A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 1996, the United Nations (UN) Security Council and Iraq began the Oil for Food program to address Iraq's humanitarian situation after sanctions were imposed in 1990. More than $67 billion in oil revenue was obtained through the program, with $31 billion in humanitarian assistance delivered to Iraq. The 2005 Defense Authorization Act mandated that GAO review the Oil for Food program. GAO reviewed how the UN adhered to five key internal control standards in its stewardship of the program. GAO assessed (1) the program's control environment and (2) key elements of the other internal control standards. GAO also reported on the UN Compensation Commission's progress in paying reparations from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Terrorists using unconventional weapons, also known as nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological (NBCR) weapons, could cause devastating losses. The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) of 2002, as well as the extension passed in 2005, will cover losses from a certified act of terrorism, irrespective of the weapon used, if those types of losses are included in the coverage. Because of a lack of information about the willingness of insurers to cover NBCR risks and uncertainties about the extent to which these risks can be and are being insured by private insurers across various lines of insurance, GAO was asked to study these issues. This report discusses (1) commonly accepted principles of insurability and whether NBCR risks are measurable and predictable, and (2) whether private insurers currently are exposed to NBCR risks and the challenges they face in pricing such risks. GAO collected information from and met with some of the largest insurers in each line of insurance, associations representing a broader cross section of the industry and state insurance regulators. GAO makes no recommendations in this report."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The government has hired private contractors to provide billions of dollars worth of goods and services to support U.S. efforts in Iraq. Faced with the uncertainty as to the full extent of rebuilding Iraq, the government authorized contractors to begin work before key terms and conditions were defined. This approach allows the government to initiate needed work quickly, but can result in additional costs and risks being imposed on the government. Helping to oversee their work is the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), which examined many Iraq contracts and identified costs they consider to be questioned or unsupported. The Conference Report on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 directed GAO to report on audit findings regarding contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As agreed with the congressional defense committees, GAO focused on Iraq contract audit findings and determined (1) the costs identified by DCAA as questioned or unsupported; and (2) what actions DOD has taken to address DCAA audit findings, including the extent funds were withheld from contractors. To identify DOD actions in response to the audit findings, GAO selected 18 audit reports representing …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For more than a decade, experts have called on the United Nations (UN) Secretariat to correct serious deficiencies in its procurement process. Recent evidence of corruption and mismanagement in procurement suggests that millions of dollars contributed to the UN by the United States and other member states are at risk of fraud, waste and abuse. During the last decade, UN procurement has more than tripled to more than $1.6 billion in 2005, largely due to expanding UN peacekeeping operations. More than a third of that amount is procured by UN peacekeeping field missions. To review the UN's internal controls over procurement, GAO assessed key control elements, including (1) the overall control environment and (2) specific control activities aimed at providing reasonable assurance that staff are complying with directives."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "With contributions to United Nations (UN) organizations totaling more than $1.6 billion in 2006-2007, the United States has advocated strong UN oversight. In 1994, the United States provided support to establish the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). The findings of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the Oil for Food Program have renewed concerns about UN oversight, and the 2005 World Summit proposed actions to improve OIOS. We were asked to examine (1) the extent to which UN funding arrangements for OIOS ensure independent oversight, and (2) the consistency of OIOS practices with key international auditing standards."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In March 2004, GAO reported on gaps in VA's requirements for screening the professional credentials and personal backgrounds of health care practitioners (GAO-04-566). GAO found that VA's requirements did not ensure thorough screening of VA practitioners. VA concurred with four recommendations GAO made to improve practitioner screening. GAO was asked to determine the extent to which (1) VA has taken steps to improve practitioner screening by implementing GAO's recommendations and (2) VA facilities are in compliance with VA's practitioner screening requirements. GAO reviewed VA's current practitioner screening policies to determine if gaps remain, interviewed VA officials, and sampled about 60 practitioner files at each of seven VA facilities selected based on size and geographic location."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, two voluntary programs encourage participants to set emissions reduction goals. The Climate Leaders Program, managed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), focuses on firms. The Climate VISION (Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now) Program, managed by the Department of Energy (DOE) along with other agencies, focuses on trade groups. GAO examined (1) participants' progress in completing program steps, the agencies' procedures for tracking progress, and their policies for dealing with participants that are not progressing as expected; (2) the types of emissions reduction goals established by participants; and (3) the agencies' estimates of the share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that their programs account for and their estimates of the programs' impacts on U.S. emissions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's previous work found problems in security controls over sensitive excess military equipment that resulted in lost and stolen items, some of which were sold to the public, and significant waste and inefficiency in the Department of Defense (DOD) excess property reutilization program. GAO was asked to perform follow-up investigations to determine whether (1) unauthorized parties could obtain sensitive excess military equipment that requires demilitarization (destruction) when no longer needed by DOD and (2) system and process improvements are adequate to prevent sales of new, unused excess items that DOD continues to buy or that are in demand by the military services."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Between 1998 and 2004, Congress appropriated over $1.2 billion to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The campaign aimed to prevent the initiation of or curtail the use of drugs among the nation's youth. In 2005, Westat, Inc., completed a multiyear national evaluation of the campaign. GAO has been mandated to review various aspects of the campaign, including Westat's evaluation which is the subject of this report. Applying generally accepted social science research standards, GAO assessed (1) how Westat provided credible support for its findings and Westat's findings about (2) attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of youth and parents toward drug use and (3) youth self-reported drug use."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Mammography, an X-ray procedure that can detect small breast tumors, is an important tool for detecting breast cancer at an early stage and, when coupled with appropriate treatment, can reduce breast cancer deaths. In 2002, GAO reported in Mammography: Capacity Generally Exists to Deliver Services (GAO-02-532) that the capacity to provide mammography services was generally adequate, but that the number of mammography facilities had decreased by 5 percent from 1998 to 2001 and that about one-fourth of counties had no machines. GAO was asked to update its information on facility closures and mammography service capacity. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates mammography quality and maintains a database on mammography facilities and other capacity elements. GAO reviewed FDA data on facility closures and examined reasons for closures in recent years. GAO analyzed changes in the nation's capacity for and use of mammography services using FDA capacity data and National Center for Health Statistics data on service use. GAO also interviewed state and local officials about the effects of the loss or absence of mammography machines on access, including access for medically underserved women, such as those …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for determining that over 36,000 physicians working in its facilities have the appropriate professional credentials and qualifications to deliver health care to veterans. To do this, VA credentials and privileges physicians providing care at its medical facilities. In this report, GAO determined the extent to which selected VA facilities complied with (1) four VA credentialing requirements and five VA privileging requirements and (2) a requirement to submit information on paid malpractice claims. GAO also determined (3) whether VA has internal controls to help ensure the accuracy of information used to renew clinical privileges. GAO reviewed VA's policies, interviewed VA officials, and randomly sampled 17 physician files at each of seven VA medical facilities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Maintaining the right amount and types of items in its inventory--a key aspect of supply chain management--has been a long-standing challenge for the Department of Defense (DOD) and has been on GAO's list of high-risk areas since 1990. DOD retains inventory above its normal operating requirements for various reasons including for contingency purposes or because it is more economical to keep items than dispose and repurchase them later. DOD's inventory levels have grown in recent years to almost $80 billion in fiscal year 2005. GAO was asked to assess the management of contingency retention inventory to determine whether (1) the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Defense Logistics Agency have followed inventory guidance and (2) DOD is providing oversight of inventory across these components. Also, GAO provided an update on the progress DOD has made in implementing GAO's past recommendations on the components' management of economic retention inventory."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the current tight budgetary environment, program performance is likely to be an increasingly significant factor used to help policymakers assess programs and determine funding levels. Given concerns over the quality of performance data for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program and the importance of having meaningful information to assess program performance, we examined (1) whether the TAA performance data provide a credible picture of the program's performance, (2) what TAA performance data the Department of Labor (Labor) makes available to the public and states and the usefulness of the data for managing the program, and (3) what Labor is doing to address issues with the quality of TAA data submitted by states."

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The 100-F-33, 146-F Aquatice Biology Fish Ponds waste site was an area with six small rectangular ponds and one large circular pond used to conduct tests on fish using various mixtures of river and reactor effluent water. The current site conditions achieve the remedial action objectives specified in the Remaining Sites ROD. The results of verification and applicable confirmatory sampling show that residual contaminant concentrations do not preclude any future uses and allow for unrestricted use of shallow zone soils. The results also demonstrate that residual contaminant concentrations are protective of groundwater and the Columbia River.

The vacuum system of the X-Ray Vacuum Transport System (XVTS) for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray Transport, Optics and Diagnostics (XTOD) system has been analyzed and configured by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's New Technologies Engineering Division (NTED) as requested by the SLAC/LCLS program. The preliminary system layout, detailed analyses and suggested selection of the vacuum components for the XTOD tunnel section are presented in the preliminary design report [1]. This document briefly reviews the preliminary design and provides engineering specifications for the system, which can be used as 'design to' specifications for the final design. Also included are the requirements of plans for procurement, mechanical integration, schedule and the cost estimates.

The program scope was to affect the heat input and the resultant weld bead geometry by synchronizing robotic weave cycles with desired pulsed waveform shapes to develop process parameters relationships and optimized pulsed gas metal arc welding processes for welding fatique-critical structures of steel, high strength steel, and aluminum. Quality would be addressed by developing intelligent methods of weld measurement that accurately predict weld bead geometry from process information. This program was severely underfunded, and eventually terminated. The scope was redirected to investigate tandem narrow groove welding of steel butt joints during the one year of partial funding. A torch was designed and configured to perform a design of experiments of steel butt weld joints that validated the feasability of the process. An initial cost model estimated a 60% cost savings over conventional groove welding by eliminating the joint preparation and reducing the weld volume needed.

Among the possible terrorist activities that might threaten national security is the release of an airborne pathogen such as anthrax. Because the potential damage to human health could be severe, experts consider 1 minute to be an operationally useful time limit for identifying the pathogen and taking action. Many commercial systems can identify airborne pathogenic microbes, but they take days or, at best, hours to produce results. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other U.S. government agencies are interested in finding a faster approach. To answer this national need, a Livermore team, led by scientist Eric Gard, has developed the bioaerosol mass spectrometry (BAMS) system--the only instrument that can detect and identify spores at low concentrations in less than 1 minute. BAMS can successfully distinguish between two related but different spore species. It can also sort out a single spore from thousands of other particles--biological and nonbiological--with no false positives. The BAMS team won a 2005 R&D 100 Award for developing the system. Livermore's Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program funded the biomedical aspects of the BAMS project, and the Department of Defense's Technical Support Working Group and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency funded the biodefense efforts. Developing …

The 120-B-1 waste site, located in the 100-BC-1 Operable Unit of the Hanford Site, consisted of a concrete battery acid sump that was used from 1944 to 1969 to neutralize the spent sulfuric acid from lead cell batteries of emergency power packs and the emergency lighting system. The battery acid sump was associated with the 105-B Reactor Building and was located adjacent to the building's northwest corner. The results of verification sampling demonstrated that residual contaminant concentrations do not preclude any future uses and allow for unrestricted use of shallow zone soils. The results also showed that residual contaminant concentrations are protective of groundwater and the Columbia River.

The 116-F-8 waste site is the former 1904-F Outfall Structure used to discharge reactor cooling water effluent fro mthe 107-F Retention Basin to the Columbia River. The results of verification sampling show that residual contaminant concentrations do not preclude any future uses and allow for unrestricted use of shallow zone soils. The results also demonstrate that residual contaminant concentrations are protective of groundwater and the Columbia River.

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Report on the feasibility of hiring an executive director to manage the WASP's administrative business, presented by the Ad Hoc Committee to the WASP Board of Directors on March 25, 2006.

Quarterly publication of the Texas Comptroller's Office regarding sales and use tax in the state of Texas, including an analysis by county, analysis by industry, and related notes.

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