A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on management actions needed to answer basic research questions about Gulf War Illnesses, focusing on the: (1) amount of money the Departments of Veterans' Affairs (VA), Defense (D0D), and Health and Human Services (HHS) spent on research and investigation of Gulf War veterans' illnesses and health concerns in the fiscal years 1997 and 1998, including current and projected spending by the Office of the Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Gulf War Illnesses; (2) productivity of this research spending, including the extent to which the Coordinating Board has determined that federal research objectives have been satisfied, and the extent to which the research has resulted in peer-reviewed publications and the identification of the causes or successful treatments for Gulf War veterans' illnesses; (3) extent of coordination between the Research Working Group of the Coordinating Board and the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses; and (4) Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses' contract management."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO summarized from available research what is known about adverse drug events (ADE), focusing on the: (1) different types and causes of ADEs; (2) evidence on the overall incidence and cost of ADEs in the United States; and (3) measures that have been proposed to reduce the number and severity of ADEs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) shift to a risk-informed regulation, focusing on the: (1) views of NRC's staff on the quality of the work that NRC performs, the management of and staff's involvement in changes occurring in the agency, and the move to a risk-informed regulatory approach; and (2) status of NRC's efforts to develop a strategy to implement a risk-informed regulatory approach."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Archer-Shaw Social Security reform proposal, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the proposal achieves sustainable solvency and how it would affect the U.S. economy and the federal budget; (2) the balance struck between the twin goals of income adequacy (level and certainty of benefits) and individual equity (rates of return on individual contributions); and (3) how readily such changes could be implemented, administered, and explained to the public."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the development of the Office of Multifamily Housing Assistance Restructuring's (OMHAR) mark-to-market program and the relationship between OMHAR and other Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) offices, focusing on: (1) OMHAR's progress in obtaining staffing resources to implement the program; (2) the status of OMHAR's progress on seven actions that are integral to the program's successful implementation; (3) whether OMHAR has implemented nine statutory requirements in accordance with the act; (4) the extent to which HUD management is involved in directing, reviewing, and approving OMHAR's operations; (5) whether OMHAR's Director has complied with the legislative requirements to report to congressional committees if actions by HUD's Secretary interfere with the Office's ability to carry out the mark-to-market program; and (6) whether the other HUD offices from which OMHAR must obtain support have provided the support requested."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impact of loan sales on tenants and properties, focusing on: (1) the impact on tenants as project-based assistance contracts expire; and (2) the steps that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has taken to ensure that mortgage purchasers honor the tenant protections."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the pricing of genetically modified seeds, focusing on the: (1) prices of Roundup Ready soybean seeds and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn seeds in the United States and Argentina; and (2) major reasons for the price differences, if any, between the two countries for these seeds."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the role and functioning of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, focusing on: (1) whether the issues listed for consideration by the Working Group in Executive Order 12631 have been considered; (2) what additional issues have been considered by the Working Group and how they were identified; and (3) the nature of coordination and cooperation within the Working Group and the views of members of Congress and Working Group participants about whether it needs to be formalized in statute."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on states' efforts to ensure the safety and health of children in child care settings, focusing on: (1) the most critical licensing and enforcement activities that help states ensure the safety and health of children in child care; (2) the extent to which states conduct these critical activities for their regulated providers; and (3) how states ensure that nonregulated providers receiving block grant funds meet the law's safety and health 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 risk-focused approaches used by the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), focusing on: (1) the general characteristics of the regulators' risk-focused approach to examinations of large, complex banks, explaining how they differ from past examination practices; (2) comparing the implementation of the Federal Reserve's and OCC's risk-focused examination approaches; and (3) the challenges faced by both agencies as they continue to implement their examination programs for large, complex banks."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) efforts to implement changes to the Medicare program, focusing on HCFA's implementation of the: (1) expansion of the partial hospitalization benefit; and (2) more recent changes under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) to determine whether HCFA is acting upon lessons learned from the partial hospitalization program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the development of competition in telecommunications markets, focusing on the: (1) development of competition in local telephone markets and the market strategies employed by new carriers in five states under the 1996 Telecommunications Act; and (2) key issues affecting that development and the enforcement activities of federal and state regulators to address those issues."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO evaluated the extent to which the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has implemented commercial inventory practice initiatives contained in a schedule submitted to Congress, focusing on: (1) DLA's progress in implementing the initiatives; and (2) opportunities to build on and expand existing efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed three agencies' annual performance plans to determine whether the plans met congressional requirements, focusing on: (1) which aspects of congressional information needs were met by the agency's annual performance plan or some other source; (2) where those needs were not met, and what accounted for the discrepancies or gaps in the information provided; and (3) what options agencies could use to practically and efficiently provide the desired performance information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on mandatory country-of-origin labelling for beef and lamb, focusing on the potential: (1) compliance costs associated with mandatory country-of-origin labelling for fresh and processed beef and lamb; (2) enforcement costs associated with such a requirement; (3) trade issues associated with such a requirement; and (4) benefits of mandatory country-of-origin labelling."

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 Energy's (DOE) decision to select a commercial reactor for the production of tritium and to designate an accelerator to function as a backup, focusing on: (1) whether the cost estimates used by the Secretary of Energy during the process of selecting between the tritium production technology options were comparable and adequately supported; (2) what management, technological, and legal activities could affect the completion of the commercial reactor option on schedule and within budget; and (3) whether DOE's current plan for the development and design of the accelerator option is an effective backup that DOE could construct and operate within cost and schedule estimates."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO analyzed the costs of operating five Superfund cleanup sites, focusing on: (1) what portion of the total funds the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent on each site was used to pay contractors for remedial actions as opposed to other activities and how the contractors spent these funds; and (2) whether the actual cost for remedial actions differed from the estimated costs and if so, why."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) use of "radiation dose reconstruction" as a tool for determining veterans' eligibility for benefits, focusing on: (1) studies that assessed the validity of dose reconstruction for estimating veterans' radiation exposure and discussing the issue with experts in the field and other knowledgeable individuals; (2) what activities are in place to oversee the dose reconstruction process; and (3) alternatives for deciding veterans' claims for compensation related to radiation exposure."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified the private sector's key principles for strategically and effectively managing their human capital to provide federal agencies with information and examples to help them improve their human capital management."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on enrollment in the Department of Defense's (DOD) pilot Medicare health maintenance organization (HMO) for military retirees, focusing on: (1) how successful the demonstration has been in enrolling eligible beneficiaries; (2) what influenced retirees to join DOD's pilot HMOs; and (3) what factors accounted for differences in enrollment rates across demonstration sites."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Department of State has implemented its new responsibilities for U.S. policy regarding U.S. participation in the Universal Postal Union (UPU)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information from state and federal agencies on the number of cramming complaints nationwide, focusing on: (1) determining whether they were seeing an increase or decrease in cramming complaints during 1999; (2) learning whether they were taking additional actions to protect consumers from cramming; and (3) obtaining updated information about their enforcement actions against crammers during 1999."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index's (CPI) updated estimate of CPI bias, focusing on the: (1) methodological changes the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) made to the CPI since December 1996, when the Advisory Commission (also referred to as the Boskin Commission) issued its final report; and (2) opinions of the five former Boskin Commission members on how much of the bias in the CPI that the Commission estimated in its December 1996 report remains after recent methodological changes to the CPI."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the effects that the U.S. cargo preference law and federal export assistance programs have on the pork export industry, focusing on the: (1) extent to which other countries' trade practices and the U.S. cargo preference law are impediments to exporting more pork products; (2) extent to which existing federal programs could be used to increase the export of pork products; and (3) potential for increased exports to strengthen the U.S. agricultural trade balance and improve producer prices."