A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Customs Service's management of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), focusing on whether Customs has adequately justified ACE cost-effectiveness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) distribution of Medicare home health agencies' (HHA) closures across urban and rural counties and the characteristics of closed agencies; and (2) effect of closures on beneficiary access to home health services."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether consumers are able to make informed choices about their care and about the nature and extent of problems that may be occurring in assisted living, focusing on: (1) residents' needs and the services provided in assisted living facilities; (2) the extent to which facilities provide consumers with information sufficient to help them choose a facility that is appropriate for their needs; (3) state approaches to the oversight of assisted living; and (4) the type and frequency of quality-of-care and consumer protection problems identified by Congress."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army Corps of Engineers' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), focusing on the: (1) Corps' cost and schedule estimates for cleaning up the FUSRAP sites; (2) Corps' progress in meeting milestones for site cleanups, FUSRAP staffing levels, and environmental document preparation; and (3) transition of the program from the Department of Energy (DOE) to the Corps."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the use of private contractors in the public housing industry, focusing on: (1) the basis for the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) 1998 assertion that privatizing public housing management could save $200 million annually; (2) the basis for housing practitioners' and experts' belief that adopting private management for public housing could lead to the more cost-effective use of public housing resources; (3) the extent to which housing authorities have adopted private management strategies, the experiences they have had in implementing these strategies, and the primary obstacles they have encountered in adopting private management; and (4) whether opportunities exist for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to encourage housing authorities to make more cost-effective use of their resources by considering private management as an alternative to in-house management."

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 and the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) efforts to implement two ecosystem-based studies--the Northwest Forest Plan and the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, focusing on: (1) the extent to which each effort has addressed long-standing planning deficiencies; (2) whether the agencies encountered the delays and significant costs that have been characteristic of previous planning efforts; and (3) the effect that the plans have had, or are expected to have, on the quantity and quality of timber sold from federal lands covered by the plans."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impacts of nonpoint source water pollution and the potential costs of dealing with the problem, focusing on: (1) funding levels for federal programs that primarily address nonpoint source pollution; (2) the way Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assesses the overall potential costs of reducing nonpoint pollution nationwide and alternative methods for doing so; and (3) nonpoint source pollution from federal facilities, lands, and activities that federal agencies manage or authorize, or for which they issue permits or licenses."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Medicare Incentive Payment program to determine if: (1) it is an effective mechanism for improving access to care for Medicare beneficiaries and underserved populations other than Medicare beneficiaries; and (2) the program's goals, performance measures, and financial controls provide a sound structure for continuing or expanding the program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) efforts to develop and implement evaluation and rating processes and procedures for evaluating new start transit projects for federal funding, focusing on: (1) the status of FTA's efforts; (2) how FTA implemented the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) requirements for evaluating, rating, and recommending projects; and (3) open issues that FTA needs to resolve to fully satisfy TEA-21 requirements."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) Department of Defense's (DOD) progress in establishing an organization to address Gulf War illnesses issues; and (2) thoroughness of DOD's Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses' (OSAGWI) investigations into and reporting on incidents of veterans' potential exposure to chemical or biological warfare agents during the Gulf War."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. have implemented the recommendations from a previous GAO report, focusing on the status of Nasdaq's: (1) response to recommendations SEC made as part of its oversight of Nasdaq's Listing Qualifications Department (NLQ); and (2) new automated Risk Scoring Compliance System (RSCS)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO updated its previous report on the security of the Department of Defense's (DOD) information systems, focusing on DOD's efforts to: (1) address specific weaknesses identified in GAO's 1996 reports; and (2) develop a comprehensive departmentwide information security program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on whether the Air Force complied with relevant policy and congressional notification requirements in reaching a decision to deactivate the 38th Engineering Installation Wing (EIW) at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, focusing on: (1) the scope of the Air Force's planned action; (2) whether it is subject to the requirements of Office and Management Budget (OMB) Circular A-76 and 10 U.S.C. 2461; and (3) whether an analysis was completed to examine the cost-effectiveness of the planned action."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on three Texas counties' employee retirement plans, known as Alternate Plans, focusing on: (1) comparing the principal features and benefits of these plans with those of social security; and (2) simulating the retirement, survivor, and disability benefits that individuals in varying circumstances might receive under the Alternate Plans and under social security."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed certain aspects of the military assistance provided to law enforcement agencies during the Branch Davidians incident, focusing on: (1) whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) requests for support from military counterdrug programs met requirements for authorizing that support; (2) the measures ATF took to deal with any drug activity it might find during its warrant service, and whether those measures were appropriate for such operations where a methamphetamine laboratory might be encountered; and (3) the types, costs, and reimbursements of all military support, including that from counterdrug programs, provided to ATF and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the U.S. Marshals Service's (USMS) asset forfeiture programs, focusing on: (1) controls over selected categories of seized assets--namely vehicles, vessels, real property, financial instruments, and general property--at four large USMS districts: the Central District of California, the Southern District of Florida, and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; and (2) whether selected seized assets at the test locations under USMS control were accurately accounted for and safeguarded against theft, loss, and deterioration."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) identified and described practices that were applied in some federal agencies' 1999 performance plans that might, if consistently applied, improve the usefulness of all agencies' annual performance plans; and (2) provided examples from agencies' fiscal year 1999 performance plans that illustrate each practice."

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 Agriculture's (USDA) Sugar Program, focusing on: (1) USDA's procedures for setting the tariff-rate quota for imported raw sugar; and (2) the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) procedures for allocating the quota among sugar-producing countries."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the secondary markets for 7(a) small business loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA), focusing on: (1) the benefits and risks of secondary loan markets to participants; (2) primary benefits and risks to participants in the guaranteed 7(a) secondary market and the unguaranteed 7(a) secondary market; and (3) a comparison of the guaranteed 7(a) secondary market with the secondary market for federally guaranteed residential mortgages, and the unguaranteed 7(a) secondary market with the secondary market for residential mortgages without a federal guarantee."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the federal approach to meeting the needs of the homeless, focusing on: (1) identifying and describing characteristics of the federal programs specifically targeted, or reserved, for the homeless, and key nontargeted programs available to assist low-income people generally; (2) identifying the amounts and types of funding for these programs in fiscal year (FY) 1997; and (3) determining if federal agencies have coordinated their efforts to assist homeless people and developed outcome measures for their targeted programs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Access to Jobs and Reverse Commute program, which provides grants to improve transportation to employment for welfare recipients, focusing on the: (1) Department of Transportation's (DOT) implementation of the Job Access program, particularly its approach for selecting awards in fiscal year (FY) 1999; (2) FY 1999 grantees and their planned approaches for providing transportation services to low-income workers; and (3) changes DOT is making to the program in response to GAO's prior recommendations, including the establishment of specific objectives, performance criteria, and measurable goals for evaluating the program's success."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the potential effect of using adjusted population counts on the distribution of federal grant funding, focusing on: (1) 25 large formula grant programs; (2) identifying those programs that rely, at least in part, on census data to apportion funding; and (3) for selected programs, analyzing the extent to which funding would shift among states if adjusted population counts were used to apportion funds."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the extent and nature of any fraud the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Department of State have identified in the religious worker visa program; and (2) any steps INS and State have taken or plan to take to change the visa screening process."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP) for the Oregon and Washington communities surrounding the Umatilla Chemical Depot, focusing on: (1) the progress communities have made since GAO's 1997 report on their CSEPP efforts; and (2) strategies for enhancing the program's implementation in Oregon."