A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the Small Business Administration's (SBA), the Department of Education's, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA), and the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) abilities to reasonably estimate the cost of their loan programs, focusing on: (1) whether they used practices identified by the Credit Reform Task Force as being effective in making these estimates; and (2) the status of the agencies' efforts to ensure that computer systems used to estimate the cost of credit programs are year 2000 compliant."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) Biennial Financial Management Improvement Plan to determine whether the: (1) concept of operations included the critical elements necessary for producing sustainable financial management improvement over the long term; (2) transition plan provided a strategic-level road map from the current environment to DOD's planned future financial management environment; and (3) implementation of the department's future financial management environment is practical, cost-effective, and feasible."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) revised actuarial model for veterans' compensation benefits, focusing on whether: (1) VA's revised actuarial model complies with Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) No. 5; and (2) future liability estimates can be improved."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the surety bond requirements for home health agencies (HHA) participating in Medicare, focusing on: (1) analyzing the key features of surety bonds that affect their costs and effect; (2) examining the Florida Medicaid program's experience with a surety bond requirements for HHAs and its relevance to the Medicare surety bond requirement; (3) reviewing the rationale for the surety bond requirements the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) selected, the cost and availability of bonds, the benefits for Medicare, and the implications of substituting a government note for a surety bond as set forth in a Department of the Treasury regulation; and (4) drawing implications from the implementation of the HHA surety bond requirement for implementing a similar surety bond provision for durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers, comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facilities (CORF), and rehabilitation agencies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP performed a technology and performance audit and management review of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), focusing on: (1) the overall effectiveness of FEC in meeting its statutory responsibilities; (2) the appropriateness and effectiveness of the FEC organizational structure, systems, and performance measures for accomplishing its mission; (3) the adequacy of the human resource programs for obtaining and maintaining adequate staff expertise and organizational capacity; (4) the adequacy of the FEC strategic information resources management plan as a tool to increase FEC efficiency and effectiveness through the use of data-processing systems; (5) the adequacy and completeness of internal management needs, as well as the reliability of information provided by these systems; and (6) regulated customer satisfaction with the products and services provided by FEC."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to process discrimination complaints, focusing on: (1) the timeliness of USDA's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) processing and closing of program and employment discrimination complaints; and (2) the reasons for delays in the processes."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) health care program for women, focusing on: (1) the progress VA made in removing barriers that may prevent women veterans from obtaining VA health care services; and (2) the extent to which VA health care services, particularly gender-specific services, are available to and used by women veterans."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impact of welfare reform on the Food Stamp Program, focusing on: (1) the number of states that have adopted or are planning to adopt the Simplified Food Stamp Program; (2) the concerns that may be preventing other states from adopting the simplified program; and (3) the impacts that the adoption of the simplified programs may have on households' eligibility and benefits."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of airports' efforts to prepare for the year 2000, focusing on: (1) the status of airports' efforts to help ensure that their computers and electronic equipment will function properly on and after January 1, 2000; (2) how the safety, the security, and the efficiency of the National Airspace System will be affected if airports' year 2000 preparations are not completed in time; and (3) the factors that will affect the progress of airports' preparations for the year 2000."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the future role of the power market administrations (PMA) by providing a PMA-by-PMA analysis of the potential rate changes that would likely be experienced by preference customers who buy power from the Southeastern Power Administration, the Southwestern Power Administration, and Western Area Power Administration if the power is sold at market rates."

Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge is proposing to acquire a 706-acre property located in Stevens County, Washington. The new acquisition would be called the Kaniksu Unit. A habitat evaluation was conducted on the property using the Habitat Evaluation Procedures (HEP) methodology (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1980). Evaluation species were black-capped chickadee, mallard, ruffed grouse and white-tailed deer. Life requisites evaluated were food and reproduction for black-capped chickadee, food, cover, and reproduction for mallard, available winter browse for white-tailed deer and fall-to-spring cover for ruffed grouse.

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) efforts to reduce the costs associated with civilian personnel management, focusing on: (1) how DOD determines the number and locations for civilian personnel regional service centers and why is there a wide disparity in the number of regional centers among the services; (2) whether DOD is applying the investment principles of the Clinger-Cohen Act in overseeing, managing, and developing the Defense Civilian Personnel Data System (DCPDS); (3) whether DCPDS duplicates the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Employee Express System: (4) whether DOD leadership is aware of the extent and cost of the needed modifications to the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software applications; and (5) whether DOD identified and mitigated the risks associated with the major COTS modifications."

This report provides general guidance to committees for conducting meetings to mark up legislation.

This report describes the process of reaching the final agreement between house and senate over the final version of a bill that the two houses have passes in different forms.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed how well the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is managing its year 2000 program, focusing on: (1) the status of the BOP's year 2000 program; and (2) recent actions it has taken to strengthen its management of the program and improve year 2000 assistance to state and local government institutions."

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 allows U.S. special operations forces (SOF) to train under the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program in foreign countries, and does not prohibit training in nations where human rights violations have been reported. Such training includes instructing host government military units in lethal and nonlethal skills. Controversy has erupted over JCET missions in countries whose militaries are suspected or known to have committed human rights abuses. This report describes relevant legislation, SOF, JCET, alleged human rights abuses, and recent congressional initiatives and discusses further options and issues.

This report addresses the issue of whether the public treatment for the plaintiff mentally disadbled persons in community placement when such treatment could be provided in a state mental institute.

This report discusses the enhancements to the crop insurance and revenue insurance programs that are expected to be considered by the 106th Congress in order to improve the farm financial safety net and preclude the need for ad hoc legislative assistance.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO conducted a public opinion survey regarding a design for the face of the new dollar coin authorized by Public Law 105-124, the United States $1 Coin Act of 1997, focusing on: (1) the public's preference for either Sacagawea--a Shoshone interpreter who accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition--or the Statue of Liberty as the image on the face of the new dollar coin; (2) how strongly the public felt about their preference; and (3) reasons for their choice."

The Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act has two basic aims: to regulate international ocean disposal of materials, into authorized related research. Permit and enforcement provisions of the law are often referred to as the Ocean Dumping Act. The basic provisions of the act have remained virtually unchanged since 1972, when it was enacted to establish a comprehensive waste management system to regulate disposal or dumping of all materials into marine waters that are within U.S. jurisdiction, although a number of new authorities have been added. This report represents a summary of the law, describing the essence of the statute.

This report briefly discusses the factors that determine House committee jurisdiction and more specifically House Rule X.

This report briefly discusses House Committee assignments, examining the process and assessing its effects.

This report presents an analysis of the potential impacts of the Kyoto Protocol on U.S. energy demand. The analysis focuses on 27 common end-uses — light duty vehicles, residential space heating, industrial direct process heat, etc. — that describe the way energy is used in the United States

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the effects of in-transit disbursements on the Navy's funds control and financial reporting."