A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the contaminants in storm water runoff as a significant threat to water quality across the nation. Prompted by Congress, EPA has responded with various initiatives, including the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Storm Water Program, which requires more than 1,000 local governments to undertake storm water management programs. Those municipalities in Phase I of the program have been trying to reduce pollutants in storm water runoff for several years, and it is time to begin evaluating their efforts. EPA however, has not established measurable goals for this program, nor has it attempted to evaluate the program's effectiveness in reducing storm water pollution or to determine its cost. EPA attributes its inaction to inconsistent data reporting from municipalities, insufficient staff resources, and other competing priorities within the Office of Wastewater Management. Although municipalities report monitoring and cost data to EPA or state regulatory agencies annually, these agencies have not reviewed this information to determine whether it can be useful in determining the program's overall effectiveness or cost. GAO found that the reported cost information will be difficult to analyze unless EPA …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) efforts to combat violent crime and drug trafficking in public housing through Operation Safe Home. GAO found that Operation Safe Home lacks the necessary information systems and management controls to ensure that HUD's Office of Inspector General (OIG) can readily monitor the obligation and expenditure of funds and track the numbers of arrests and convictions. As a result, the OIG cannot reliably allocate program resources or accurately estimate its funding needs. Furthermore, in the absence of complete, consistent, or accurate information, the OIG cannot Congress with reliable and supportable information on Operation Safe Home's accomplishments. The OIG recognizes the need for more effective management controls within Operation Safe Home and has begun to address the problem. These actions, once implemented, should help the OIG to allocate resources more effectively, better estimate future funding needs, and more accurately measure and report the program's accomplishments. However, GAO remains concerned about OIG's long-term involvement in Operation Safe Home. The OIG cannot independently and impartially audit or investigate Operation Safe Home, and may not be perceived as impartial when …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the effectiveness of the Office of Motor Carrier and Highway Safety (OMCHS) in improving the safety of large trucks, focusing on: (1) recent trends in the number of crashes involving large trucks; (2) the factors the contribute to such crashes; and (3) OMCHS' activities to improve truck safety."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the: (1) American Fisheries Act's impact on the production of pollock fillets and the price paid for them; and (2) act's positive and negative impacts on fishing operations in the pollock fishery and other fisheries in Alaska."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the: (1) Department of the Treasury's process for allocating highway user tax receipts to the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund; (2) Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) process for estimating motor fuel usage and the contributions to the account that are attributable to highway users in each state; and (3) impact of these processes on the amount of highway program funds distributed to each state."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) described the specific noise abatement procedures at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport; (2) determined whether the airlines comply with these procedures; and (3) assessed whether local citizen groups believe that existing noise abatement procedures and penalties are effective."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) submitted its fourth expenditure plan to Congress in March 2001. In the plan, IRS requested $128 million from its systems modernization appropriations account. This report (1) determines whether the plan satisfied the conditions specified in the acts, (2) determines IRS' progress in implementing modernization management controls and capabilities, and (3) provides other observations about the plan and IRS' Business Systems Modernization program. GAO found that IRS' March 2001 expenditure plan satisfies the conditions specified in the appropriations acts. IRS continues to make important progress in implementing modernization management controls and capabilities but has yet to implement a sufficiently defined version of the enterprise architecture to guide and constrain projects or employ rigorous configuration management practices. Acquiring modernized systems before having the requisite management capacity in place increases the risk of cost, schedule, and performance shortfalls."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Improper payments are a long-standing problem throughout the government. The Department of Defense (DOD) has been overpaying contractors by hundreds of millions of dollars each year. For fiscal years 1994 through 1999, DOD contractors returned nearly $1.2 billion that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) had mistakenly paid them as a result of errors, such as paying the same invoice twice or misreading invoice amounts. Sometimes, however, the contractors do not promptly respond to government demands that the overpayments be returned. The Debt Management Office was created at the DFAS Columbus Center to deal with contractors that are unresponsive to the government's demands that overpayments be returned. GAO found that the Debt Management Office at DFAS Columbus is not effectively and proactively pursuing collections of debts assigned to it. Specifically, the Office is not (1) taking appropriate action to establish the validity of the debts that it receives for collection, (2) promptly issuing letters demanding payment, (3) actively communicating with contractors or resolving issues related to the debts, and (4) effectively using the Department of the Treasury's centralized debt collection programs to maximize collections and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses the briefing we gave on June 8, 2011, as well as subsequent comments from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). We gave this briefing in response to Congressional request that we assess IRS's planning to implement its responsibilities under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The report (1) describes IRS's PPACA responsibilities and effective dates and (2) assesses the extent to which IRS, in planning PPACA implementation, is following leading practices in four areas--developing an overall management structure (including goals and performance measures), estimating and tracking costs, assuring compliance with the new law while minimizing burden, and managing risk."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For decades, the Department of Defense (DOD) has been challenged in modernizing its timeworn business systems. Since 1995, GAO has designated DOD's business systems modernization program as high risk. Between 2001 and 2005, GAO reported that the modernization program had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an enterprise architecture and investment management structures that had limited value. Accordingly, GAO made explicit architecture and investment management-related recommendations. Congress included provisions in the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 that were consistent with GAO's recommendations and required GAO to assess DOD's actions to comply with these provisions. To do so, GAO reviewed documents and interviewed military officials on the progress the military departments have made relative to developing their respective parts of the federated business enterprise architecture and establishing investment management structures and processes."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures the pension benefits of more than 44 million U.S. workers and retirees in more than 27,500 private defined benefit plans. In response to growing workloads over the last 20 years, PBGC has come to rely heavily on contractors to perform its work. With the influx of plan terminations during the recent economic downturn, GAO was asked to examine: (1) how PBGC decides between contracting for services and performing services in house; (2) the steps PBGC has taken to strengthen its internal controls over the contracting process; and (3) PBGC's implementation of a performance-based approach in its recent contracts. To conduct this study, GAO reviewed federal and PBGC contracting policies; interviewed PBGC officials and selected contractors; examined a small judgmental sample of eight recent contracts selected based on type, amount, and location; and assessed PBGC's actions in response to past GAO and PBGC Inspector General (IG) recommendations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Concerns have arisen about whether the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is applying the Sensitive Security Information (SSI) designation consistently and appropriately. SSI is one category of "sensitive but unclassified" information--information generally restricted from public disclosure but that is not classified. GAO determined (1) TSA's SSI designation and removal procedures, (2) TSA's internal control procedures in place to ensure that it consistently complies with laws and regulations governing the SSI process and oversight thereof, and (3) TSA's training to its staff that designate SSI."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) is the nation's primary program providing job training and other assistance to manufacturing workers who lose their jobs due to international trade. For workers to receive TAA benefits, the Department of Labor (Labor) must certify that workers in a particular layoff have lost their jobs due to trade. Congress is considering allowing entire industries to be certified to facilitate access to assistance. GAO was asked to examine (1) trends in the current certification process, (2) the extent to which the proposed industry certification approach based on three petitions certified in 180 days would increase eligibility and identify potential challenges with this approach, and (3) the extent to which an approach based on trade remedies would increase eligibility and identify potential challenges. To address these questions, GAO analyzed data on TAA petitions, mass layoffs, trade, production, and trade remedies. GAO also interviewed Labor and ITC officials. GAO is not making recommendations at this time. Labor reviewed the report and did not provide comments. The ITC provided technical comments that have been incorporated as appropriate."

Xerographic of the order for dismissal and for sanctions in the Mark William Nelson bankruptcy petition.

Report from the bankruptcy court of Dallas stating the events and the court's decision of Mark William Nelson's bankruptcy case. Text is faded.

Abstract: "A method has been established for the estimation of volatile organic acids in aqueous process solutions containing UNH, nitric acid, ANN, sodium dichromate and small amounts of hexone. The practice is to distill a 400 ul or 500 ul sample in the presence of an excess of phosphoric acid and ferrous sulfate under a high vacuum; a special apparatus utilizing a receiver cooled with a dry ice-isopropanol mixture is employed. The distillate is taken up in isopropanol and then titrated potentiometrically with standard potassium hydroxide solution. Since nitric acid and organic acids are present, two end points are observed. The potassium hydroxide added between these end points is equivalent to the organic acids. In the titration, CO2 from the atmosphere or in the potassium hydroxide is a source of error. The former was avoided and correction was made for the latter."

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Columbia-class program, a program to design and build a new class of 12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to replace the Navy's current force of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) program. Decisions that Congress makes on procurement of Virginia-class boats could substantially affect U.S. Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

This report discusses U.S. sanctions against Iran and the 2016 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement which led to the lifting of sanctions based on nuclear proliferation in Iran. The bulk of the report outlines the various sanctions against Iran and their current implementation status, international efforts to bring about compliance, and their effects. Recent discussions regarding President's Trump announcement that the U.S. was decertifying the nuclear agreement and the possibility of reinstating certain sanctions are also discussed.

This report discusses how the current legislative framework for cybersecurity might need to be revised.

This report looks at the cost of funding the Coast Guard's program of record's (POR) call for procuring eight National Security Cutters (NSCs), 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs), and 58 Fast Response Cutters (FRCs) as replacements for 90 aging Coast Guard cutters and patrol craft. It also addresses issues for maintenance, future acquisition, and definitions of the types of cutters.

This report focuses on potential Navy shipboard lasers for countering surface, air, and ballistic missile threats. It does not discuss the use of lasers on Navy aircraft or submarines, or the use of lasers by other military services.

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the CVN-78 program. CVN-78, CVN-79, and CVN-80 are the first three ships in the Navy's new Gerald R. Ford (CVN- 78) class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs).

Report discussing the U.S. Navy's Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) class aircraft carrier program, including the CVN-78, CVN-79 and CVN-80, which are the first of the class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). The report provices background on the program and funding, as well as related issues for Congress.