A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO determined whether Medicare contractors participated in any improper or questionable practices that contributed to fraud, waste, or abuse in the Medicare federal health insurance program, focusing on: (1) recently completed cases of criminal conduct or False Claims Act violations committed by Medicare contractors; (2) the deceptive contractor activities set forth in those cases or alleged by investigating agents and former contractor employees; and (3) how these activities were carried out without detection by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) status of efforts and progress made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states in addressing the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996; and (2) future challenges facing EPA and the states in their efforts to do so."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the role of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in shaping the national drug control budget that the President ultimately proposes to Congress to implement the National Drug Control Strategy, focusing on: (1) whether the process ONDCP followed to certify federal agencies' drug control budgets for fiscal year (FY) 1999 was consistent with statutory requirements; and (2) the system ONDCP has developed to assess the extent to which drug control agencies and programs achieve intended results."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided an analysis of the Navy's assessment of the short-term and long-term costs associated with alternative methods for executing the naval surface fire support mission, including the alternative of reactivating two battleships."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on improvements needed to track and archive trade agreements, focusing on: (1) the number of trade agreements the United States is party to; (2) the way in which the executive branch notifies Congress when trade agreements are entered into; and (3) the extent to which the public has ready access to information from government sources about trade agreements."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the trends in the occupational distribution of military women, focusing on: (1) all occupations women were in during fiscal years 1990 and 1998, particularly those with the highest percentage of women; and (2) systemic barriers, if any, that limit women entering certain occupations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO evaluated the Army's schedule for implementing best commercial inventory practices for the acquisition and distribution of secondary inventory items, focusing on: (1) the extent to which that schedule responds to the provisions of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999; and (2) specific elements of a management framework needed for effective implementation and oversight of the Army's best practice initiatives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) year 2000 business continuity and contingency plans for their consistency and completeness on the basis of IRS' guidance for such plans."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reported on the: (1) status of the development and use of alternative fuel technologies in transit buses, particularly the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a fuel; (2) air quality benefits of such technologies; (3) costs incurred by transit operators to use CNG buses, as well as other alternative fuels, compared with the costs to use diesel buses; and (4) primary incentives and disincentives for using these technologies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee evaluation system can support the new mission statement during the period IRS will need to revamp its performance management system, focusing on: (1) determining the relative emphasis on revenue production, efficiency, and customer service in enforcement employees' annual written evaluations; (2) identifying features of the evaluation process that might be used to greater advantage to reinforce the importance of customer service; and (3) describing IRS initiatives to promote customer service, including those to encourage enforcement employees to be taxpayer oriented."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO responded to the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) statements regarding GAO's designation of HUD's programs as a high-risk area."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) oversight of its claims administration contractors, focusing on: (1) whether there are weaknesses in HCFA's contractor oversight activities that may make Medicare more vulnerable to fraud, waste, or abuse; and (2) changes in HCFA's contracting authority that may improve its ability to manage its contractors."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO compared the cost of the Department of Defense's (DOD) high-quality child development program with the cost of comparable care in the civilian market, focusing on: (1) identifying the objectives of the military child development program and describing how it operates; (2) determining the full cost of operating DOD's U.S. child development centers and the cost per child-hour for center-based care; and (3) comparing the cost per child in DOD's child development centers with the full cost of comparable quality child care in the civilian market."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on community-based, long-term care for severely disabled adults, focusing on: (1) the number and characteristics of adults with severe disabilities; (2) the federal assistance available to such individuals; (3) Medicaid coverage of personal care and related services; and (4) how a sample of selected states have implemented Medicaid policies that allow consumers to select their own caregivers, an approach called consumer direction."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on wind and photovoltaic technologies, focusing on: (1) how much the Department of Energy (DOE) has spent on research and development; (2) how DOE's objectives for its programs have changed over time; and (3) the characteristics of the markets for these technologies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on efforts to assess the economic impact of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulations to enhance environmental quality, focusing on: (1) to what extent EPA's regulations have been the subject of retrospective studies; (2) whether retrospective studies are viewed as useful or difficult to do; and (3) ways to foster such studies in the future."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the timeliness of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) grant award process, focusing on the: (1) the number and dollar value of the agency-requested and congressionally directed grants awarded for fiscal years (FY) 1995-1998; (2) median award time for both types of grants, as measured by the number of days between the date of the fiscal year appropriation and the date of the grant award; and (3) major reasons for lengthy awards."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) reports on how the pork industry's sharp decline in prices does not reflect pork prices at the retail level, focusing on the: (1) structural changes in the pork industry that have occurred since the 1980s and their effect on production and marketing; (2) reasons for the sudden and rapid decline in prices paid to farmers in late 1998; and (3) extent to which USDA's methods for obtaining and reporting on prices at the farm and retail level for hogs and pork products result in accurate estimates of these prices."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the financial statements of the Congressional Award Foundation for the fiscal years ended September 30, 1998 and 1997, focusing on: (1) the Foundation management's assertions regarding the effectiveness of its internal controls as of September 30, 1998; and (2) GAO's evaluation of the Foundation's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations during fiscal year 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of high-speed rail development in the United States, focusing on: (1) project plans for the Florida corridor for which detailed studies on building a new high-speed rail system between Miami, Orlando, and Tampa have begun; (2) the estimated cost, financing, ridership, and schedule for the Florida Overland Express (FOX) rail project; (3) the status of a new federal transportation infrastructure financing program and how federal funding decisions for the FOX project might affect the new program; and (4) the status of other planned high-speed rail corridors in the United States."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) management of its 203(k) Home Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance program, focusing on: (1) the risk the 203(k) program poses to the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) insurance fund relative to the 203(b) program; (2) HUD's efforts to correct program deficiencies identified by HUD's Inspector General and others; and (3) weaknesses, if any, in HUD's oversight of the 203(k) program and the extent to which lenders are complying with HUD's underwriting guidelines for making program loans."

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A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the enterprise funds, established to support private sector development in selected countries of Eastern and Central Europe, focusing on: (1) whether enterprise funds are assisting private sector development; (2) what factors have affected the funds' ability to carry out their activities; (3) whether funds still have a role in private sector development, given other private investment and international donor efforts; (4) whether the funds are likely to recoup their authorized capital; and (5) whether the funds are complying with recent changes in the Agency for International Development (AID) reporting requirements."