A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The early years of the 21st century are proving to be a period of profound transition for our world, our country, and our government. The federal government needs to engage in a comprehensive review, reassessment, reprioritization, and as appropriate, re-engineering of what the government does, how it does business, and in some cases, who does the government's business. Leading public and private organizations in the United States and abroad have found that for organizations to successfully transform themselves they must often fundamentally change their culture. On September 24, 2001, GAO convened a forum to identify and discuss useful practices and lessons learned from major private and public sector organizational mergers, acquisitions, and transformations that federal agencies could implement to successfully transform their cultures and a new Department of Homeland Security could use to merge its various originating components into a unified department. The invited participants have experience managing or studying large-scale organizational mergers, acquisitions, and transformations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 requires that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issue sequestration reports annually to Congress. Overall, GAO found that OMB and CBO substantially complied with the act in fiscal year 2002. However, as in previous years, some of the required OMB and CBO reports were issued late. Further, GAO identified a total of 19 items where differences of over $500 million existed between CBO's and OMB's scoring of discretionary budget authority and/or outlays for enacted laws."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has not yet adequately revised its regulatory and oversight approach to respond to the transition to competitive energy markets. FERC recognizes that the transition from highly regulated monopolies to competitive markets requires a fundamental change in how it does business. However, it has struggled through various strategic planning and other efforts to define the specific strategies, processes, and activities to regulate and oversee these markets. GAO found that FERC (1) has had difficulty recruiting staff because it has trouble competing with private sector salaries; (2) faces the retirement of more than one-quarter of its employees by 2005; (3) has used recruitment bonuses, retention allowances, tuition reimbursement, and flexible work schedules to attract new staff and to retain current employees but has not taken advantage of the full range of personnel flexibilities and tools available to federal agencies, such as special salary rates; and (4) has not developed a strategic human capital management plan to assess its workforce needs and to develop strategies to address them."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Census Bureau conducted the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (ACE) survey to estimate the number of people missed, counted more than once, or otherwise improperly counted in the 2000 Census. On the basis of uncertainty in the ACE results, the Bureau's acting director decided that the 2000 Census tabulations should not be adjusted in order to redraw the boundaries of congressional districts or to distribute billions of dollars in federal funding. Although ACE was generally implemented as planned, the Bureau found that it overstated census undercounts because of an error introduced during matching operations and other uncertainties. The Bureau concluded that additional review and analysis of these uncertainties would be needed before the data could be used. Matching more than 1.4 million census and ACE records involved the following four phases, each with its own matching procedures and multiple layers of review: computer matching, clerical matching, field follow-up, and clerical matching. The Bureau applied quality assurance procedures to each phase of person matching. Because the quality assurance procedures had failure rates of less than one percent, the Bureau reported that person matching quality assurance was …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress and the scientific community are concerned that the Air Force's investment in science and technology may be too low to meet the challenges presented by new and emerging threats. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 requires the Air Force to review its science and technology programs to assess the budgetary resources currently used and those needed to adequately address the challenges and objectives. GAO found that the Air Force complied with the requirements of section 252 of the act. The Air Force established an integrated product team to identify long-term science and technology challenges and a task force to identify short-term objectives. For each challenge or objective that was identified, the Air Force established teams to identify technological capabilities needed to achieve these goals. Each team chose research projects that addressed the criteria specified in the act. The Air Force also complied with the act's process provisions. The Deputy Assistant Director for Science, Technology and Engineering is required to review the teams' results and to identify any science and technology research not currently funded."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly defines conflict diamonds as rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance their military activities, including attempts to undermine or overthrow legitimate governments. The United States and much of the international community are trying to sever the link between conflict and diamonds while ensuring that no harm is done to the legitimate diamond industry, which is economically important in many countries. The principal international effort to address these objectives, known as the Kimberley Process, aims to develop and implement an international diamond certification scheme that will deter conflict diamonds from entering the legitimate market. The nature of diamonds and the operations of the international diamond industry create opportunities for illicit trade, including trade in conflict diamonds. Diamonds are mined in remote areas around the world and are virtually untraceable back to their original source once mixed and polished. The United States cannot detect diamonds that might come from conflict sources because the current diamond import control system does not require certification of the country of extraction. At present, there is no international system to certify the source of extraction. The …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Thousands of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controllers will soon be eligible to retire because of extensive hiring in the 1980's to replace striking air traffic controllers. Although the exact number and timing of the controllers' departures has not been determined, attrition scenarios developed by both FAA and GAO indicate that the total attrition will grow substantially in both the short and long term. As a result, FAA will likely need to hire thousands of air traffic controllers in the next decade to met increasing traffic demands and to address the anticipated attrition of experienced controllers, predominately because of retirement. FAA has yet to developed a comprehensive human capital workforce strategy to address its impending controller needs. Rather, FAA's strategy for replacing controllers is generally to hire new controllers only when current, experienced controllers leave. This does not take into account the potential increases in future hiring and the time necessary to train replacements. In addition, there is uncertainty about the ability of FAA's new aptitude test to identify the best controller candidates. Further, FAA has not addressed the resources that may be needed at its …

This report does not constitute a blueprint for every office involved in grants and projects activity, nor does it present in-depth information about all aspects of staff activity in this area.

The report is categorized into seven categories: (I) Background and Analysis, (II) Budget Totals, (III) Budget Action, (IV) Outlays, (V) Receipts, (VI) Surpluses or Deficits, and (VII) The Budget and The Economy.

This report discusses the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which provides comprehensive vocational rehabilitation (VR) services designed to help individuals with physical and mental disabilities become employable and to facilitate independence and integration into society.

This report provides an overview of the dispute resolution procedures under the Railway Labor Act, including the President's authority to appoint an Emergency Board; and discusses Congress' authority to intervene in railway and airline strikes.

This report discusses the ongoing debate about whether or not to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for energy development. The report discusses arguments for and against such development and focuses especially on related pieces of legislation that directly affects the future of the ANWR.

This report provides the following: an overview of postsecondary education (institutions and students), an overview of the Higher Education Act (HEA) with a focus on its most significant programs and provisions, and a discussion of major issues likely to be of interest to the Congress during the HEA reauthorization process.

In recent years conflicting budget priorities and divided political control have accentuated the institutional tensions between the executive and legislative branches inherent in the federal budget process. President Clinton, like his two predecessors, called for an item veto, or possibly expanded impoundment authority, to provide him with greater control over federal spending. This report provides a brief history of impoundment and discusses the debate surrounding the line item veto.

Members of Congress often get requests from constituents for information and help in obtaining funds for projects. Many state and local governments, nonprofit social service and community action organizations, private research groups, small businesses, and individuals approach congressional offices to find out about funding, both from the federal government and from the private sector. The success rate in obtaining federal assistance is not high, given the competition for federal funds. A grants staff’s effectiveness often depends on both an understanding of the grants process and on the relations it establishes with agency and other contacts. The following report does not constitute a blueprint for every office involved in grants and projects activity, nor does it present in-depth information about all aspects of staff activity in this area. The discussion is aimed at describing some basics about the grants process and some of the approaches and techniques used by congressional offices in dealing with this type of constituent service.

Members of Congress often get requests from constituents for information and help in obtaining funds for projects. Many state and local governments, nonprofit social service and community action organizations, private research groups, small businesses, and individuals approach congressional offices to find out about funding, both from the federal government and from the private sector. The success rate in obtaining federal assistance is not high, given the competition for federal funds. A grants staff’s effectiveness often depends on both an understanding of the grants process and on the relations it establishes with agency and other contacts. The following report does not constitute a blueprint for every office involved in grants and projects activity, nor does it present in-depth information about all aspects of staff activity in this area. The discussion is aimed at describing some basics about the grants process and some of the approaches and techniques used by congressional offices in dealing with this type of constituent service.

This report addresses the current policy on immigration visa issuances and options for reassigning this function to the proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It opens with an overview of visa issuances, with sections on procedures for aliens coming to live in the United States permanently and on procedures for aliens admitted for temporary stays. An analysis of the grounds for excluding aliens follows. The report summarizes the debate on transferring visa issuance policy functions to homeland security and concludes with a discussion of the legislative proposals to reassign the visa issuance activities and to revise visa issuance policies.