Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on how the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) considers mobility improvements as it evaluates proposed new starts projects, focusing on: (1) how a proposed project's rating for mobility improvements affects its likelihood for selection; and (2) FTA's proposed changes in how it will evaluate mobility improvements."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the effects of laws in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, focusing on: (1) the rationale behind selected reforms states have made to their medical malpractice tort law; (2) whether selected tort reforms have reduced malpractice insurance costs and the costs associated with defensive medicine; (3) the extent to which the District, Maryland, and Virginia have adopted selected tort reforms; and (4) comparing malpractice claim payments, insurance premiums, and numbers of physicians in the District; Baltimore, Maryland; and Richmond, Virginia."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Education's Migrant Education Program (MEP) and the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Migrant Head Start Program (MHS), focusing on: (1) the goals of the MEP and MHS programs, how they operate, who they serve, and what services they provide; (2) the extent to which Education and HHS facilitate the coordination of MEP and MHS services within each of their programs and between the two programs; and (3) how well Education and HHS determine whether MEP and MHS achieve their goals and objectives."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the activities of the National Fish Hatchery System, focusing on: (1) the funding level for the National Fish Hatchery System since 1992 and the funding level's impact on operations; (2) the production level at federal hatcheries; (3) the portion of production that is used for recovery and restoration efforts; (4) the distribution of total hatchery production into federal, state, and other waters; and (5) the issues related to health and disease problems at these hatcheries that pose problems for introducing their fish into the wild."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's management of various year 2000-related end-to-end testing activities, focusing on: (1) the U.S. Space Command's management of its end-to-end test of space control systems essential to major theater war; and (2) what the results of this test show with respect to operational risks and readiness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the U.S. Transportation Command's (TRANSCOM) year 2000-related end-to-end testing activities, focusing on TRANSCOM's management of its end-to-end test of its ability to plan and execute joint major theater war (MTW) deployment operations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on federal child care funding, focusing on: (1) programs and services funded at the federal and state levels that directly provide early childhood care and education for the general population of low-income children up to age 5; (2) state and local assessments of the relative difficulty low-income parents face in obtaining care for their children; and (3) the collaborative efforts among child care officials and early childhood education officials to address these parents' difficulties."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) new rule on Medicare Program revisions to payment policies under the physician fee schedule for calendar year 2000. GAO noted that: (1) the rule would make several changes affecting Medicare Part B payment; (2) the changes include, among others, implementation of resource-based malpractice insurance relative value units (RVU), refinement of resource-based practice expense RVUs, and payment for physician pathology and independent laboratory services; and (3) HCFA complied with applicable requirements in promulgating the rule."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Transportation's (DOT) performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000, focusing on whether the plan provided information on: (1) the desired end results; (2) the results of programs and activities that are expected to lead to end outcomes; and (3) products and services that are typically based on the numbers of activities or products that result from internal effort."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Army's implementation of the Land Warrior system, focusing on: (1) the status of the system; (2) whether the level of monitoring and oversight is sufficient based on projected Land Warrior development costs; (3) how the Army is ensuring that Land Warrior will be able to operate with other digitized battlefield systems; and (4) whether technical and human factor problems still need resolution."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Custom Service's Modernization efforts, focusing on: (1) the status of Customs' implementation of the informed compliance strategy; and (2) whether trade compliance under the new program had improved."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the construction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) facility for its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) in College Park, Maryland, focusing on: (1) the General Services Administration's (GSA) authority to construct a new facility for FDA in College Park; (2) whether the requirements for building on a floodplain had been met; and (3) the planned placement of computers in the basement of the new building, specifically whether; (a) steps had been taken or will be taken to mitigate the risk of damage from water entering the basement of the building, and (b) CFSAN staff were involved in the decision to place the computer operations in the basement."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Small Business Administration's (SBA) estimate of the impact of legislative proposals on the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program, focusing on: (1) how SBA prepared estimates of H.R. 2615's impact on the average size and number of loans SBA makes; (2) ways that SBA could have improved its estimates; (3) how SBA analyzed the impact of the legislative proposals on the credit subsidy rate for the 7(a) loan program; and (4) ways to improve this analysis."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, the GAO discussed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) performance during the 1999 tax filing season, focusing on: (1) telephone service; (2) availability of walk-in services; (3) other taxpayer service efforts; (4) Earned Income Credit (EIC) noncompliance; (5) electronic filing; (6) implementation of recent tax law changes; and (7) implementation of a new return and remittance processing system."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recent reports regarding the operational uncertainties of the status of the 2000 Census, focusing on: (1) achieving the Bureau of the Census' mail response rate objective; (2) collecting accurate and timely data from nonrespondents; and (3) conducting data capture operations."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) task force's recommendations to strengthen the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) programs and facilities, focusing on: (1) the actions ARS has taken to close and consolidate laboratories; (2) the task force report's major recommendations designed to, among other things, improve operational efficiencies; and (3) ARS' reaction to the task force report."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the efforts by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and states to provide effective drug abuse treatment programs, focusing on: (1) activities supported by SAMHSA's Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant and Knowledge Development and Application (KDA) grant funds for drug abuse treatment; (2) SAMHSA and state mechanisms for monitoring fund use; and (3) SAMHSA and state efforts to determine the effectiveness of drug abuse treatment supported with SAPT block grant funds."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on its financial management review of the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) reported allocation of resources for its Refuge Program and New Assistant Regional Manager Positions, focusing on: (1) what systems FWS used to track how allocated funds were spent and to determine the full costs of operating the refuge program; (2) how much funding the service allocated to refuge operations and maintenance and how those funds were used; and (3) the number of new Assistant Regional Director (ARD) positions FWS created and the source of funding for these positions through fiscal year (FY) 2000."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recent report on how the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decides to establish and expand refuges, focusing on: (1) the financial effect of establishing refuges by means other than appropriations; and (2) differences in the priority-setting processes for acquiring land using the land and water and migratory bird funds."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) established any refuge with migratory bird funds after Congress denied appropriations from land and water funds for a proposed refuge, focusing on: (1) which funds--land and water funds or migratory bird funds--FWS used to establish and expand refuges during this period; (2) how FWS set priorities for acquiring land with these funds; (3) whether FWS followed these priorities in requesting funding for this period; and (4) FWS' use of the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, which provides grants for nonfederal entities to acquire land associated with habitat conservation plans."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Forest Service's ecosystem planning efforts, including the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment, focusing on the: (1) views of the Forest Service, other federal agencies, and GAO on key elements that broad-scale ecosystem based assessments should contain to maximize their value to the forest planning process; (2) extent to which the Forest Service has incorporated these elements into the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment and whether it has integrated the assessment into the forest planning process; and (3) extent to which the Forest Service's proposed planning regulations ensure that future broad-scale assessments contain these elements and are integrated into the forest planning process."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) reviewed two major AmeriCorps programs--AmeriCorps State/National and AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC); (2) compared cost data for NCCC with similar data from the Department of Labor's Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCC) and reasons for any major differences; (3) compared AmeriCorps participant benefits with those afforded entry-level military personnel; and (4) described information available on the results of AmeriCorps programs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed options for increasing Medicare beneficiaries' access to prescription drugs, focusing on the: (1) factors contributing to the growth in prescription drug spending and efforts to control that growth; and (2) design and implementation issues to be considered regarding proposals to improve seniors' access to affordable prescription drugs."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its recent reports on the Air Force's Ranch Hand study, which was designed to investigate whether exposure to herbicides in Vietnam led to or would lead to adverse health effects, focusing on: (1) what impact the study has had on veterans' compensation decisions; and (2) how the study disseminated results and data, communicated its limitations, and implemented measures to ensure that it was conducted with scientific independence and appropriate outside scientific oversight."