A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed purchasing controls and activities within the Airway Facilities Division of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Alaska. This unit, referred to as AFA, is responsible for maintaining airway navigation and communication equipment throughout the state. AFA implemented a pilot program in March 1997 called the Corporate Maintenance Philosophy (CMP) that reduced periodic maintenance and certification requirements for equipment, thus allowing AFA to work with fewer staff. Under this program, AFA's funds originally intended for payroll compensation and benefits were freed for use on capital improvements and an employee recognition system. However, AFA did not have good internal controls. GAO reviewed 150 purchases made in fiscal years 1999 through 2001. Of these, 118 did not comply with one or more FAA purchasing requirements. AFA's highly decentralized operating environment made it susceptible to internal controls weaknesses and improper or wasteful purchases. FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, provides little oversight of spending practices, and regional officials in Alaska have no oversight authority over AFA's practices. AFA personnel work in various locations, with more than half having agency credit cards. GAO found that most cardholders received no training …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) spends between $6 billion and $7 billion annually to store, clean up, and monitor nuclear and hazardous waste at its sites. Various federal and state agencies with jurisdiction over environmental and health issues related to the cleanup are therefore involved in regulating and overseeing DOE's activities. Much of the cleanup activity has been implemented under compliance agreements between the DOE and these agencies. There are three types of compliance agreements governing DOE's sites: (1) legal requirements that address the cleanup of federal sites on the National Priorities List of the nation's most serious hazardous waste sites or that address treatment and storage of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste at DOE facilities; (2) court-ordered agreements resulting from lawsuits initiated primarily by states; and (3) other agreements, such as state administrative orders enforcing state hazardous waste management laws, that do not fall into the first two categories. Through the end of fiscal year 2001, DOE had completed 4,500 milestones, although for several reasons, the number of milestones is not a good indication of cleanup progress. Many of the milestones are administrative in nature, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) declared its intent to become competitive by reducing its cost of power and becoming more financially flexible by reducing debt from $27.4 billion to $13.2 billion by 2007. Since the 1980s, TVA has used benchmarking to assess staffing levels for its nuclear program and it began to use benchmarking studies for its non-nuclear business units in 1998. Recent studies indicate that TVA's nuclear and transmission power supply units are close to the industry's best in terms of staffing efficiency. TVA has taken several actions to improve performance and efficiency, including reorganizing its human resources and business services organizations and automating its hydropower production facilities to reduce future staffing. TVA continues to utilize benchmarking to assist in identifying opportunities for improvement. TVA's current electricity rates are low when compared to 12 likely competitors and to national averages. Although TVA's electricity rates are relatively low, it is legislatively protected from most competition, and it has the statutory authority to raise rates. If TVA were to choose to raise electricity rates selectively and use the additional cash generated to repay debt, it could accelerate …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since GAO reported on Department of Defense (DOD) contractor overpayments in 1994, additional reports have been issued highlighting billions of dollars of overpayments to Defense contractors. In December 2001, Congress amended Title 31 of the United States Code to require a federal agency with contracts totaling over $500 million in a fiscal year to have a cost-effective program for identifying payment errors and for recovering amounts erroneously paid to contractors. DOD contractors' responses to GAO's survey indicate that they have millions of dollars of overpayments on their records and that they are continuing to refund overpayments-- about $488 million in fiscal year 2001. DOD has taken actions to address problems with contractor overpayments. In addition to its contract audit functions and as part of a broad based program to assist the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) is auditing at least 190 large DOD contractors to identify overpayments and ensure that contractors have adequate internal controls for prompt identification and reporting of overpayments. Although DOD has several initiatives to reduce overpayments, it still …

This report provides summaries of the federal laws and regulations particular to telemarketing, the establishment of a national do-not-call registry, and the options that are available to consumers to limit the calls that they receive from telemarketers and to report questionable telemarketing practices to local or federal authorities. The report also lists sources of additional information with addresses, phone numbers, and Internet sites (if available).