A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "After widespread unlawful trading practices surfaced in the mutual fund industry in late 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), through its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), took steps intended to revise its examination process to better identify and focus its resources on those activities representing the highest risk to investors. More recently, some registrants raised concerns about the lack of communication from SEC examiners about the status of and results of examinations. This report (1) describes OCIE's revisions after 2003 to the examination approach for investment companies and investment advisers; (2) discusses OCIE's compliance with its examination exit procedures; and (3) describes reforms OCIE implemented since January 2006 to enhance, among other things, communication with registrants. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed OCIE examination data; planning documents and guidance; interviewed OCIE officials; and gathered views of registrants."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "An influenza pandemic is a real and significant potential threat facing the United States and the world. Pandemics occur when a novel virus emerges that can easily be transmitted among humans who have little immunity. In 2005, the Homeland Security Council (HSC) issued a National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza and, in 2006, an Implementation Plan. Congress and others are concerned about the federal government's preparedness to lead a response to an influenza pandemic. This report assesses how clearly federal leadership roles and responsibilities are defined and the extent to which the Strategy and Plan address six characteristics of an effective national strategy. To do this, GAO analyzed key emergency and pandemic-specific plans, interviewed agency officials, and compared the Strategy and Plan with the six characteristics GAO identified."

This report is organized in four parts. First, it provides an overview of the importance of honey bee pollination to U.S. agricultural production, especially specialty crops. Second, it describes the extent and symptoms of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and how it differs from previous honey bee colony losses. Third, it discusses some of the reasons why scientists believe honey bee colonies are being affected by CCD. Fourth, it discusses various policy options and subsequent action that Congress could consider in this area.

The Rare Isotope Science Assessment Committee (RISAC) was convened by the National Research Council in response to an informal request from the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Physics and the White House Office of Management and Budget. The charge to the committee is to examine and assess the broader scientific and international contexts of a U.S.-based rare-isotope facility. The committee met for the first time on December 16-17, 2005, in Washington, DC, and held three subsequent meetings. The committee’s final report was publicly released in unedited, prepublication form on Friday, December 8, 2006. The report was published in full-color by the National Academies Press in April 2007. Copies of the report were distributed to key decision makers and stakeholders around the world.

Yucca Mountain has been proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy as the nation’s long-term, permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste. The potential repository would be located in Yucca Mountain’s unsaturated zone (UZ), which acts as a critical natural barrier delaying arrival of radionuclides to the water table. Since radionuclide transport in groundwater can pose serious threats to human health and the environment, it is important to understand how much and how fast water and radionuclides travel through the UZ to groundwater. The UZ system consists of multiple hydrogeologic units whose hydraulic and geochemical properties exhibit systematic and random spatial variation, or heterogeneity, at multiple scales. Predictions of radionuclide transport under such complicated conditions are uncertain, and the uncertainty complicates decision making and risk analysis. This project aims at using geostatistical and stochastic methods to assess uncertainty of unsaturated flow and radionuclide transport in the UZ at Yucca Mountain. Focus of this study is parameter uncertainty of hydraulic and transport properties of the UZ. The parametric uncertainty arises since limited parameter measurements are unable to deterministically describe spatial variability of the parameters. In this project, matrix porosity, permeability and sorption coefficient of the reactive tracer …

This report tracks the Children's Health Reauthorization of Act of 2007 in both the Senate and the House, while also providing a summary of the bill. The report lists each title of the bill. what they do, and their implications. The report also examines costs by analyzing the immediate outlay and future outlay, starting at 28.6 billion and potentially increasing to 35.2 billion over time.

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This report provides an overview of the motions to instruct conferees as a congressional budget resolution.

This report provides short description of the major provisions contained in H.R. 3162.

This report contains citrate data for groundwaters received from the 100-N Area. On April 4, 2007, 7 water samples were received from the 100-N Area for citrate analysis. The analyses for this project were performed at the 325 building located in the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. The analyses were performed according to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) approved procedures. The data sets include the sample identification numbers, analytical results, estimated quantification limits (EQL) and quality control data.

This report provides information about the Broadband Internet Access and the Digital Divide through Federal Assistance Programs.Digital divide used to characterize the gap between "information have and have-not."