This report discusses the assessment of the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), which is an instantaneous, intense energy field that can overload or disrupt at a distance numerous electrical systems and high technology microcircuits.

This report discusses FY2006 supplemental appropriations for Iraq and other international activities, as well as Katrina hurricane relief.

The U.S. merchandise trade deficit is a part of the overall U.S. balance of payments, a summary statement of all economic transactions between the residents of the United States and the rest of the world, during a given period of time. Some Members of Congress and other observers have grown concerned over the magnitude of the growing U.S. merchandise trade deficit and the associated increase in U.S. dollar-denominated assets owned by foreigners. This report provides an overview of the U.S. balance of payments, an explanation of the broader role of capital flows in the U.S. economy, an explanation of how the country finances its trade deficit or a trade surplus, and the implications for Congress and the country of the large inflows of capital from abroad.

This report examines the opinions of the district court and court of appeals in National Treasury Employees Union (“NTEU”) v. Chertof.

This report covers funding and policy issues related to Foreign Operations, as addressed in the House and Senate, and State Department programs as debated in the Senate. The discussion and accompanying tables are designed to track the House Foreign Operations Appropriation measure, as well as the broader Senate State, Foreign Operations spending bill.

This report discusses the Coast Guard, which is the lead federal agency for maritime homeland security. For FY2007, the Coast Guard is requesting a total of about $4.5 billion for missions defined in The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) as the Coast Guard’s homeland security missions. This equates to about 54% of the Coast Guard’s total requested FY2007 budget. The Coast Guard’s homeland security operations pose several potential issues for Congress, including adequacy of Coast Guard resources for performing both homeland security and non-homeland security missions, and Coast Guard coordination with other agencies involved in maritime homeland security.

The increased presence of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs and in the scientific workforce has been and continues to be of concern to some in the scientific community. Enrollment of U.S. citizens in graduate science and engineering programs has not kept pace with that of foreign students in those programs. In addition to the number of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs, a significant number of university faculty in the scientific disciplines are foreign, and foreign doctorates are employed in large numbers by industry. This report examines these issues and discusses their policy implications.

Federal research and development (R&D) funding priorities reflect presidential policies and national needs. This report discusses past and projected R&D budgets and initiatives.

This report discusses the Coast Guard, which is the lead federal agency for maritime homeland security. For FY2007, the Coast Guard is requesting a total of about $4.5 billion for missions defined in The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) as the Coast Guard’s homeland security missions. This equates to about 54% of the Coast Guard’s total requested FY2007 budget. The Coast Guard’s homeland security operations pose several potential issues for Congress, including adequacy of Coast Guard resources for performing both homeland security and non-homeland security missions, and Coast Guard coordination with other agencies involved in maritime homeland security.

The increased presence of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs and in the scientific workforce has been and continues to be of concern to some in the scientific community. Enrollment of U.S. citizens in graduate science and engineering programs has not kept pace with that of foreign students in those programs. In addition to the number of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs, a significant number of university faculty in the scientific disciplines are foreign, and foreign doctorates are employed in large numbers by industry. This report examines these issues and discusses their policy implications.

This report describes the emerging areas of information operations in the context of U.S. national security. It assesses known U.S. capabilities and plans, and suggests related policy issues of potential interest to Congress.

Fish and marine mammals are important resources in open ocean and nearshore coastal areas; many federal laws and regulations guide their management. This report discusses a variety of laws and legislation pertaining to this issue.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Fiscal year 2005 marked the second year that executive agencies were required to report improper payment information under the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA). As a steward of taxpayer dollars, the federal government is accountable for how its agencies and grantees spend billions of taxpayer dollars and is responsible for safeguarding those funds against improper payments. GAO was asked to determine the progress agencies have made in their improper payment reporting and the total amount of improper payments recouped through recovery auditing. To accomplish this, GAO reviewed improper payment information reported by 35 agencies in their fiscal year 2005 performance and accountability or annual reports."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The financing shortfall currently facing the Social Security program is significant. Without remedial action, program trust funds will be exhausted in 2040. Many recent reform proposals have included modifications of the indexing currently used in the Social Security program. Indexing is a way to link the growth of benefits and/or revenues to changes in an economic or demographic variable. Given the recent attention focused on indexing, this report examines (1) the current use of indexing in the Social Security program and how reform proposals might modify that use, (2) the experiences of other developed nations that have modified indexing, (3) the effects of modifying the indexing on the distribution of benefits, and (4) the key considerations associated with modifying the indexing. To illustrate the effects of different forms of indexing on the distribution of benefits, we calculated benefit levels for a sample of workers born in 1985, using a microsimulation model. We have prepared this report under the Comptroller General's statutory authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative as part of a continued effort to assist Congress in addressing the challenges facing Social Security. We …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A well-defined enterprise architecture is an essential tool for leveraging information technology (IT) to transform business and mission operations. GAO's experience has shown that attempting to modernize and evolve IT environments without an architecture to guide and constrain investments results in operations and systems that are duplicative, not well integrated, costly to maintain, and ineffective in supporting mission goals. In light of the importance of enterprise architectures, GAO developed a five stage architecture management maturity framework that defines what needs to be done to effectively manage an architecture program. Under GAO's framework, a fully mature architecture program is one that satisfies all elements of all stages of the framework. As agreed, GAO's objective was to determine the status of major federal department and agency enterprise architecture efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To provide accurate and timely weather forecasts, the National Weather Service (NWS) uses systems, technologies, and manual processes to collect, process, and disseminate weather data to its nationwide network of field offices and centers. After completing a major modernization program in the 1990s, NWS is seeking to upgrade its systems with the goal of improving its forecasting abilities, and it is considering changing how its nationwide office structure operates in order to enhance efficiency. GAO was asked to (1) evaluate NWS's efforts to achieve improvements in the delivery of its services through system and technology upgrades, (2) assess agency plans to achieve service improvements through training its employees, and (3) evaluate agency plans to revise its nationwide office configuration and the implications of these plans on local forecasting services, staffing, and budgets."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past several years, GAO has reported that federal agencies are not well positioned to meet requirements of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA). For fiscal year 2005, estimated improper payments exceeded $38 billion but did not include some of the highest risk programs, such as Medicaid with outlays exceeding $181 billion for fiscal year 2005. Overall, state-administered programs and other nonfederal entities receive over $400 billion annually in federal funds. Thus, federal agencies and states share responsibility for the prudent use of these funds. GAO was asked to determine actions taken at the state level to help federal agencies estimate improper payments for state-administered federal programs and assistance needed from the federal level to support the respective federal agencies' implementation of IPIA."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established a program--the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT)--to collect, maintain, and share information, including biometric identifiers, on selected foreign nationals entering and exiting the United States. US-VISIT uses these identifiers (digital fingerscans and photographs) to screen persons against watch lists and to verify that a visitor is the person who was issued a visa or other travel document. Visitors are also to confirm their departure by having their visas or passports scanned and undergoing fingerscanning at selected air and sea ports of entry (POE). GAO has made many recommendations to improve the program, all of which DHS has agreed to implement. GAO was asked to report on DHS's progress in responding to 18 of these recommendations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To improve fleet support activities, the Navy is consolidating maintenance facilities and converting its shipyards from financing under the Navy Working Capital Fund to funding through direct appropriations (direct funding). Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was converted to direct funding in 2003. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 directed the Navy to assess the impact of converting Puget Sound to direct funding and directed that GAO review the Navy's report. The Navy submitted its report to Congress in March 2006, confirming its position that direct funding was more advantageous than working capital funding and can best satisfy fleet maintenance priorities. GAO's objectives were to evaluate the extent to which the Navy's report (1) provided data and other supporting evidence for its overall assessment of the impact of converting Puget Sound to direct funding, (2) addressed unresolved issues that had been identified in prior studies, and (3) disclosed any other issues that have affected the implementation of direct funding."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The military services store prepositioned stocks of equipment and material on ships and land in locations around the world to enable the rapid fielding of combat-ready forces. GAO's prior work has shown that the readiness and safety of military equipment can be severely degraded by corrosion and that the Department of Defense (DOD) spends billions of dollars annually to address corrosion. GAO was asked to review the impact of corrosion on prepositioned assets. GAO's specific objectives were to assess (1) the measures taken by the Army and the Marine Corps to reduce the impact of corrosion on prepositioned assets and (2) the availability of corrosion-related data to the Army and the Marine Corps to support corrosion prevention and mitigation efforts for prepositioned assets."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2005, U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents filed about 730,000 petitions with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to sponsor noncitizen family members, including spouses, fiances, and children, to immigrate to the United States. Those doing the sponsoring are called petitioners; those benefiting from the sponsoring are called beneficiaries. If USCIS approves the petition, overseas beneficiaries must also file a visa application with the Department of State to enter the United States. In January 2002, USCIS started to conduct background security checks on all petitioners in addition to the beneficiaries. These background checks revealed that some of the petitioners had convictions for criminal sex offenses; further, some of those criminal sex offenders were filing family-based petitions for children (those under the age of 21). This report addresses the number of convicted sex offenders who filed family-based petitions in fiscal year 2005 based upon a computer match of USCIS data with individuals in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Sex Offender Registry and discusses USCIS's and the Department of State's framework for disclosing a sponsor's criminal sexual background to the beneficiary. DHS, the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a three phase program that increases the use of small businesses to meet federal research needs and encourages commercialization of this research. Venture capital is one source of funding to help commercialize SBIR projects. To receive an award firms must meet ownership and other criteria and awards may exceed dollar guidelines. In 2002, the Small Business Administration (SBA) clarified that majority owners of firms that receive awards must be individuals rather than corporations. Since 2002, controversy has arisen over the extent to which venture capital firms may own SBIR firms. GAO was asked to provide information on SBIR for fiscal years 2001 - 2004. For NIH and DOD, we determined the (1) number and characteristics of awards, (2) number and characteristics of awards above the guidelines, (3) changes in award characteristics after 2002, and (4) factors agencies consider, and data they collect on, SBIR awards. NIH, DOD, and SBA provided technical comments that were incorporated, as appropriate. DOD said our findings were not surprising in light of differences in the markets for SBIR projects. SBA said our findings, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) anticipates that the Future Combat System (FCS) will modernize the U.S. Army's ability to move, shoot, and communicate on the battlefield. It is an impressive concept that is the product of holistic, non-traditional thinking. The Army describes FCS as one of the most complex weapon acquisition programs ever executed because it involves developing and integrating a family of 18 systems and an information network. Army leadership started the program early as part of its effort to change Army culture and believes that the program risks are manageable. GAO is required by law to review the program annually. In this report, GAO analyzes FCS's acquisition business case and assesses requirements stability, technology maturity, soundness of the acquisition strategy, and reasonableness and affordability of program costs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In December 2004, an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia caused a tsunami that left more than 230,000 people killed or missing and presumed dead and an estimated $10 billion in damage in 12 countries. In May 2005, Congress appropriated $908 million for relief and reconstruction. U.S. emergency relief efforts budgeted at $327 million were nearly completed in December 2005. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to spend $496 million on longer-term reconstruction, focusing on Indonesia and Sri Lanka, with the remaining $85 million allocated to other U.S. agencies. GAO has been mandated to monitor USAID's reconstruction efforts. In this report, GAO describes USAID's (1) progress in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, (2) financial and technical oversight measures, and (3) implementation challenges."