A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on Department of Defense (DOD) efforts to improve joint operations, focusing on: (1) the U.S. Atlantic Command's (USACOM) actions to establish itself as the joint force trainer, provider, and integrator of most continental U.S.-based forces; (2) views on the value of the Command's contributions to joint military capabilities; and (3) recent expansion of the Command's responsibilities and its possible effects on the command."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to create jobs for displaced former Soviet Union scientists through its Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program, focusing on: (1) the costs to implement the program for fiscal years 1994-98, including the amount of funds received by weapons scientists and institutes; (2) the extent to which the program's projects are meeting their nonproliferation and commercialization objectives; and (3) DOE's Nuclear Cities Initiative."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the number and characteristics of self-employed taxpayers who receive social security credit for self-employment earnings when they are delinquent in paying the self-employment taxes on those earnings; (2) why self-employed taxpayers who have not paid their self-employment taxes are allowed to receive social security credit; and (3) any potential actions that could enhance the collection of self-employment taxes."

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 Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 as a means of realizing an estimated $6 billion savings in support costs between fiscal years (FY) 1997 and 2003, focusing on: (1) identifying the competition and savings goals; (2) assessing the accuracy of the savings estimates provided to Congress; and (3) evaluating the adequacy of planning to support the overall program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the adequacy and status of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) planned actions to correct internal control weaknesses related to property and equipment identified in prior financial statement audit reports, focusing on FDA's: (1) inadequate controls over the physical quantities of property and equipment and their locations; (2) improper reconciliations between its general ledger and property subsidiary ledger systems; and (3) internal controls related to the safeguarding and reporting of automated data processing (ADP) equipment that is lost, stolen, destroyed, or surplussed."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how effectively the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) selects individual income tax returns for audit, focusing on: (1) the extent to which IRS district offices have used various sources to select these individual returns for audit; and (2) comparing the results of audits selected using these sources in terms of the rate at which audits recommended no-change to the tax reported, amount of additional taxes recommended per return audited, and rates at which IRS assessed and collected such recommended taxes after the audit."

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 (DOD) recent competitive sourcing initiatives, focusing on: (1) determining the number of sourcing competitions completed between October 1995 and March 1998 and whether the competitions had been done in accordance with applicable procedures; (2) comparing characteristics such as outcomes of recent competitions with previous competitions in terms of winners of the competitions, time required to complete the competitions, savings produced, and other relevant metrics; and (3) identifying the extent of any problems in implementing the results of the competitions, and plans for government monitoring of contracts awarded as a result of outsourcing."

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) processes for investigating military enlistees' criminal history, focusing on: (1) the extent to which relevant criminal history information on potential enlistees is available to the military services; and (2) federal government initiatives that could improve the process of obtaining criminal history information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the significant differences in two Department of Defense training programs, focusing on the: (1) training categories and military services with the most significant funding changes from the 1998 to the 1999 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP); (2) bases for the changes; and (3) potential impact of the changes on the services' future training budgets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the types of health research conducted outside the Common Rule and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, focusing on: (1) examining how medical information is used for research and the need for personally identifiable information; (2) identifying research that is and is not subject to current federal oversight requirements; (3) examining how institutional review boards (IRB) ensure the confidentiality of health information used in research; and (4) identifying the safeguards health care organizations have put in place to protect the confidentiality of health information used in research."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) ongoing efforts to develop resource-based practice expense relative value units (RVUs), focusing on: (1) whether the new methodology is an acceptable approach for revising Medicare's fee schedule; (2) questions about the data, assumptions, and adjustments underlying the new methodology that need to be addressed during the 3-year phase-in period; and (3) the need for future updates to the practice expense RVUs to reflect changes in health care delivery and for ongoing assessments of the fee schedule's effect on Medicare beneficiaries' access to physicians' care."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Navy's declining ship maintenance workload, focusing on: (1) the Navy's policies and procedures for allocating ship maintenance work to public and private facilities in the Norfolk area; (2) ship maintenance and modernization funding obligated to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and private ship repair companies during the fiscal years (FY) 1994 through 1998; and (3) the extent to which the Atlantic Fleet's ship maintenance program has been affected by the movement of funds out of the ship depot maintenance program since FY 1994."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the corrective actions taken by the Army following the deaths of four Ranger students in a 1995 training accident, focusing on the status of: (1) Army Ranger training manning levels required by the fiscal year 1996 National Defense Authorization Act; (2) establishing safety cell organizations required by the act; (3) corrective safety actions instituted after the accident; and (4) inspections of identified safety controls."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) efforts to implement the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996, focusing on: (1) the status of FAA's efforts to implement the requirement of section 301 of the act mandating that FAA conduct a study and report to Congress on whether aviation security responsibilities should be transferred from the airline carriers to airports or the federal government; (2) the status of FAA's efforts to implement section 302 mandating that FAA certify security screening companies and improve the training and testing of security screeners through the development of performance standards; and (3) issues that could impede FAA's implementation of section 302."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), focusing on: (1) whether savings in DOD's fiscal year (FY) 1999-2003 FYDP were the result of DOD's Defense Reform Initiatives (DRI); (2) the extent to which savings and personnel reductions from competitive sourcing in the 1999-2003 FYDP were based on ongoing or planned studies of functions specifically identified under the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, and what percentage of the current costs of performing those functions were included from the projected savings from these studies; and (3) whether DOD components outsourced activities that included inherently governmental functions, without allowing civilian employees to compete under Circular A-76 procedures, or without following the study and notification requirements of 10 U.S.C. 2461."

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the Surface Transportation Board's rate relief complaint process and how it has changed since the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) Termination Act of 1995 became law; (2) the number and outcome of rate relief cases pending or filed since 1990; and (3) the barriers that shippers face when bringing rate complaints to the Board and potential changes to the process to reduce these barriers."