ACCOUNTING AND REPAYMENT PROVISIONS OF THE PICK-SLOAN MISSOURI BASIN PROGRAM1

ABSTRACT: The accounting and repayment practices employed by the Water and Power Resources Service (WPRS) greatly distort the actual resource allocation process and the ultimate repayment to the Federal Treasury. Through a series of transfers of capital repayment obligations to future development with modest or no interest charges, the repayment is reduced to only a fraction of the amount implied. In the case of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program, the public subsidy of hydroelectric power is estimated to be $2 for every $1 of repayment. For irrigation investment, the direct repayment to the Federal Treasury is less than 10 percent of the annualized cost of the public investment, with irrigators repaying at a rate of less than $0.03 for every dollar of public expenditure.     

生活垃圾填埋场建设项目环保验收调查方法研究简

垃圾填埋场建设项目的主要环境问题包括：渗沥液排放、地下水环境污染、大气环境污染、噪声污染、景观变化和环境安全。根据工作经验,建立了包括建设项目基本情况、生态环境影响、社会环境影响、生态环境保护措施四大类调查监测指标为核心的环保验收调查指标体系,提出了文件资料核实、现场勘查、遥感调查、公众意见调查、环境监测和摄影法为主的建设项目竣工环保验收调查技术方法。     

论长江上游干流区持续发展保障工程主体系

长江上游干流区是我国的重要待开发区域，但开发发展基础甚差，创建支撑开发和促成实现持续发展保障工程体系是首要任务。本区持续发展的主要保障工程体系包括：建设包括沿江铁路和高等级公路及港口在内的现代化综合交通运输体系，丰裕的能源尤其电力供给系统和先进的通讯网络系统；     

建设项目竣工环境保护验收监测的内涵、缺陷及对策

在环境换取经济增长向环境优化经济增长转变的新形势下,应拓展建设项目环境保护设施竣工验收监洲的内涵.指出目前的竣工验收监测对工业生产型建设项目的制约因素考虑不周、忽视了"三同时"的全过程、忽视了非工业生产型建设项目和区域性开发项目、忽视了无组织排放污染源.提出要创新治理设施竣工验收监测理念、优化竣工验收监测方法、强化竣工验收生态监洲技术的研究、开展区域性建设项目的验收监测.     

Exploring the perceived influence of safety management practices on project performance in the construction industry

Although safety management is known to be vital to construction projects, very few studies have solicited views from construction practitioners about their perceptions of which safety management practices (SMPs) are important to construction projects and related to project performance. An empirical study was undertaken in Hong Kong in order to shed more light on this topic. In the study, the importance levels of 15 popular SMPs and five project performance criteria were rated by 232 respondents. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted, and three SMP categories - information, process, and committees - were extracted. Of these three categories, safety management process was perceived by the construction practitioners as being the most important, followed by safety management information and committees. Moreover, the effect of the three SMP categories on a composite project performance variable was tested using hierarchical regression analysis. Results indicate that the “information” and “committees” categories were associated with project performance positively and significantly. One of the major conclusions of the study is that the construction industry has paid relatively less attention to safety management committees, which were empirically analyzed as having a strong perceived impact on project performance. In order to improve project performance, construction companies should promote the criticality of safety management committees.     

The SeKT joint research project: definition of reference conditions, control sediments and toxicity thresholds for limnic sediment contact tests

- In current biotest approaches, intact organisms or in vitro systems are exposed to sediments using different exposure scenarios. The most important issue in sediment toxicity testing protocols is the question which test phase (solid or liquid) should be used. Whole-sediment exposure protocols represent the most realistic scenario to simulate in situ exposure conditions in the laboratory. However, until now there is no agreement in how to acquire and to evaluate the data of the various available sediment contact assays. The SeKT joint research project was initiated with the aim to compare recently developed sediment contact assays by addressing reference conditions, control sediments and toxicity thresholds for limnic sediment contact tests.     

Foresty offsets in emissions trading systems: a link between systems?

An important aspect in the linking of different emissions trading schemes is the degree to which these systems allow (or ban) external offset project categories. The EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) currently allows the use of credits from energy and industry projects developed under the Kyoto Protocol’s Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) but excludes the use of carbon credits from forestry projects for compliance in the EU ETS. Forestry credits generated by the CDM have a limited lifetime and expire at the end of a project’s crediting period, or earlier if the carbon stock for which the credits have been issued ceases to exist. According to the recently adopted amendment of the EU ETS Directive forestry credits will remain to be excluded until 2020. The present article reviews how the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (Australia), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (US) and the voluntary scheme of the Chicago Climate Exchange integrate forestry offsets into the respective system and how they deal with the risk of losing stored and credited biomass. By comparing the results of different scenarios this article shows how differences in the treatment of forestry offsets could impact the efforts to link various emission trading systems in future.

滨海石化项目环境综合风险评估方法研究

研究针对国内目前的研究现状,运用环境风险评价指数法建立滨海石化项目环境风险评估体系,采用层次分析法和熵权法结合的组合赋权法,结合专家咨询法进行指标的修改与完善,运用线性加权组合法对评估体系中指标权重的赋值,并计算滨海石化项目的环境风险等级,确定项目的风险强弱.实例分析表明环境风险管理在环境风险的产生和预防占有十分重要的地位,通过加强和完善环境风险的管理体系,结合环境因素的敏感程度及风险源的产生和影响,能降低环境风险及事故的影响程度.