A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To assist the Congress in its oversight role, GAO is undertaking a series of reviews on the costs of operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). In related work, GAO is raising concerns about the reliability of the Department of Defense's (DOD) reported cost data and therefore is unable to ensure that DOD's reported obligations for GWOT are complete, reliable, and accurate. In this report, GAO (1) identified funding for GWOT in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, (2) compared supplemental appropriations for GWOT in fiscal year 2004 to the military services' reported obligations, and (3) compared supplemental appropriations for GWOT in fiscal year 2005 to the military services' projected obligations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) programs were established to clean up hazardous waste sites. Because some sites cannot be cleaned up to allow unrestricted use, institutional controls--legal or administrative restrictions on land or resource use to protect against exposure to the residual contamination--are placed on them. GAO was asked to review the extent to which (1) institutional controls are used at Superfund and RCRA sites and (2) EPA ensures that these controls are implemented, monitored, and enforced. GAO also reviewed EPA's challenges in implementing control tracking systems. To address these issues, GAO examined the use, implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of controls at a sample of 268 sites."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "With a number of challenges facing the nation--including a long-term fiscal imbalance--agencies need to maximize their performance and leverage available resources and authorities to achieve maximum value while managing risk. Examining state efforts to increase the focus on performance and their experiences in responding to recent fiscal stress can offer insights into practices that may assist federal decision makers in addressing the challenges ahead. GAO described for five selected states--Arizona, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, and Washington--legislators' use of performance information in budget deliberations, how performance information helped to inform choices during fiscal stress, challenges these states face in implementing and sustaining their efforts, and the potential for state experiences to inform initiatives to improve the use of performance information at the federal level. Among other factors, these states were selected because they have established histories of performance budgeting efforts and represent a variety of approaches to implementing those efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In response to consumer frustration and dissatisfaction with unwanted telemarketing calls, Congress has passed several statutes directing the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate intrusive and deceptive telemarketing practices, authorizing both agencies to establish the National Do-Not-Call Registry (the national registry), and authorizing FTC to collect fees to fund this national registry. The objective of the national registry is to limit the numbers of unwanted telemarketing calls that registered consumers receive. The Conference Report for the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004, mandated that GAO evaluate the implementation of the national registry. Specifically, this report addresses (1) how FTC and FCC have implemented and operated the national registry, (2) fees collected to cover costs to operate the national registry, and (3) how FTC has measured the success of the national registry."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Drought conditions along the Oregon and California border since 2000 have made it difficult for the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to meet Klamath Project irrigation demands and Klamath River flow requirements for threatened salmon. To augment river flows and avoid jeopardizing the salmon's existence, Reclamation established a multiyear water bank as part of its Klamath Project operations for 2002 through 2011. Water banks facilitate the transfer of water entitlements between users. This report addresses (1) how Reclamation operated the water bank and its cost from 2002 through 2004, (2) whether Reclamation met its annual water bank obligations each year, (3) the water bank's impact on water availability and use in the Klamath River Basin, and (4) alternative approaches for achieving the water bank's objectives."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2004, Congress appropriated $6.8 billion to serve 919,000 poor children through 1,680 Head Start grantees nationwide. Recent reports of financial improprieties at a number of Head Start programs raised questions about the effectiveness of the oversight by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in identifying and resolving financial management weaknesses in Head Start grantees. In this report, GAO provides information on whether (1) ACF can consistently identify financial management weaknesses, if any, in Head Start grantees and (2) ACF ensures that grantees effectively resolve any problems, in a timely manner, when detected."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Among its efforts to strengthen aviation security, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is developing a new passenger prescreening system--known as Secure Flight. As required by Congress, TSA is planning to assume, through Secure Flight, the prescreening function currently performed by the air carriers. This report assesses the (1) status of Secure Flight's development and implementation, (2) factors that could influence the effectiveness of Secure Flight, (3) processes used to oversee and manage the Secure Flight program, and (4) efforts taken to minimize the impacts on passengers and protect passenger rights. In conducting this assessment, we addressed the 10 specific areas of congressional interest related to Secure Flight outlined in Public Law 108-334."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Strategy for Homeland Security grouped critical infrastructure into 13 sectors which include assets that if attacked by terrorists could have a debilitating impact on the nation. Two of these 13 sectors are the chemical and water sectors. The total number of chemical sector facilities is not clear. DHS estimates that there are 4,000 chemical manufacturing facilities that produce, use, or store more than threshold amounts of chemicals that EPA has estimated pose the greatest risk to human health and the environment. There are approximately 53,000 community water systems and more than 2,900 maritime facilities that are required to comply with security regulations under the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA). This report provides information about what federal requirements exist for the chemical and water sectors to secure their facilities, what federal efforts were taken by the lead agencies for these sectors to facilitate sectors' actions, what actions selected facilities within these sectors have taken and whether they reflect a risk management approach, what obstacles they say they faced in implementing enhancements, and what are the Coast Guard's results from its inspection of regulated maritime facilities' …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The 1988 Exon-Florio amendment to the Defense Production Act authorizes the President to suspend or prohibit foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies that may harm national security, an action the President has taken only once. Implementing Exon-Florio can pose a significant challenge because of the need to weigh security concerns against U.S. open investment policy--which requires equal treatment of foreign and domestic investors. Exon-Florio's investigative authority was delegated to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States--an interagency committee established in 1975 to monitor U.S. policy on foreign investments. In September 2002, GAO reported on the implementation of Exon-Florio. This report further examines that implementation."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) initiated the Prometheus 1 project to explore the outer reaches of the Solar System. The Prometheus 1 spacecraft is being designed to harness nuclear energy that will increase available electrical power from about 1,000 watts to over 100,000 watts and enable the use of electric propulsion thrusters. Historically, NASA has had difficulty implementing some initiatives. NASA's failure to adequately define requirements and quantify the resources needed to meet those requirements has resulted in some projects costing more, taking longer, and achieving less than originally planned. Prometheus 1 will need to compete for NASA resources with other space missions--including efforts to return the shuttle safely to flight and complete the International Space Station. GAO was asked to determine (1) whether NASA is establishing initial justification for its investment in the Prometheus 1 project and (2) how the agency plans to ensure that critical technologies will be sufficiently mature at key milestones."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In October 2001, coalition forces forcibly removed the Taliban regime from Afghanistan, responding to their protection of al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States. Congress subsequently passed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002 authorizing funds to help Afghanistan rebuild a stable, democratic society. The act directed GAO to monitor the implementation of U.S. humanitarian, development, and counternarcotics assistance. This report analyzes, for fiscal year 2004, (1) U.S. obligations and expenditures, (2) progress and results of assistance efforts, (3) assistance management and coordination, and (4) major obstacles that affected the achievement of U.S. goals."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In May 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and other federal agencies were directed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to prepare restructuring plans to make government more responsive to citizens' needs. By June 2001, agencies were to submit a workforce analysis to OMB that would include, for example, demographic information on the agency's employees and would serve as the baseline for agency-specific restructuring plans. Agencies were to submit restructuring plans to OMB with fiscal year 2003 budget submissions and annual performance plans. These submissions were due to OMB September 2001. OMB's directive required agencies with more than 100 full-time employees to develop restructuring plans with the goal of flattening the federal hierarchy. The OMB directive stated that plans should describe the specific activities and actions each agency planned to take, associated resources, expected outcomes, and tools to measure performance. In order to ascertain what progress EEOC has made in reorganizing its operations, we determined (1) whether EEOC implemented OMB's directive to develop a restructuring plan and (2) what actions EEOC is taking to restructure and make its operations more efficient and effective."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is one of the largest federal agencies, the nation's largest health insurer, and the largest grant- making agency in the federal government. The department manages over 300 programs that serve to improve the health and well-being of the American public and is comprised of several component agencies covering a wide range of activities including conducting and sponsoring medical and social science research, guarding against the outbreak of infectious diseases, assuring the safety of food and drugs, and providing health care services and insurance. It also manages and funds a variety of information technology (IT) initiatives ranging from those facilitating the payment of claims for Medicare and Medicaid services to those supporting health surveillance and communications. In fiscal year 2006, the department plans to spend over $5 billion on information technology--the third largest IT expenditure in the federal budget. As we agreed with Congress, our objectives were to (1) assess the department's capabilities for managing its IT investments and (2)determine any plans the department might have for improving those capabilities. To address these objectives, we analyzed documents and interviewed …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1977, the U.S. has entered into bilateral social security totalization agreements with 20 foreign countries. In fiscal year 2004, the Social Security Administration (SSA) paid approximately $206 million to 102,000 beneficiaries in these countries based on their eligible periods of coverage. If put into force, pending agreements with Mexico and Japan will increase the number of beneficiaries receiving totalized benefits, as well as the amount of benefits paid. Given the costs to the Social Security Trust Funds posed by existing and pending agreements, GAO was asked to (1) document SSA's policies and procedures for assessing the accuracy of foreign countries' data when entering into a totalization agreement, and (2) examine SSA's processes for verifying beneficiaries' initial and continuing eligibility for benefits once an agreement is in force."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Natural catastrophes and terrorist attacks can place enormous financial demands on the insurance industry, result in sharply higher premiums and substantially reduced coverage. As a result, interest has been raised in mechanisms to increase the capacity of the insurance industry to manage these types of events. In this report, GAO (1) provides an overview of the insurance industry's current capacity to cover natural catastrophic risk and discusses the impacts of the 2004 hurricanes; (2) analyzes the potential of catastrophe bonds--a type of security issued by insurers and reinsurers (companies that offer insurance to insurance companies) and sold to institutional investors--and tax-deductible reserves to enhance private-sector capacity; and (3) describes the approaches that six European countries have taken to address natural and terrorist catastrophe risk, including whether these countries permit insurers to use tax-deductible reserves for such events. We provided a draft of this report to the Department of the Treasury and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Treasury provided technical comments that were incorporated as appropriate."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States is spending billions of dollars to reconstruct Iraq while combating an insurgency that has targeted military and contractor personnel and the Iraqi people. This environment created a need for those rebuilding Iraq to obtain security services. GAO evaluated the extent to which (1) U.S. agencies and contractors acquired security services from private providers, (2) the U.S. military and private security providers developed a working relationship, and (3) U.S. agencies assessed the costs of using private security providers on reconstruction contracts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began funding jurisdictions' efforts to prepare for bioterrorism attacks through the Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism program. After the events of September 11, 2001, and the 2001 anthrax incidents, program funds increased almost twentyfold. Citing jurisdictions' unexpended program funds, HHS reallocated some fiscal year 2004 funds to support other local and national bioterrorism initiatives. Jurisdictions and associations representing jurisdictions disputed HHS's assertion that large amounts of funds remain unused, noting that HHS did not acknowledge obligated funds that had not yet been expended. GAO was asked to provide information on (1) the extent to which jurisdictions had expended the fiscal year 2002 funds awarded for the program's third budget period as of August 30, 2003, and August 31, 2004, and the fiscal year 2003 funds awarded for the program's fourth budget period, as of August 30, 2004; (2) the extent to which fiscal year 2001, 2002, and 2003 funds awarded for the third and fourth budget periods remained unobligated as of August 30, 2004; and (3) factors …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1998, GAO has issued numerous reports on nursing home quality and safety that identified significant weaknesses in federal and state oversight. Under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), states conduct annual nursing home inspections, known as surveys, to assess compliance with federal quality and safety requirements. States also investigate complaints filed by family members or others in between annual surveys. When state surveys find serious deficiencies, CMS may impose sanctions to encourage compliance with federal requirements. GAO was asked to assess CMS's progress since 1998 in addressing oversight weaknesses. GAO (1) reviewed the trends in nursing home quality from 1999 through January 2005, (2) evaluated the extent to which CMS's initiatives have addressed survey and oversight problems identified by GAO and CMS, and (3) identified key challenges to continued progress in ensuring resident health and safety. GAO reviewed federal data on the results of state nursing home surveys and federal surveys assessing state performance; conducted additional analyses in five states with large numbers of nursing homes; reviewed the status of its prior recommendations; and identified key workforce and workload issues confronting …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and subsequent legislation authorized about $13.5 billion in guaranteed funding for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which is used to select fixed guideway transit projects, such as rail and trolley projects, and to award full funding grant agreements (FFGA). GAO assessed the New Starts process for the fiscal year 2006 cycle. GAO identified (1) the number of projects that were evaluated, rated, and proposed for new FFGAs and the proposed funding commitments in the administration's budget request; (2) changes FTA has made to the New Starts application, evaluation, rating, and oversight processes since the fiscal year 2001 evaluation cycle and how these changes have been communicated to project sponsors; and (3) how FTA developed the measures used to evaluate and rate projects from the criteria outlined in TEA-21 and how those measures are used in the rating process."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicaid--the federal-state health care financing program covering nearly 54 million low-income people at a cost of $276 billion in fiscal year 2003--is by its size and structure at risk of waste and exploitation. Because of challenges inherent in overseeing the program, administered federally by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), GAO in 2003 added Medicaid to its list of high-risk federal programs. To help administer the program, states may employ consultants in a number of roles, sometimes under contracts whereby payment is contingent upon the consultant's performance. GAO was asked to report on states' use of contingency-fee consultants. GAO examined the extent to which (1) states are using contingency-fee consultants for projects to maximize federal Medicaid reimbursements, (2) claims from contingency-fee projects in selected states are consistent with federal law and policy, and (3) states and CMS are overseeing claims from such projects."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2004 federal spending on service contracts grew to over $189 billion governmentwide. This growth, along with cuts in the acquisition workforce and increases in high-dollar procurement actions, creates a challenging environment. In November 2003 the Services Acquisition Reform Act (SARA) was enacted to provide federal agencies with tools to optimize mission performance in this challenging environment. To implement the act, regulations and guidance must be developed, and other actions taken. GAO was asked to report on progress in implementing SARA's provisions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Chesapeake Bay Program (Bay Program) was created in 1983 when Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission, and EPA agreed to establish a partnership to restore the Chesapeake Bay. Their most recent agreement, Chesapeake 2000, sets out an agenda and five broad goals to guide these efforts through 2010 and contains 102 commitments that the partners agreed to accomplish. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which appropriate measures for assessing restoration progress have been established, (2) the extent to which current reporting mechanisms clearly and accurately describe the bay's overall health, (3) how much funding was provided for the effort for fiscal years 1995 through 2004, and (4) how effectively the effort is being coordinated and managed."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uses the Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS), which was developed around the principles of system safety, to oversee seven "legacy airlines" and nine other airlines. In this report, we refer to airlines that are not in ATOS as non-legacy airlines. Two other processes are used to oversee 99 non-legacy passenger airlines, which represent a fast-growing segment of the commercial aviation passenger industry and carried about 200 million passengers in 2004. The National Work Program Guidelines (NPG) establishes a set of inspection activities for non-legacy airlines. The Surveillance and Evaluation Program (SEP) uses principles of system safety to identify additional risk-based inspections for those airlines. GAO's objective was to assess the processes used by FAA to ensure the safety of non-legacy passenger airlines. GAO reviewed the strengths of FAA's inspection oversight for non-legacy passenger airlines and the issues that hinder its effectiveness."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2002, the Attorney General called upon law enforcement to target the "most wanted" international drug traffickers responsible for supplying illegal drugs to America. In September 2002, law enforcement, working through the multi-agency Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Program, developed a list of these drug traffickers, known as the Consolidated Priority Organization Target List (CPOT), to aid federal law enforcement agencies in targeting their drug investigations. Also, the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) collaborated with law enforcement to encourage existing High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) to conduct CPOT investigations. According to ONDCP, the 28 HIDTAs across the nation are located in centers of illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation, or distribution. ONDCP distributed discretionary funds to supplement some HIDTAs' existing budgets beginning in fiscal year 2002 to investigate CPOT organizations. Out of concern that a CPOT emphasis on international drug investigations would detract from the HIDTA program's regional emphasis, the Senate Committee on Appropriations directed GAO to examine whether investigations of CPOT organizations are consistent with the HIDTA program's mission and how ONDCP distributes its discretionary funds to …