus, long-term effects and previously adopted policies.

The report discusses an uncapped exemption and an uncapped exemption targeted at liquidity issues.

This report details the Obama Administration's proposed FY2010 defense budget requests for F-35 program funding and outlines the issues that Congress must consider when deciding whether to approve, reject, or modify the administration's funding requests.

The bacterial mercury resistance (mer) operon functions in Hg biogeochemistry and bioremediation by converting reactive inorganic [Hg(II)] and organic [RHg(I)] mercurials to relatively inert monoatomic mercury vapor, Hg(0). Its genes regulate expression (MerR, MerD, MerOP), import Hg(II) (MerT, MerP, and MerC), and demethylate (MerB) and reduce (MerA) mercurials. We focus on how these components interact with each other and with the host cell to allow cells to survive and detoxify Hg compounds. Understanding how this ubiquitous detoxification system fits into the biology and ecology of its bacterial host is essential to guide interventions that support and enhance Hg remediation. At a more basic level, studies of interactions between the metal ion trafficking proteins in this pathway provide insights into general mechanisms used by proteins in pathways involved in trafficking of other metal ions in cells of all types of organisms, including pathways for essential metal ions such as Cu and Zn and other toxic metal ions such as Cd. In this project we focused on investigations of proteins from mer operons found in gamma-proteobacteria with specific objectives to use biophysical and biochemical approaches to detect and define (1) interactions between the structural components of the key detoxifying mer operon enzyme, …

In December 2004, Google announced its Library Project, which was to entail digitizing, indexing, and displaying "snippets" of print books in the collections of five major libraries, among other things. The Library Project was not limited to books in the public domain (e.g., books whose terms of copyright protection had expired), and Google did not seek the permission of copyright holders, in part, because it asserted that its proposed uses were fair uses. Many authors, publishers, and other rights holders disagreed. This report provides background on the Library Project, legal issues raised by digitization and indexing projects, and the status of the litigation over the Library Project.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the joint rulemaking to establish greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards for light-duty vehicles. My comments are directed at the choice of vehicle footprint as the attribute by which to vary fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards, in the interest of protecting vehicle occupants from death or serious injury. I have made several of these points before when commenting on previous NHTSA rulemakings regarding CAFE standards and safety. The comments today are mine alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or the University of California. My comments can be summarized as follows: (1) My updated analysis of casualty risk finds that, after accounting for drivers and crash location, there is a wide range in casualty risk for vehicles with the same weight or footprint. This suggests that reducing vehicle weight or footprint will not necessarily result in increased fatalities or serious injuries. (2) Indeed, the recent safety record of crossover SUVs indicates that weight reduction in this class of vehicles resulted in a reduction in fatality risks. (3) Computer crash simulations can pinpoint the effect of specific design changes …

This report provides information about The Current Structure and Its Role in the Changing Telecommunications Landscape on the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is an independent agency with its five members appointed by the president.

This report describes work performed during the initial period of the project “Probabilistic Risk Based Decision Support for Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Facilities in Sensitive Ecosystems.” The specific region that is within the scope of this study is the Fayetteville Shale Play. This is an unconventional, tight formation, natural gas play that currently has approximately 1.5 million acres under lease, primarily to Southwestern Energy Incorporated and Chesapeake Energy Incorporated. The currently active play encompasses a region from approximately Fort Smith, AR east to Little Rock, AR approximately 50 miles wide (from North to South). The initial estimates for this field put it almost on par with the Barnett Shale play in Texas. It is anticipated that thousands of wells will be drilled during the next several years; this will entail installation of massive support infrastructure of roads and pipelines, as well as drilling fluid disposal pits and infrastructure to handle millions of gallons of fracturing fluids. This project focuses on gas production in Arkansas as the test bed for application of proactive risk management decision support system for natural gas exploration and production. The activities covered in this report include meetings with representative stakeholders, development of initial content …

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This report discusses the simulant preparation procedure for producing multi-component simulants for leaching and filtration studies, including development and comparison activities in accordance with the test plan( ) prepared and approved in response to the Test Specification 24590-WTP-TSP-RT-06-006, Rev 0 (Smith 2006). A fundamental premise is that this approach would allow blending of the different components to simulate a wide variety of feeds to be treated in the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). For example, a given feed from the planned feed vector could be selected, and the appropriate components would then be blended to achieve a representation of that particular feed. Using the blending of component simulants allows the representation of a much broader spectrum of potential feeds to the Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP).

This report discusses the current political climate in Tanzania, an important U.S. ally in Africa. The report also provides some general background information.

Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and inspection of cast austenitic stainless steel (CASS) components used in the nuclear power industry is neither as effective nor reliable as is needed due to detrimental effects upon the interrogating ultrasonic beam and interference from ultrasonic backscatter. The root cause is the coarse-grain microstructure inherent to this class of materials. Some ultrasonic techniques perform better for particular microstructural classifications and this has led to the hypothesis that an ultrasonic inspection can be optimized for a particular microstructural class, if a technique exists to reliably classify the microstructure for feedback to the inspection. This document summarizes scoping experiments of in-situ ultrasonic methods for classification and/or characterization of the material microstructures in CASS components from the outside surface of a pipe. The focus of this study was to evaluate ultrasonic methods and provide an interim report that documents results and technical progress. An initial set of experiments were performed to test the hypothesis that in-service characterization of cast austenitic stainless steel (CASS) is feasible, and that, if reliably performed, such data would provide real-time feedback to optimize in-service inspections in the field. With this objective in mind, measurements for the experiment were restricted to techniques that should …

This report provides an overview of Zimbabwe's March 2008 elections. The report discusses the power-sharing agreement, the transitional government, cholera outbreak, international reactions, and U.S. policy on Zimbabwe.

Gravels and coarse sands make up significant portions of some environmentally important sediments, while the hydraulic properties of the sediments are typically obtained in the laboratory using only the fine fraction (e.g., <2 mm or 4.75 mm). Researchers have found that the content of gravel has significant impacts on the hydraulic properties of the bulk soils. Laboratory experiments were conducted to measure the porosity and the saturated hydraulic conductivity of binary mixtures with different fractions of coarse and fine components. We proposed a mixing-coefficient model to estimate the porosity and a power-averaging method to determine the effective particle diameter and further to predict the saturated hydraulic conductivity of binary mixtures. The proposed methods could well estimate the porosity and saturated hydraulic conductivity of the binary mixtures for the full range of gravel contents and was successfully applied to two data sets in the literature.

This report presents an overview of the economic and political situation in Bosnia. It starts out by describing the current situation, the negotiations on forming a new central government, the international role in Bosnia, and the last part discusses the implications of U.S. policy.

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This report discusses military personnel issues that typically generate significant interest from many Members of Congress and their staffs. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) selected a number of the military personnel issues considered in deliberations on the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2010. This report provides a brief synopsis of sections that pertain to personnel policy. This report focuses exclusively on the annual defense authorization process.

The Remediation Decisions Support (RDS) function of the Soil and Groundwater Remediation Project (managed by CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company [CHPRC]) is responsible for facilitating the development of consistent data, parameters, and conceptual models to resolve technical issues and support efforts to estimate contaminant migration and impacts (i.e., the assessment process). In particular, the RDS function is working to update electronic data sources and conceptual models of the geologic framework and associated hydraulic and geochemical parameters to facilitate traceability, transparency, defensibility, and consistency in support of environmental assessments. This report summarizes the efforts conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) scientists in fiscal year 2008 (FY08) that focused primarily on the 200 West Area, as well as a secondary effort initiated on the 200 East Area.

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The following report is a summary of work conducted to evaluate the ability of existing correlative techniques and alternative methods to accurately estimate impeller speed and power requirements for mechanical mixers proposed for use in a mixing and sampling facility (MSF). The proposed facility would accept high level waste sludges from Hanford double-shell tanks and feed uniformly mixed high level waste to the Waste Treatment Plant. Numerous methods are evaluated and discussed, and resulting recommendations provided.

This report provides an overview of Mexico's free trade agreements, its motivations for trade liberalization and entering into free trade agreements, and some of the issues Mexico faces in addressing its economic challenges.

This report reviews the history and trends of oil spills in the United States; identifies the legal authorities governing oil spill prevention, response, and cleanup; and examines the threats of future oil spills in U.S. coastal waters.