A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Created in 1933 to insure bank deposits and promote sound banking practices, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) plays an important role in maintaining public confidence in the nation's financial system. In 1989, legislation to reform the federal deposit insurance system created three funds to be administered by FDIC: the Bank Insurance Fund and the Savings Association Insurance Fund, which protect bank and savings deposits, and the FSLIC Resolution Fund, created to close out the business of the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. GAO is responsible for obtaining reasonable assurance about whether FDIC's financial statements for the funds are presented fairly, whether it maintains effective internal controls, and whether FDIC has complied with selected laws and regulations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) readiness assessment system was designed to assess the ability of units and joint forces to fight and meet the demands of the national security strategy. In 1998, GAO concluded that the readiness reports provided to Congress were vague and ineffective as oversight tools. Since that time, Congress added reporting requirements to enhance its oversight of military readiness. Therefore, the Chairman asked GAO to examine (1) the progress DOD made in resolving issues raised in the 1998 GAO report on both the unit-level readiness reporting system and the lack of specificity in DOD's Quarterly Readiness Reports to the Congress, (2) the extent to which DOD has complied with legislative reporting requirements enacted since 1997, and (3) DOD's plans to improve readiness reporting."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) is in charge of addressing cleanup at the more than 9,000 U.S. properties that were formerly owned or controlled by the Department of Defense (DOD) and have been identified as potentially eligible for environmental cleanup. The Corps has determined that more than 4,000 of these properties have no hazards that require further Corps study or cleanup action. However, in recent years, hazards have surfaced at some of these properties, leading state and federal regulators to question whether the Corps has properly assessed and cleaned up these properties. In this context, Congress asked us to (1) analyze federal coordination requirements that apply to the cleanup of these properties, (2) assess recent DOD and Corps efforts to improve coordination, and (3) identify any issues regulators may have about coordination with the Corps."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has historically been unable to accurately account for and record its disbursements. In March 2002, the DOD Comptroller cited metrics that showed dramatic reductions in payment recording errors (57 percent between October 2000 and October 2001), backlogs of commercial payments (41 percent between April and October 2001), and travel card payment delinquencies (34 percent for those individually billed and 86 percent for those centrally billed between January and December 2001). As a result, the Congress asked us to determine whether the cited reductions were (1) calculated using consistent definitions and methodologies, (2) properly supported, and (3) effective indicators of short-term financial management progress."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) long-standing financial management and business systems modernization problems result in a lack of information needed to make sound decisions, hinder the efficiency of operations, and leave the department vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. Such problems led us in 1995 to put financial management and business systems modernization at DOD on our list of high risk areas in the federal government, a designation that continues today. GAO was asked to (1) provide information on the number and cost of DOD's current business systems and (2) determine if DOD is effectively managing and overseeing selected accounting system investments."

This report provides information aobut the Effects on Economic Recovery, Long-Term Growth, and the Stock Market on Dividend Tax Relief.

The meteorological monitoring and analysis program has three overall objectives. First, the program will acquire qualified meteorological data from monitoring activities in the Environmental Safety and Health (ES&H) network, including appropriate controls on measuring and test equipment. All work will be completed in accordance with U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Repository Development (ORD) administrative procedures and Bechtel SAIC Co., LLC (BSC) line procedures. The continuously operating monitoring program includes measuring and test equipment calibrations, operational checks, preventive and corrective maintenance, and data collection. Second, the program will process the raw monitoring data collected in the field and submit technically reviewed, traceable data to the Technical Data Management System (TDMS) and the Records Processing Center. Third, reports containing analyses or calculations could be created to provide information to data requesters.

This project works to develop technologies capable of replacing traditional energy-intensive distillations so that a 20% improvement in energy efficiency can be realized. Consistent with the DOE sponsored report, Technology Roadmap for the Petroleum Industry, the approach undertaken is to develop and implement entirely new technology to replace existing energy intensive practices. The project directly addresses the top priority issue of developing membranes for hydrocarbon separations. The project is organized to rapidly and effectively advance the state-of-the-art in membranes for hydrocarbon separations. The project team includes ChevronTexaco and BP, major industrial petroleum refiners, who will lead the effort by providing matching resources and real world management perspective. Academic expertise in separation sciences and polymer materials found in the Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Refining Department of the Colorado School of Mines is used to invent, develop, and test new membrane materials. Additional expertise and special facilities available at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) are also exploited in order to effectively meet the goals of the project. The proposed project is truly unique in terms of the strength of the team it brings to bear on the development and commercialization of the proposed technologies.

High-energy film radiography methods, adapted in the past to performing specific tasks, must now meet increasing demands to identify defects and perform critical measurements in a wide variety of manufacturing processes. Although film provides unequaled resolution for most components and assemblies, image quality must be enhanced with much more detailed information to identify problems and qualify features of interest inside manufactured items. The work described is concerned with improving current 9 MeV nondestructive practice by optimizing the important parameters involved in film radiography using computational methods. In order to follow important scattering effects produced by electrons, the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code was used with advanced, highly parallel computer systems. The work has provided a more detailed understanding of latent image formation at high X-ray energies, and suggests that improvements can be made in our ability to identify defects and to obtain much more detail in images of fine features.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) civilian employees play key roles in such areas as defense policy, intelligence, finance, acquisitions, and weapon systems maintenance. Although downsized 38 percent between fiscal years 1989 and 2002, this workforce has taken on greater roles as a result of DOD's restructuring and transformation. Responding to congressional concerns about the quality and quantity of, and the strategic planning for the civilian workforce, GAO determined the following for DOD, the military services, and selected defense agencies: (1) the extent of top-level leadership involvement in civilian strategic planning; (2) whether elements in civilian strategic plans are aligned to the overall mission, focused on results, and based on current and future civilian workforce data; and (3) whether civilian and military personnel strategic plans or sourcing initiatives were integrated."

This report provides background on ten selected questions related to public aid for faith-based organization. Despite the ongoing controversy about charitable choice, not until the 107th Congress were there full hearings and extended debates on its constitutionality, efficacy, and public policy implications.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) plans to accelerate tank waste treatment completion by 20 years. Achieving this goal will require a significant increase in processing rate over the Waste Treatment Plant capacity. One approach is to conduct supplemental processing external to the WTP. CHG will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) that will enable them to select the most mature and feasible technologies that can be demonstrated to increase capacity for treatment of Hanford waste. This report provides preliminary testing recommendations to support evaluation, down selection, and demonstration of waste treatment processes for the Mission Acceleration Initiative. The testing recommendations will serve as a guide to potential vendors for designing their test program in response to the RFP the recommendations describe the data needed for DOE to evaluate the technologies and for the proposer to prepare a preconceptual design for treatment that will achieve the ultimate goal of Hanford tank waste treatment. This revision incorporates comments from a national peer review of the original issue.

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This report discusses major aspects of Senate procedure related to filibusters and cloture. The two, however, are not always as closely linked in practice as they are in popular conception. Even when opponents of a measure resort to extended debate or other tactics of delay, supporters may not decide to seek cloture (although this situation seems to have been more common in earlier decades than today). In recent times, conversely, the Senate leadership has increasingly utilized cloture as a routine tool to manage the flow of business, even in the absence of any apparent filibuster.

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Omnibus energy legislation (H.R. 4) that is now in conference would expand energy tax incentives significantly. The House passed the bill on August 2, 2001, and the Senate approved its version April 25, 2002. Several energy tax issues are addressed in these bills: 1) tax incentives to increase the supply of oil and gas, and the demand for coal; 2) energy tax issues relating to energy conservation and energy efficiency; 3) energy tax issues relating to alternative fuels; 4) selected issues relating to electricity restructuring; and 5) expiring energy tax provisions.

Clean air issues were discussed at length in the 107th Congress, but legislation was not enacted, leaving the same issues for possible consideration in the 108th. The most prominent air quality issues discussed in this report are; the controversy over EPA’s proposed changes to the New Source Review (NSR) requirements, Clear Skies / Multi-Pollutant Legislation, gasoline additive MTBE, Conformity of Transportation Plans and SIPs Deadlines for Achieving the Ozone Air Quality Standard.

The primary focus of this issue brief is legislative action in the 108th Congress with respect to abortion. However, discussion of those legislative proposals necessarily involves a brief discussion of the leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate her pregnancy. For a more detailed discussion of the relevant case law, see CRS Report 95-724, Abortion Law Development: A Brief Overview.

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