A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Tongass National Forest's revised forest plan, focusing on the: (1) process used by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to modify the management direction in the 1997 plan and decide the appeals on the basis of the modified plan; (2) reasons the administration chose to use the process; and (3) reactions to the modifications and the process."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1994, the United States and other countries intervened militarily in Haiti to restore the democratically elected government that had been overthrown by the Haitian military several years earlier. During the last 6 years, the United States provided assistance to help Haiti establish its first civilian-controlled police and improve its judicial system. About $70 million in U.S. assistance helped Haiti recruit, train, organize, and equip a basic police force, including specialized units. However, despite these achievements, the police and judicial sector have displayed several weaknesses. The Haitian government's lack of a clear commitment to addressing the major problems of its police and judicial institutions has been the key factor affecting the success of the U.S. assistance provided to these institutions. The United States is reassessing several aspects of its relationship with Haiti because of concerns about how votes were counted in Haiti's May 2000 elections. The United States and Haiti have been unable to negotiate an agreement for continuing this assistance. At this time, any further aid to the Haitian Justice System should be linked to performance-related conditions."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report focuses on the default rate for student loans. Two major federal student loan programs, the Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP) and the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), together provided student borrowers with about 9 million loans totaling about $42.9 billion in fiscal year 1999. The most recent student loan default rate statistics for schools showed that, overall, the direct and guaranteed student loan programs had similar default rates: at 6.6 percent for FDLP and 6.7 percent for FFELP. The two programs had similar default rates when the comparisons focused on the type of school. FDLP has two types of loans, consolidated and nonconsolidated. Generally, borrowers with consolidated loans who used the standard payment plan had a lower default rate than did borrowers with nonconsolidated loans. However, when income contingent repayment plans were used, borrowers with consolidated loans had a higher default rate than did those with nonconsolidated loans. The Department of Education uses various procedures to ensure that loans are properly serviced and collected, including independent monitoring and external assessments of monitoring results."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, focusing on: (1) the status of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) implementation of the requirements established by the 1990 amendments; and (2) views from state governments, local programs, industries that are regulated under the act, and environmental advocacy groups (collectively referred to as stakeholders) on the issues that have either helped or hindered the implementation of the 1990 amendments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed Medicare payments for ambulance services in rural areas, focusing on: (1) the challenges faced by rural ambulance providers; (2) how the upcoming fee schedule will affect rural providers relative to their current situation; and (3) what factors have affected claim denial rates for ambulance services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has been providing assistance to Colombia since the early 1970s to help the Colombian National Police and other law enforcement agencies, the military, and civilian agencies reduce illegal drug production and trafficking. Recognizing that illegal drug activities are a serious problem, the Colombian government announced a counternarcotics plan known as Plan Colombia. This report reviews the U.S. counternarcotics efforts in Colombia. Although U.S.-provided assistance has enhanced Colombian counternarcotics capabilities, its usefulness has sometimes been limited because of long-standing problems in planning and implementation. For example, little progress has been made in launching a plan to have Colombia's National Police assume a larger role in managing the aerial eradication program, which requires costly U.S. contractor assistance. The governments of the United States and Colombia face continuing and new financial and management challenges in implementing Plan Colombia. The costs and activities needed to implement the plan are unknown at this time, and it will take years before any significant reduction in the drug trade is seen. Colombia must resolve problems with its political and economic stability and improve its management of counternarcotics funding in order …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) determined why some older persons do not use federal food relief programs; and (2) identified strategies that could be used to increase participation in these programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The accuracy of the 2000 decennial census depends in part on the proper functioning of 10 interrelated information systems, one of which is the Census Bureau's headquarters (HQ) processing system. The HQ processing system consists of 48 applications, all developed internally by the Bureau, that support various census operations, such as updating address files, creating a file of census responses, and preparing data for tabulation and dissemination. GAO found that the Bureau lacks effective, mature software and system development processes to control development of its HQ processing system applications."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "During fiscal year 1999, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made several improvements to address financial management issues that GAO raised in earlier reports. However, serious internal control and financial weaknesses continue to undermine the agency's ability to manage operations and produce reliable financial information. These weaknesses affect IRS' ability to, (1) manage unpaid assessments, (2) disburse taxpayer refunds, (3) safeguard manual tax receipts and taxpayer information, (4) account for property and equipment, (5) account for appropriated funds, and (6) collect and report financial data. These problems resulted from, (1) deficient operational and financial systems, (2) inadequate internal controls, and (3) policies and procedures that were not being consistently followed. The improvements that have been made so far focus on ad hoc work-arounds intended to yield immediate results for the limited purpose of reporting reliable annual financial statement information, but they have not corrected underlying long-term systems deficiencies. In addition, IRS has been unable to develop and maintain reliable and timely cost/benefit information to evaluate the relative merits of its various tax collection and enforcement activities. Until IRS undertakes more systemic, short- and long-term corrections, it will …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although the National Practitioner Data Bank is presently the nation's only central source of medical malpractice payment information, it is unclear whether all relevant data are being properly reported. GAO's review suggests that information in that data bank may not be as accurate, complete, or as timely as it should be. Inaccuracies in the way reported information was coded could confuse or mislead querying organizations about the severity of actions taken against practitioners. Also, duplicate reports overstate the amount of information that the databank has on a particular practitioner. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has not established criteria for the information that states and other entities must report when notifying the data bank of the disciplinary actions taken. Moreover, HRSA lacks procedures for ensuring that reporters adhere to the criteria established for medical malpractice reports, including inappropriate references to patients' names. Furthermore, the practitioner notification and dispute resolution processes have not ensured that inaccurate and erroneously reported information is removed from the data bank and not released to entities seeking information on specific practitioners. Finally, without an examination of its financial operations, HRSA has …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Farm Credit Administration (FCA) reviewed the Small Business Administration's (SBA) oversight of the Small Business Lending Companies (SBLC) program and determined that several areas could be strengthened. SBA officials said that the agency plans to take appropriate action on most of FCA's recommendations to improve the program. However, FCA expressed concern about the financial risk to SBA's loan portfolio associated with less favorable economic conditions. Such conditions could place upward pressure on SBA's 7(a) loan default rates. SBA needs to have access to information that accurately identifies risk in both individual loan and the total portfolio. The initial SBLC examination results have provided some information to aid in such risk identification, but a continued effort is needed."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on efforts to grant China membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), focusing on: (1) the status of negotiations for China to join WTO; (2) the results of the negotiations as compared to U.S. objectives for these negotiations; and (3) trade and legal considerations about granting China permanent normal trade relations status."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) and Department of Defense's (DOD) shared health care resources, focusing on: (1) the benefits gained from sharing; (2) the extent to which VA and DOD are sharing health care resources; and (3) barriers and challenges VA and DOD face in their efforts to share health resources."

This report describes the Section 301 process (including the related Special 301 and Super 301 processes) and examines questions that arise from its use. Section 301 is one of the principal means by whichthe United States attempts to combat unfair trading practices and enforce U.S. rights under trade agreements

The National People’s Congress (NPC), a unicameral legislature, is the People’s Republic of China (PRC)'s counterpart to the U.S. Congress. In recent years, there has been increasing interaction between the two legislatures. This report briefly considers recent developments in the NPC, describes how the NPC works, and discusses exchanges between the two congresses.

The Russian Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament approved ratification of the START II Treaty on April 14, 2000, after 7 years of debate and dissension. (The United States Senate approved ratification of the treaty in January 1996.) This report describes key concerns raised by Members of the Duma during their discussions of START II. These include concerns with treaty provisions, such as its ban on multiple warhead ICBMs and its warhead "downloading" provisions, and concerns with Russia's ability to maintain and finance its strategic nuclear forces in the future.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on voluntary food recall programs, focusing on: (1) the number of food recalls documented by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1984, and of those, the number associated with outbreaks of foodborne illnesses; (2) for recalls associated with such outbreaks, the extent to which USDA and FDA identified the cause of the outbreak and how the product became contaminated; (3) the extent to which companies delayed or did not comply with USDA- or FDA-requested recalls; and (4) the economic impact of recalls on affected companies, to the extent identifiable."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed policies and procedures for conducting personal searches to determine the controls Customs Service has in place to ensure that airline passengers are not inappropriately selected or subjected to personal searches, focusing on how the Customs' personal search data: (1) identifies the characteristics--race and gender--of passengers who were more or less likely to be subjected to more intrusive searches; and (2) the results of searching those passengers."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed efforts being undertaken by the Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reduce the number of truck-related fatalities, focusing on: (1) the motor carrier administration's overall strategy for reducing fatalities resulting from crashes involving large trucks; (2) specific actions the motor carrier administration is taking to meet this goal; (3) the extent to which the motor carrier administration has considered additional improvements suggested by the safety community, industry, and others; and (4) the bases for the motor carrier administration's estimates for the expected number of lives to be saved as a result of proposed revisions to its hours of service rules."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on small business bid protests that have been filed in district courts and the United States Court of Federal Claims (COFC) since the Administration Dispute Resolution Act took effect on December 31, 1996, focusing on the: (1) number of bid protest cases filed in the U.S. district courts and COFC between January 1, 1997, and April 30, 1999, that were filed by small businesses, the type of agencies involved, and the amount of the procurement at issue; (2) perceived advantages and disadvantages for small businesses filing bid protest cases in each judicial forum; and (3) characteristics of district court and COFC bid protest cases, particularly those filed by small businesses, that could be used to assess these perceived advantages and disadvantages."

Semi-annual report documenting statistics and analysis of contracts awarded to historically underutilized business (HUBs) by Texas state agencies, including procurement goals and performances,1999-2000 semi-annual total expenditure charts.