This report provides basic information on congressional salaries and allowances. The report briefly summarizes the current salary of Members of Congress, limits on their outside earned income and honoraria, and applicable health insurance and retirement benefits. The report also provides information on allowances available to Representatives and Senators. Lastly, this report lists the salaries of congressional officers and officials and committee staff.

This report is about the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI) and related Funding Programs in the fiscal year 2007.

None

None

This report discusses the legislative history and current law regarding the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides funds to states so that they may help low-income households pay home energy expenses.

None

This report provides background on the Government Accountability Office.

The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (MPRSA, P.L. 92-532) has two basic aims: to regulate intentional ocean disposal of materials, and to authorize related research. This report presents a summary of the law, describing the essence of the statute.

None

This report covers recent events in Liberia, a small, poor West African country.

This report discusses Central Asia's regional developments and gives an overview of U.S policy concerns.

None

This report provides an explanation of the house rules changes affecting the Congressional budget process made at the beginning of the 110th Congress.

This report provides information about The Role of State and Local Law Enforcement on Enforcing Immigration Law.

None

None

None

None

The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) is an atmospheric numerical model developed by scientists at Colorado State University and the ASTER Division of Mission Research Corporation for simulating and forecasting meteorological phenomena. RAMS v3a and v4.3 are being used by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) as an operational tool for weather forecast and emergency response for the Savannah River Site (SRS). ATmospheric, Meteorological, and Environmental Technologies (ATMET) is now the proprietor of RAMS. The latest upgrade (v6.0) was officially released on January 11, 2006. ATG plans to eventually replace the RAMS v3a and v4.3 with the RAMS v6.0 for operational site forecasting if the newest version provides a significant improvement in the numerical forecast. A study to compare the three model (v3a, v4.3 and v6.0) results with respect to surface stations observations was conducted and is the subject of this report. Two cases were selected for simulation by these three RAMS models. One simulation started at 0 Z on April 3, 2007 and represents a warm weather case (high temperature of 26 C and low temperature of 16 C) at SRS, while the other simulation started at 0 Z on April 7, 2007 and represents a cold weather case …

Agenda: {lg_bullet} Convey current state of the retail gasoline market {lg_bullet} Explore E85 as part of the solution {lg_bullet} Test the profitability of E85 as an investment {lg_bullet} Give retailers guidance to assess if E85 would be a good investment for them

The use of sequestering agents for the transformation of radionuclides in low concentrations in contaminated soils/sediments offers considerable potential for long-term environmental cleanup. This study evaluated the influence of four phosphate amendments and two microbial amendments on U availability. The synchrotron X-ray fluorescence mapping of the untreated U-contaminated sediment showed that U was closely associated with Mn. All tested phosphate amendments reduced aqueous U concentration more than 90%, likely due to formation of insoluble phosphate precipitates. The addition of A. piechaudii and P. putida alone were found to reduce U concentrations 63% and 31% respectively. Uranium sorption in phosphate treatments was significantly reduced in the presence of microbes. However, increased microbial activity in the treated sediment led to reduction of phosphate effectiveness. The average U concentration in 1 M MgCl{sub 2} extract from U amended sediment was 437 {micro}g/kg, but in the same sediment without microbes (autoclaved sediment), the extractable U concentration was only 103 {micro}g/kg. When the autoclaved amended sediment was treated with autoclaved biological apatite, U concentration in the 1 M MgCl{sub 2} extract was {approx}0 {micro}g/kg. Together these tests suggest that microbes may enhance U leaching and reduce phosphate amendment remedial effectiveness.

This report summarizes a multi-year research effort to develop a leak-free duct system that can be readily installed within the thermal envelope. There are numerous efforts underway to improve duct system efficiency. Most of these involve modifications to current technology such as air sealing techniques like mastic and aeroseal, snap together duct connections, and greater levels of insulation. This project sought to make a more significant stride forward by introducing a duct system of a material that can be more readily sealed and can exhibit lower friction losses. The research focused on the use of smooth internal surface, low friction plastic ducts that could be easily installed with very low air leakage. The initial system concept that was proposed and researched in Phase I focused on the use of thermoformed plastic ducts installed in a recessed roof truss underneath the attic insulation. A bench top thermoformed system was developed and tested during Phase I of the project. In Phase II, a first generation duct system utilizing a resin impregnated fiberglass duct product was designed and specified. The system was installed and tested in an Atlanta area home. Following this installation research and correspondence with code officials was undertaken to alleviate …

Significant savings are being realized from the consolidated tritium gas-processing operations at the Savannah River Site. However, the trade-off is some reduction of operational flexibility due to decreased storage capacity for process and waste gases. Savannah River National Laboratory researchers are developing an integrated process gas model for tritium processing using Aspen Custom Modeler{trademark} (ACM) software. The modeling involves fully characterizing process flow streams (gas composition, quantity), frequency of batch transfers, and availability of equipment in the flow stream. The model provides a valuable engineering tool to identify flow bottlenecks, thereby enabling adjustments to be made to improve process operations.

The purpose of this project was to develop software that will model the behavior of the high performance Spectral Instruments 1000 series Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera located in the Final Optics Damage Inspection (FODI) system on the National Ignition Facility. NIF's target chamber will be mounted with 48 Final Optics Assemblies (FOAs) to convert the laser light from infrared to ultraviolet and focus it precisely on the target. Following a NIF shot, the optical components of each FOA must be carefully inspected for damage by the FODI to ensure proper laser performance during subsequent experiments. Rapid image capture and complex image processing (to locate damage sites) will reduce shot turnaround time; thus increasing the total number of experiments NIF can conduct during its 30 year lifetime. Development of these rapid processes necessitates extensive offline software automation -- especially after the device has been deployed in the facility. Without access to the unique real device or an exact behavioral model, offline software testing is difficult. Furthermore, a software-based behavioral model allows for many instances to be running concurrently; this allows multiple developers to test their software at the same time. Thus it is beneficial to construct separate software that will exactly …