The RPSEA Rip-Off: How the Natural Gas Industry Extracted a Billion-Dollar Boondoggle from Congress

The report, "The RPSEA Rip-Off: How the Natural Gas Industry Extracted a Billion-Dollar Boondoggle from Congress," describes how companies with profits that totaled more than $100 billion in 2005 set up a taxpayer-funded subsidy establishing a 10-year,$1.5 billion research program to find ways to extract oil and gas from "ultra-deepwater" depths and hard-to-access onshore areas. American taxpayers will begin doling out about $400 million -- and possibly more than a billion dollars -- over 10 years to a research consortium that includes wealthy oil and gas companies due to a provision slipped quietly into the enormous 2005 energy bill.The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) was set up by the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), a group that was successor to another gas industry organization that had lost a dedicated source of funding from pipeline operators worth more than$200 million annually. GTI subsequently led the effort to help replace those lost funds with taxpayer dollars. The subsidy it secured is a relic of the tenure of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who ensured that much of the program's money would be guaranteed without further congressional action. RPSEA and GTI established offices in DeLay's former district of Sugar Land, Texas.The report documents the law's journey to passage and illustrates what is wrong with the lawmaking process and how some of the world's richest corporations are able to foist industry research costs onto taxpayers. The measure was slipped into a conference report in the dead of night, after conferees had signed off on what they thought was a final bill. The plan incorporated the use of a non-profit consortium to make the legislation look less like a special favor for a known entity. The legislative leaders who inserted the measure were among the top recipients of campaign contributions from the members of the front group

Institutional democracy will strengthen our society, engaging citizenry and distributing power equitably

Mike O’Donnell argues that institutionalising people’s involvement in matters that affect their daily lives would surely act as an antidote to the apathy and disengagement that blights liberal democracy. It would also serve to create a more equitable society, one where government is not dominated by wealthy elites. The challenge, though, is in initiating reform

Overview of Hydra: a concurrent language for synchronous digital circuit design

Hydra is a computer hardware description language that integrates several kinds of software tool (simulation, netlist generation and timing analysis) within a single circuit specification. The design language is inherently concurrent, and it offers black box abstraction and general design patterns that simplify the design of circuits with regular structure. Hydra specifications are concise, allowing the complete design of a computer system as a digital circuit within a few pages. This paper discusses the motivations behind Hydra, and illustrates the system with a significant portion of the design of a basic RISC processor

After the Storm: Interviews With Prominent Economists and Policy Leaders on the Future of the California Energy Market

Presents differing perspectives on the cause of California's energy crisis, and examines possible solutions for restoring a working energy market. Part of a series of research reports that examines energy issues facing California

The alternative uses of disused dairy factories in Taranaki : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University

Small local dairy factories have long been a part of New Zealand's dairying heritage. No longer profitable in their original use, subsequent redundancy and abandonment has seen the appearance of the "disused dairy factory" in the rural landscape. In disuse these buildings find their greatest asset for potential reuse. As existing capital stock, these disused dairy factories manifest potential opportunities for enterprises other than dairying, to establish alternative uses. As a product of the past, the phenomenon of dairy factory reuse represents a change in use to meet the demands of the present. The extent to which this has been achieved, and how this pattern can be explained, evidences the interaction of past and present forces in effecting a potential future for these buildings

Nitrogen retention in the riparian zone of watersheds underlain by discontinuous permafrost

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2005Riparian zones function as important ecotones for reducing nitrate concentration in groundwater and inputs into streams. In the boreal forest of interior Alaska, permafrost confines subsurface flow through the riparian zone to shallow organic horizons, where plant uptake of nitrate and denitrification are typically high. Two research questions were addressed in this study: 1) how does riparian zone nitrogen retention vary in watersheds underlain by discontinuous permafrost, and 2) what is the contribution of denitrification to riparian zone nitrogen retention? To estimate the contribution of the riparian zone to watershed nitrogen retention, I analyzed groundwater chemistry using an end-member mixing model. To assess the importance of denitrification as a mechanism of nitrogen retention, I conducted field denitrification assays using the acetylene block technique. Over the summer, nitrogen retention averaged 0.75 and 0.22 mmol N m⁻² d⁻¹ in low and high permafrost watersheds, respectively. Compared with the fluvial export of nitrogen, the retention rate of nitrogen in the riparian zone is 10 - 15% of the loss rate in stream flow. Denitrification accounted for a small proportion (3%) of total nitrogen retention in the riparian zone. Variation in nitrogen retention between watersheds did not account for differences in stream nitrate concentration between watersheds.Introduction -- Factors controlling denitrification -- Riparian zones as nutrient filters -- Models of riparian zone function -- Permafrost and hydrology -- Caribou Poker Creeks Research Watershed (CPCRW) -- References -- Nitrogen retention in the riparian zone of watersheds underlain by discontinuous permafrost -- Conclusions -- References

Light Mesons from Heavy B and Hyperon Decays

Decays of heavy mesons and of heavy hyperons are used to provide tests of the standard model and information about new mixing schemes for the $\eta$ and $\eta^{'}$ mesons. These include the two body decays $B_s \to J / \psi M$ and $B_d \to J / \psi M$, $B \to \eta (\eta ^{'})K(K^\ast)$ and $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda \eta (\eta ^{'})$, semileptonic $D$ decays, and properties of radially excited mesons.Comment: Four pages. Talk given at the Fifth International Conference on Hyperons, Charm and Beauty Hadrons, Vancouver, BC, Canada, July 25-29, 200

The Care and Cleaning of Furniture and Furnishings

Exact date of bulletin unknown.PDF pages: 1