A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP)--originally established in 1998 within the Department of Justice to help state and local first responders acquire specialized training and equipment needed to respond to terrorist incidents--was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security upon its creation in March 2003. After September 11, 2001, the scope and size of ODP's grant programs expanded. For example, from fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2003, ODP grants awarded to states and some urban areas grew from about $91 million to about $2.7 billion. This growth raised questions about the ability of ODP and states to ensure that the domestic preparedness grant programs--including statewide and urban area grants--are managed effectively and efficiently. GAO addressed (1) how statewide and urban area grants were administered in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 so that ODP could ensure that grant funds were spent in accordance with grant guidance and state preparedness planning and (2) what time frames Congress and ODP established for awarding and distributing grants, and how time frames affected the grant cycle."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Responsibility for ensuring the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile rests upon a cadre of workers at eight contractor-operated National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) weapons facilities. Many of these workers--including scientists, engineers, and technicians--have "critical" skills needed to maintain the stockpile. About 37 percent of these workers are at or near retirement age, raising concern about whether these specialists will have time to pass on their knowledge and expertise to new recruits. In this context, Congress asked us to (1) describe the approaches that NNSA, its contractors, and organizations with similar workforces are using to recruit and retain critically skilled workers; (2) assess the extent to which these approaches have been effective; and (3) describe any remaining challenges, strategies to mitigate these challenges, and the similarity of these challenges and strategies to those of organizations with comparable workforces."

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has six reserve components: the Army Reserve, the Army National Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, the Naval Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve. DOD's use of Reserve and National Guard forces increased dramatically following the events of September 11, 2001, and on January 19, 2005, more than 192,000 National Guard and Reserve component members were mobilized. About 85 percent of these personnel were members of the Army National Guard or the Army Reserve. Furthermore, the availability of reserve component forces will continue to play an important role in the success of DOD's future missions, and DOD has projected that over the next 3 to 5 years, it will continuously have more than 100,000 reserve component members mobilized. Since September, 2001, GAO has issued a number of reports that have dealt with issues related to the increased use of Reserve and National Guard forces. For this hearing, GAO was asked to provide the results of its work on the extent to which DOD has the strategic framework and policies necessary to maximize reserve component force availability for …