A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As part of verifying if farm and conservation program participants had incomes below statutory limits--making them eligible to receive certain 2009 and 2010 program payments--reviews of tax returns by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency's (FSA) state offices varied in quality. GAO's review of 115 tax return files from selected state offices found that some files met agency guidance and had no apparent errors. Other files did not meet agency guidance or contained errors, resulting in some potentially improper payments to participants whose incomes exceeded the limits. For example, GAO found errors in 19 of the 22 tax return files it reviewed from FSA offices in two states; one of these errors led to a potentially improper payment of $40,000. FSA headquarters does not monitor state offices' reviews of tax returns to ensure that the offices are applying program guidance consistently and making accurate eligibility determinations, even though federal standards for internal control direct agencies to monitor and assess the quality of performance over time. Also, 2008 Farm Bill provisions requiring a distinction between farm and nonfarm income make it difficult for agency …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has taken actions to address the recommendations from GAO's December 2011 report on CBP officer training programs aimed at strengthening officer training; three of the four recommendations are closed, and CBP has actions underway to address the remaining open recommendation, as follows:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Households without employer-sponsored defined contribution (DC) pension plans or individual retirement accounts (IRA) had lower incomes and tax rates than households with those plans, and are also likely to have limited additional resources to draw upon in retirement, according to GAO estimates. The median adjusted gross income for households without DC plans or IRAs was $32,000, compared to $75,000 for those that did have them. The median marginal tax rate for households without DC plans or IRAs was 15 percent, compared to 25 percent for households with those savings vehicles. A defined benefit (DB) pension plan could provide a monthly benefit during retirement years for those without a DC plan or IRA; however, in 2010 only 15 percent of married households and 11 percent of single households without a DC plan or IRA had a DB plan."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Bureau of Land Management (BLM) data indicate that BLM received about half as many applications for permit to drill (APD) for federal oil and gas resources in fiscal year 2012 as it had in fiscal year 2007. The decline in APDs since 2007 was driven by declines in natural gas and coalbed methane APDs on federal lands even while oil development on federal lands increased significantly. The reasons BLM officials and industry representatives cited for these changes in APDs include, among other things, a general industry move toward developing gas in shale formations using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing; shale development has largely occurred on state and private lands, where shale resources are predominately located. However, the number of APDs has varied by BLM location, with 23 of 33 BLM offices seeing declines, 9 offices seeing increases, and 1 office seeing no change in APDs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past several decades, the Army and Marine Corps have increased their use of simulation-based training--simulators and computer-based simulations. Historically, the aviation communities in both services have used simulators to train servicemembers in tasks such as takeoffs, and emergency procedures that could not be taught safely live. In contrast, the services' ground communities used limited simulations prior to 2000. However, advances in technology, and emerging conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to increased use of simulation-based training in the ground forces. For example, in response to increases in vehicle rollovers, both services began using simulators to train servicemembers to safely evacuate vehicles. The services are also collaborating in the development of some simulation-based training devices. For instance, according to Marine Corps officials, the service reused 87 percent of the Army's Homestation Instrumentation Training System's components in its own training system, achieving about $11 million in cost avoidance and saving an estimated 7 years in fielding time. The services are also taking steps to better integrate live and simulation-based training, developing technical capabilities to connect previously incompatible simulation-based training devices. The Army's capability is now …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2011, the Army has conducted five Network Integration Evaluations (NIE), which have provided extensive information and insights into current network capabilities and potential solutions to fill network capability gaps. According to senior Department of Defense (DOD) test officials, the NIE objective to test and evaluate network components together in a combined event is sound, as is the opportunity to reduce overall test and evaluation costs by combining test events. Further, the NIEs offer the opportunity for a more comprehensive evaluation of the broader network instead of piecemeal evaluation of individual network components. However, the Army is not taking full advantage of the potential knowledge that could be gained from the NIEs, and some resulting Army decisions are at odds with knowledge accumulated during the NIEs. For example, despite poor results in developmental testing, the Army moved forward to operational testing for several systems during the NIEs and they demonstrated similarly poor results. Yet the Army plans to buy and field several of these systems. Doing so increases the risk of poor performance in the field and the need to correct and modify deployed equipment. On …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Officials GAO interviewed inside and outside of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) generally agreed on the potential major benefits of the Compliance Assurance Process (CAP) to taxpayers and IRS as reflected in its goals. These goals include saving IRS time and resources to use for other audits while ensuring compliance, and reducing taxpayer burden while increasing certainty on tax amounts now owed."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not thoroughly evaluated the performance of each of the pilot projects over time even though the agency stated it would do so when it announced the pilot projects. For example, in 2011, USDA completed a report evaluating the pilot project at 20 young chicken plants concluding that an inspection system based on the pilot project would ensure equivalent, if not better, levels of food safety and quality than currently provided at plants not in the pilot project. However, among the limitations of its evaluation was the use of snapshots of data for two 2-year periods instead of data for the duration of the pilot project, which has been ongoing for more than a decade. In addition, USDA did not complete an evaluation on or prepare a report evaluating the pilot project at 5 young turkey plants and has no plans to do so because of the small sample size. Nevertheless, in publishing a proposed rule that includes an optional new poultry (chicken and turkey) inspection system, USDA stated that the new system was based on its experience with the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From 2000 to 2010, the number of patent infringement lawsuits in the federal courts fluctuated slightly, and from 2010 to 2011, the number of such lawsuits increased by about a third. Some stakeholders GAO interviewed said that the increase in 2011 was most likely influenced by the anticipation of changes in the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), which made several significant changes to the U.S. patent system, including limiting the number of defendants in a lawsuit, causing some plaintiffs that would have previously filed a single lawsuit with multiple defendants to break the lawsuit into multiple lawsuits. In addition, GAO's detailed analysis of a representative sample of 500 lawsuits from 2007 to 2011 shows that the number of overall defendants in patent infringement lawsuits increased by about 129 percent over this period. These data also show that companies that make products brought most of the lawsuits and that nonpracticing entities (NPE) brought about a fifth of all lawsuits. GAO's analysis of these data also found that lawsuits involving software-related patents accounted for about 89 percent of the increase in defendants over this period."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has made some progress in addressing key challenges as it begins the gradual transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). It has filled key leadership positions and developed tools to manage interdependent NextGen programs. FAA is working to address other identified challenges, including incentivizing aircraft operators to equip with NextGen technologies, identifying workforce roles under NextGen, and realigning and consolidating facilities. However, FAA has yet to make some decisions needed to move forward with these efforts. For example, FAA is evaluating realignment options to help realize efficiencies but has not yet identified which facilities will be consolidated or realigned."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Generation Jammer (NGJ) program is duplicative using a variety of means, but none of them address all of the system's planned roles or take into account the military services' evolving airborne electronic attack investment plans. DOD analyses support its conclusion that the NGJ meets a valid need and is not duplicative of existing capabilities in its primary role--suppressing enemy air defenses from outside the range of known surface-to-air missiles. However, these analyses do not address all planned NGJ roles, such as communications jamming in irregular warfare environments, or take into account the military services' evolving airborne electronic attack investment plans. According to GAO's analysis, none of the systems that have emerged since DOD completed its NGJ analyses duplicate its planned capabilities; however there is some overlap in the roles they are intended to perform. Redundancy in some of these areas may, in fact, be desirable. However, pursuing multiple acquisition efforts to develop similar capabilities can result in the same capability gap being filled twice or more, lead to inefficient use of resources, and contribute to other warfighting needs going unfilled. Therefore, continued examination of potential overlap …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and the Department of the Interior have undertaken nine major efforts since 1995 to identify the number and type of firefighting aircraft they need, but those efforts--consisting of major studies and strategy documents--have been hampered by limited information and collaboration. Specifically, the studies and strategy documents did not incorporate information on the performance and effectiveness of firefighting aircraft, primarily because neither agency collected such data. While government reports have long called for the Forest Service and Interior to collect aircraft performance information, neither agency did so until 2012 when the Forest Service began a data collection effort. However, the Forest Service has collected limited data on large airtankers and no other aircraft, and Interior has not initiated a data collection effort. In addition, although firefighting aircraft are often shared by federal agencies and can be deployed to support firefighting operations on federal and nonfederal lands, the agencies have not consistently collaborated with one another and other stakeholders to identify the firefighting aircraft they need. Many agency officials and stakeholders GAO contacted noted concerns about limited collaboration, and many cited shortcomings …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To install positive train control (PTC)--a communications-based system designed to prevent certain types of train accidents caused by human factors-- almost all railroads are overlaying their existing infrastructure with PTC components; nonetheless, most railroads report they will miss the December 31, 2015, implementation deadline. Both the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) have reported that most railroads will not have PTC fully implemented by the deadline. Of the four major freight railroads included in GAO's review, only one expects to meet the 2015 deadline. The other three freight railroads report that they expect to have PTC implemented by 2017 or later. Commuter railroads generally must wait until freight railroads and Amtrak equip the rail lines they operate on, and most of the seven commuter railroads included in this review reported that they do not expect to meet the 2015 deadline. To implement PTC systems that meet the requirements of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA), railroads are developing more than 20 major components that are currently in various stages of development, integrating them, and installing them across the rail …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On the basis of analyzing Social Security Administration (SSA) data on individuals who were Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries as of December 2010 and earnings data from the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH), GAO estimates that SSA made $1.29 billion in potential cash benefit overpayments to about 36,000 individuals as of January 2013. The exact number of individuals who received improper disability payments and the exact amount of improper payments made to those individuals cannot be determined without detailed case investigations by SSA. These DI beneficiaries represent an estimated 0.4 percent of all primary DI beneficiaries as of December 2010. Using a different methodology that includes additional causes of overpayments not considered in GAO's analysis, SSA estimated its DI overpayments in fiscal year 2011 were $1.62 billion, or 1.27 percent of all DI benefits in that fiscal year. GAO estimated DI program overpayments on the basis of work activity performed by two populations of individuals. The first population received potential overpayments due to work activity during the DI program's mandatory 5-month waiting period--a statutory program requirement to help ensure that SSA does not pay benefits to …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year (FY) 2012, we found that four federal departments--the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Defense, and Department of Education--administered 91 programs that supported postsecondary training or education specifically for direct care health professionals. The departments reported obligating about $14.2 billion for these programs in FY 2012 with the majority (78 percent) of funding going to programs that supported graduate medical education--postgraduate internship and residency training for physicians and certain other health professionals. Specifically, two programs administered by HHS's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services--Medicare payments to teaching hospitals for Direct Graduate Medical Education and Medicare payments to teaching hospitals for Indirect Medical Education-- accounted for about 66 percent of total reported health care workforce training funding in FY 2012."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Bi-state tolling authorities have broad authority to set toll rates and use revenues for a range of purposes, including maintaining, repairing, and improving their infrastructure. In setting tolls, bi-state tolling authorities are primarily influenced by debt obligations and maintain specific operating revenues to repay their debt. A federal statute requiring bridge tolls to be "just and reasonable" has less influence on tolling decisions, in part, because no federal agency has authority to enforce the standard."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made substantial progress in addressing more than half of the recommendations GAO made in a January 2010 report concerning the agency's efforts to protect children's health. Specifically, EPA has fully implemented five of the eight recommendations made by GAO. For example, for a recommendation that EPA ensure that its strategic plan expressly articulate children-specific goals, objectives, and targets, in September 2010, EPA issued an agency-wide strategic plan that identifies children's health as a top agency priority with goals, objectives, and targets. In addition, EPA took some steps to address the remaining three recommendations from GAO's January 2010 report but has not fully implemented them, including a recommendation that the agency strengthen the data system that identifies and tracks development of rulemakings and other actions to ensure they comply with the 1995 policy on evaluating health risks to children."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The total number of conditional registrations granted is unclear, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that its data are inaccurate for several reasons. First, the database used to track conditional registrations does not allow officials to change a pesticide's registration status from conditional to unconditional once the registrant has satisfied all requirements, thereby overstating the number of conditional registrations. Second, EPA staff have misused the term "conditional registration," incorrectly classifying pesticide registrations as conditional when, for example, they require a label change, which is not a basis in statute for a conditional registration. According to EPA documents and officials, weaknesses in guidance and training, management oversight, and data management contributed to these misclassification problems. For example, according to EPA documents, there was limited, organized management oversight to ensure that regulatory actions were not misclassified as conditional registrations. As of July 2013, EPA officials told GAO that the agency has taken or is planning to take several actions to more accurately account for conditional registrations, including beginning to design a new automated data system to more accurately track conditional registrations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expanded the use of the Enrollee Health Care Projection Model (EHCPM) in developing the agency’s health care budget estimate that supported the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget request. VA expanded the use of the EHCPM by using, for the first time, the model’s estimate for the amount of care provided—workload—to develop estimates of the resources needed for 14 long-term care services. However, VA continued to use the most current expenditure data rather than EHCPM estimates for projecting needed resources for these services due to concerns about the reliability of the EHCPM expenditure data. Using this new blended approach, VA used the EHCPM in whole or in part, to develop estimates for 74 health care services that accounted for more than 85 percent of VA’s health care budget estimate. Additionally, VA used a new budget category label for its estimate of certain administrative personnel costs, “Administrative Personnel,” and identified the types of positions this estimate included. However, VA did not consistently use the new label across its three health care appropriations accounts. Instead, VA used “Administration” and provided no information clarifying …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken some actions to manage its department-level risks associated with preparing auditable financial statements through its Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) Plan. However, its actions were not fully in accordance with widely recognized guiding principles for effective risk management, which include (1) identifying risks that could prevent it from achieving its goals, (2) assessing the magnitude of those risks, (3) developing risk mitigation plans, (4) implementing mitigating actions to address the risks, and (5) monitoring the effectiveness of those mitigating actions. DOD did not have documented policies and procedures for following these guiding principles to effectively manage risks to the implementation of the FIAR Plan."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Most major U.S. airports have some degree of physical proximity to intercity passenger rail stations, though only 2 airports are currently collocated with intercity rail stations. Specifically, 42 of the nation's 60 large and medium hub airports are located within 10 miles of Amtrak stations; 21 of the 42 airports are within 5 miles of Amtrak stations. At the 2 collocated airports, passengers can access Amtrak either via an automated people mover (Newark Liberty International Airport) or by walking (Bob Hope Burbank Airport). At some airports, such as Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, passengers can take a direct shuttle between the airport and the nearby Amtrak station, while at other airports, connections to Amtrak can be made through other modes of transportation. Studies and data, while limited, suggest that relatively few passengers in the United States use intercity rail to travel to and from the airport or through more integrated travel such as code-sharing agreements, whereby airlines sell tickets for Amtrak's service. The only existing air-rail code-sharing agreement in the United States is at Newark Airport. Amtrak and states are considering projects to expand intercity rail …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In April 2013, GAO reported that, since 2007, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD) assigned about 3,500 high-risk chemical facilities to risk-based tiers under its Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, but it has not fully assessed its approach for doing so. The approach ISCD used to assess risk and make decisions to place facilities in final tiers does not consider all of the elements of consequence, threat, and vulnerability associated with a terrorist attack involving certain chemicals. For example, the risk assessment approach is based primarily on consequences arising from human casualties, but does not consider economic consequences, as called for by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and the CFATS regulation, nor does it consider vulnerability, consistent with the NIPP. ISCD had taken some actions to examine how its risk assessment approach could be enhanced, including commissioning a panel of experts to assess the current approach and recommend improvements. In April 2013, GAO reported that ISCD needed to incorporate the results of these efforts to help ensure that the revised assessment approach includes all elements of risk. After ISCD has incorporated …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The department's response to the accounting-for goal established in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 brought into sharp relief longstanding disputes that have not been addressed by top-level leaders, and have been exacerbated by the accounting community's fragmented organizational structure. Leadership from the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Pacific Command have been unable to resolve disputes between community members in areas such as roles and responsibilities and developing a community-wide plan to meet the statutory accounting-for goal. Further, the accounting community is fragmented in that the community members belong to diverse parent organizations under several different chains of command. With accounting community organizations reporting under different lines of authority, no single entity has overarching responsibility for community-wide personnel and other resources."