Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The General Services Administration (GSA) manages over 1,700 federally owned buildings with $5.7 billion in identified repair and alteration needs. GAO was asked to review the situation, but at the time the review started, the Public Building Service (PBS) also began a review, and, consequently, GAO reviewed the PBS review. PBS described the building inventory as predominantly aged with reinvestment needs that far exceed the capabilities of the Federal Buildings Fund--a revolving fund administered by the GSA. PBS analyzed 1,375 of GSA's 1,745 federally owned buildings. Each was placed into one of four categories. Buildings termed "nonperforming" do not generate sufficient income to cover their expenses and to set aside a minimal amount for future repair and alteration needs or replacement. Buildings termed "poor" generate sufficient income to cover their expenses and a minimal reserve. Buildings termed "good" pass the prior two tests and have a return of investment (ROI) of at least 6 percent, but their conditions are considered poor, and they have high reinvestment needs. Buildings termed "solid" are those that generate more than 6 percent ROI and are in good condition, thus having relatively low …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Department of Energy's (DOE) acquisition regulations, DOE can reimburse its contractors for reasonable legal costs associated with cases brought against them in such matters as equal opportunity employment, radiation and toxic exposure, personal injury, and wrongful discharge. Such costs are not reimbursable if there is liability related to the contractor's willful misconduct, lack of good faith, or failure to exercise prudent business judgment. In practice, DOE reimburses its contractors for most of the legal costs. From fiscal year 1995 through the third quarter of fiscal year 2001, there have been more than 2,100 cases and DOE has reimbursed its contractors more than $290 million for associated litigation and disposition costs. The contractors have spent $13 million in their defense. In the same time period, there have been nearly 400 equal employment opportunity cases for which DOE reimbursed its contractors $53 million. The contractors spent $2 million."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) submits an annual congressional justification for the funds and number of staff positions requested. For fiscal year 2002, IRS asked for $9.4 billion and 101,000 full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff positions. Congress expressed concerns about the information in IRS's justification and asserted that other types of information and presentations would better help Congress evaluate IRS's budget. In the context of Department of the Treasury and Office of Management and Budget guidance, IRS has the flexibility to present more information than it included in the fiscal year 2002 justification and to display it in different ways. Congressional Justifications typically vary in form and content, reflecting the ongoing relationship between each agency and appropriations subcommittee. The main purpose of Congressional Justifications is to give the subcommittees more details about agency programs and their relationship to appropriation requests than the President's budget documents provide. IRS's fiscal year 2002 justification had a summary section and a section on each of IRS's five appropriations. The summary section explained the foundation of IRS's budget request and summarized the dollars and FTE staff positions being requested for specific appropriations."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews cooperative research and development agreements (CRADA) at the Army Research Laboratory and the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to determine whether the laboratories complied with export control laws. GAO found that the Army needs to clarify its guidance on technology transfers to ensure compliance with U.S. export control laws during the management review of potential CRADA under Army Regulation 70-57. However, the regulation does not require that laboratories consult with the Office of the United States Trade Representative when entering into a CRADA. A committee of legal and management officials from various Army commands is now revising Army Regulation 70-57."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "For a number of years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has been promoting departmentwide use of purchase cards, and their use has dramatically increased. DOD reported that in fiscal year 2001, more than 230,000 civilian and military cardholders made 10.7 million purchase card transactions valued at more than $6.1 billion. The Navy has the second largest purchase card program in DOD. As was previously reported, there were significant breakdowns in internal control at two Navy sites that left those units vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. These weaknesses are representative of systematic Navy-wide purchase card control weaknesses that have left Navy vulnerable to fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive use of purchase cards. Since the original report, the Navy has been taking actions to improve the purchase card control environment and improve cardholder adherence to key purchase card control procedures. The Navy has also taken more aggressive actions to identify fraudulent, improper, and abusive or questionable purchase card acquisitions."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Hazardous substances that leak from underground storage tanks can contaminate the soil and water and pose continuing health risks. Leaks of methyl tertiary butyl ether--a fuel additive--have forced several communities to close their wells. GAO surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine whether tanks are compliant with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) underground storage tank (UST) requirements. About 1.5 million tanks have been closed since the program was created, leaving about 693,000 tanks subject to UST requirements. Eighty-nine percent of these tanks had the required protective equipment installed, but nearly 30 percent of them were not properly operated and maintained. EPA estimates that the rest were inactive and empty. More than half of the states do not meet the minimum rate recommended by EPA for inspections. State officials said that they lacked the money, staff, and authority to conduct more inspections or more strongly enforce tank compliance. States reported that even tanks with the required leak prevention and detection equipment continue to leak, although the full extent of the problem is unknown. EPA is seeking better data on leaks from upgraded tanks and is …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony addresses GAO's fiscal year 2001 performance and results, current challenges and future plans, and GAO's budget request for fiscal year 2003."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the Department of the Navy's internal controls over the government travel card program. The Navy's average delinquency rate of 12 percent over the last 2 years is nearly identical to the Army's, which has the highest delinquency rate in the Department of Defense, and 6 percentage points higher than that of federal civilian agencies. The Navy's overall delinquency and charge-off problems, which have cost the Navy millions in lost rebates and higher fees, are primarily associated with lower-paid, enlisted military personnel. In addition, lack of management emphasis and oversight has resulted in management failure to promptly detect and address instances of potentially fraudulent and abusive activities related to the travel card program. During fiscal year 2001 and the first 6 months of fiscal year 2002, over 250 Navy personnel might have committed bank fraud by writing three or more nonsufficient fund checks to Bank of America, while many others abused the travel card program by failing to pay Bank of America charges or using the card for inappropriate transactions such as for prostitution and gambling. However, because Navy management was often not aware of these …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of population growth, resulting real estate development, and rising real estate values in hazard-prone areas, our nation is increasingly exposed to higher property casualty losses--both insured and uninsured--from natural catastrophes than in the past. In the 1990s, a series of natural disasters, including Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake, raised questions about the adequacy of the insurance industry's financial capacity to cover large catastrophes without limiting coverage or raising premiums. Recognizing this greater exposure and responding to concerns about insurance market capacity, participants in the insurance industry and capital markets have developed new capital market instruments as an alternative to traditional property-casualty reinsurance, or insurance for insurers. GAO's objectives were to (1) describe catastrophe risk and how the insurance and capital markets provide coverage against such risks; (2) describe how risk-linked securities, particularly catastrophe bonds, are structured; and (3) analyze how key regulatory, accounting, tax, and investor issues might affect the use of risk-linked securities."

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Constitutionality of a ban on testimonials by health care professionals (RQ-0411-JC).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; County's and school district's obligations vis-a-vis a juvenile justice alternative education program , and relted questions (RQ-0420-JC).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification;Authority of a home-rule city to create a civil offense for the disregard of a traffic control signal and to use automated enforcement systems for traffic control(RQ-0426-JC).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a federally funded state protective and advocacy system for persons with mental illness or developmental disabilities may have access to a person and his or her records over the objection of the person's guardian (RQ-0427-JC).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Insurance Code article 3.70-3C, section 3A(c), (i) and article 20A.18B(c), (i) authorize the Texas Commissioner of Insurance to promulgate rules requiring health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations to disclose their policies regarding fees, bundling, and downcoding to physicians and other health care providers (RQ-0461-JC)

Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM) is an open source, fault-tolerant, and highly scalable cluster management and job scheduling system for Linux clusters of thousands of nodes. Components include machine status, partition management, job management, scheduling and stream copy modules. The design also includes a scalable, general-purpose communication infrastructure. This paper presents a overview of the SLURM architecture and functionality.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Tom Mann. Mann went into the Navy on June 9, 1944 and took boot camp in San Diego. He took a transport to Pearl Harbor and went to radio school at Camp Chapman. While on general detail, Mann tells the story of him and five other sailors doing work around Adm Nimitz's headquarters and of him coming out, offering them a coke, and chatting with them for a few minutes. Mann was assigned to the USS Maryland which was involved in the invasion of Okinawa. He tells the story of the ship being hit in the number 3 turret by a Kamikaze and of an operation called 'Circling the Wagon' where the ships went about 20 miles northeast of Okinawa and waited for the Kamikazes to start coming in. He states that in one day's time we shot down 327 planes. After getting back to Pearl Harbor, the Maryland was ordered to Bremerton, Washington for repairs. After the war was over, the Maryland made several 'Magic Carpet' trips between the Pacific and the west coast. Mann was discharged from the navy on May 17, 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Servando Lopez. Lopez was born in Lara, Texas on 8 April 1925 and attended school until the 8th grade. He was drafted into the Army and sent to Camp Wolters near Mineral Wells, Texas for 18 weeks of basic training. Completing training he was sent to New York City for debarkation. After arriving in South Hampton, England, he was assigned to the 29th Infantry Division, Company K, 175th Infantry. Lopez tells of the unit undergoing amphibious training daily for several weeks. He recounts being in the third wave attacking Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944. On 8 September, while leading a combat patrol, he was wounded and sent to England for recovery. He was awarded the Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He tells of returning to his platoon in December 1944 and soon after crossing the Ruhr River, he was wounded again and treated at an aid station. The unit advanced to the Rhine River and stopped. He relates that massive numbers of German soldiers were surrendering to the US troops to avoid being captured by the advancing Russian Army. In October 1945, Lopez returned to the …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Harry Hill. He was born at Fort Washakie, Wyoming on the Wind River Indian Reservation on 14 September 1920. Upon graduation from Texas A&M College in May 1942, he received a commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. He was immediately sent to Page Field, Fort Meyers, Florida and assigned to the B-24 Aircraft Maintenance Division. Soon thereafter, he underwent three months of advanced B-24 maintenance training at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Upon completion of the training he returned to Fort Meyers and was assigned to the 93rd Bomb Group. In September 1942 the maintenance personnel of the 93rd Bomb Group went by ship to Glasgow, Scotland. They then traveled by train to Hardwick Air Base, Norwich, England. Hill tells of repairing the aircraft upon their return from bombing raids. He remained in England until June 1945 when he returned to the United States aboard the RMS Queen Mary.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Willis Cooper. Cooper joined the Army Air Forces in November 1942 at age 29, after working in the Louisiana Department of Conservation. He received mechanic’s training at Keesler Field and went to a factory in Indiana to learn about engines. He was then assigned to the 65th Troop Carrier Squadron and sent to New Guinea, where he changed engines and performed 100-hour inspections on C-47s. After Cooper became the chief of maintenance, the group inspector remarked that Cooper had dramatically reduced each plane’s maintenance time. Before returning home, he worked overtime to prepare extra planes to fly much needed supplies to Okinawa, which had been recently devastated by a typhoon. Cooper was discharged in January 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with O.H. Karl King. King joined the Texas National Guard when he was 14 - an amiable captain fixed his age on paper. He enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was 15 during the Great Depression and was assigned to boot camp at San Diego, California. Upon completion, he shipped out for the Philippines and was at Cavite Naval Yard when the Japanese attacked. He saw General King on his way to surrender at Bataan and swam to Corregidor. After General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor, King went to Bilibid Prison in Manila. From there, he went to Cabanatuan, then Formosa and eventually wound up a prisoner in the electric shop at the naval yard at Yokohama, Japan. While there, he engaged in what sabotage operations he could against the Japanese. When the shipyard was destroyed by aerial bombardment, King was transferred to Omori Prison in Tokyo, from which he was liberated after the war ended.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with David Bell. Bell graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1937. He completed Submarine School in 1940 and worked aboard USS Cuttlefish (SS-171). They were located at Mare Island when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and they were released to make unrestricted warfare on the enemy. He served as Commanding Officer of USS Pargo (SS-264) during the 7th war patrol of that vessel from 15 January through 24 March of 1945. He was awarded the Navy Cross. Bell continued his service in the Navy and retired as a rear admiral in 1970.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Malcom Young. Young joined the Army in March of 1941. He completed basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and provides details of his training. He was later assigned to the 7th Infantry Division, 57th Field Artillery and made corporal. He describes his experiences using the 105mm Howitzer. In June of 1943 they participated in the Aleutian Islands Campaign, serving combat duty. They traveled to Hawaii and remained there through February of 1944, training and completing maneuvers. In February through May they participated in the Marshall Islands Campaign and Admiralty Islands Campaign. In October of 1944 they participated in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines. In April of 1945 they participated in the Battle of Okinawa. He describes his participation in each of these campaigns. Young was discharged in August of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Fred Leighton. Leighton joined the Navy in 1939. After basic training, he was assigned to the USS Ramsay (DM-16). He was aboard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, Leighton stayed aboard the Ramsay and headed for Samoa to lay mines, then to the Aleutian Islands. Leighton was then assigned to the YMS-395 and returned to Samoa. Afterwards, he was assigned to the USS Navarro (APA-215) and was wounded aboard the ship during the Okinawa invasion.

News release concerning a DART open house to gather input on proposed bus service changes to be initiated due to the expansion of DART light rail service to Plano.