ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Atmospheric Release Advisory Capabilityassociated with organized crime led to the passage of theNational Firearms Act in 1934. Four years later, Congresspassed the Federal Firearms Act, and BIR became responsiblefor collecting taxes on firearms.After a number of changes in the section of BIRconcerned with alcohol taxes, in 1940, this division becamethe ATU, or Alcohol Tax Unit. In 1942, Congress gaveATU responsibility for enforcing the Firearms Act.ATF separates from the Revenue Office. Throughout much ofthe twentieth century, BIR had included a MiscellaneousTax Unit (MTU), which had responsibility for tobaccotaxes and, between 1934 and 1942, taxes on firearms. In1952, MTU was dismantled, and its firearms and tobaccotax functions fell under ATU. At the same time, BIR receiveda new name, one familiar to millions of Americanstoday: Internal Revenue Service (IRS). ATU then cameunder IRS control as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division,an arrangement that lasted for two decades.In 1968, when Congress passed the Gun Control Act,the old BIR/IRS laboratory became responsible for analyzingfirearms and explosives, and the Alcohol and TobaccoTax Division became the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms(ATF) Division. The 1970 passage of the Organized CrimeControl Act made the role of the ATF Division more explicit,and signaled a shift away from IRS purview. OnJune 1, 1972, the Treasury Department issued Order No.120–1, which separated the ATF from the IRS.The order gave the new bureau authority not onlyover the three items listed in its name, but also overexplosives. During the 1970s, ATF and its laboratory becameinvolved in arson investigations, and in 1982, Congressamended Title XI of the Organized Crime Control Actto make arson a federal crime and formalize the ATF’s rolein investigating it.During the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury, ATF undertook a number of new efforts towardfighting and investigating crime. Among these was theIntegrated Ballistic Identification System, a computerizedprogram for matching weapons and ammunition firedfrom them. In the mid-1990s, after its abortive 1993 raid ona Waco, Texas, compound controlled by the BranchDavidian cult, the bureau became the focus of hostility onthe part of fringe right-wing groups. By the turn of thecentury, ATF annually collected more than $13 billion inrevenue for the federal government.❚ FURTHER READING:BOOKS:Moore, Jim. Very Special Agents: The Inside Story ofAmerica’s Most Controversial Law EnforcementAgency—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.Urbana: University of Illinois, 2001.A Report on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms:Its History, Progress, and Programs. Washington,D.C.: U.S. Government,1995.Vizzard, William J. In the Cross Fire: A Political History ofthe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997.ELECTRONIC:Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. (December 30, 2002).SEE ALSOTreasury Department, United StatesAtmospheric Release AdvisoryCapability (ARAC)The Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) isan effort through which the United States Department ofEnergy (DOE) monitors and predicts the release of hazardousmaterials into the atmosphere. The bulk of its activitiestakes place at the National Atmospheric Release AdvisoryCenter (NARAC), located at the University of California’sLawrence Livermore National Laboratory. ARAC andNARAC have provided assessment on more than 100incidents of hazardous-material release, whether accidentalor intentional, involving nuclear, chemical, biological,and natural materials.In 1973, Rudy J. Engelmann of the DOE consultedscientists at Livermore to learn if it were possible to createan integrated system for providing data on potential andongoing atmospheric hazards. The laboratory undertooka feasibility study, and the result was the creation of ARACa year later. ARAC and its national center, NARAC, gottheir first major test on March 28, 1979, after a malfunctionin the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island nearHarrisburg, Pennsylvania, threatened to release radioactivematerials into the atmosphere. NARAC analysis helpedprovide DOE with an accurate picture of radioactivity inand around the plant, and helped prevent an environmentaldisaster.Seven years later, a far worse nuclear incident occurredin what is now Ukraine, then a part of the SovietUnion. On April 26, 1986, an accident at the Chernobylnuclear reactor killed 31 workers immediately, and ultimatelyled to the deaths of some 10,000 people. With theSoviet government withholding information, even fromits own citizens in the threatened area, the U.S. governmentturned to ARAC. Over the weeks that followed, theteam at NARAC assisted western European U.S. allies inassessing the threat, and accurately predicted the subsequentspread of radioactive material across the northernhemisphere.Accidental nuclear hazards are only one type of eventamong many for which ARAC has provided data. Otherexamples include the oil fires set by a retreating Iraqi army68 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security