Memorandum of Meeting at which Mr. H. T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Installations and Environment (ASN (I&E)), met with Mr. Chris Paul, Military Legislative Advisor to Senator John McCain (R. Ariz.), at 1315 in Room 4E523 at the Pentagon. Commander Edward W. Brown, USN, Legislative Liaison; Commander Fred Latrash, USN, Office of Senator John McCain (R. Ariz); Commander Robert E. Vincent 11, JAGC, USN, IAT Recorder; and Captain James A. Noel, USMC, IAT Recorder, were present as well.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To provide safe and secure workplaces for overseas posts, the Department of State (State) has built 64 new embassy compounds (NEC) and other facilities since 1999, has 31 ongoing projects, and plans to build at least 90 more. In 2007, State reported the U.S. contractor pool for building NECs had reached its limit and proposed legislation to amend the criteria to qualify for NEC awards. GAO was asked to examine (1) how contractor participation in the NEC program changed in recent years, (2) the degree to which State assessed the need for and potential outcomes of its proposed amendment, (3) factors contractors consider when deciding to participate in the program, and (4) actions State has taken to address reported declines in contractor participation. GAO examined two indicators of contractor participation; reviewed State documents and proposed legislation; and interviewed State officials and U.S. firms that won NEC awards from 2001-2007."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Environmental reviews of complex federally funded highway construction projects may take years. The Congress has an interest in identifying and, if necessary, addressing the reasons to expedite highway projects. To better understand these reasons, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) surveyed its 55 division offices to determine why the environmental review of certain highway projects took more than 5 years. The Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure requested that we determine (1) the reasonableness of FHWA's survey methodology and offer suggestions for improvement, if appropriate, and (2) the feasibility of resurveying the same projects to gain an additional understanding about why environmental reviews took more than 5 years. To carry out this work, we interviewed FHWA officials about how they selected projects, surveyed their division offices, and analyzed the responses they obtained. In addition, we applied the lessons learned from FHWA's original approach to assess the feasibility of resurveying the same projects."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress is concerned that waste from animal feeding operations continues to threaten water quality. In light of this concern, GAO was asked to review the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) administration of its regulatory program for animal feeding operations and to determine the potential challenges states and EPA may face when they begin to implement the revisions to this program. GAO surveyed all EPA regional offices and four states with large numbers of animal feeding operations that may be subject to EPA regulations."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report contains GAO's assessment of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) efforts to revise OMB Circular A-76, which prescribes policies and procedures agencies must use when considering the transfer of commercial activities between the public and private sectors. The proposed revision was issued for public comment on November 19, 2002. GAO found the proposed revision consistent in many ways with the sourcing principles and recommendations adopted by the Commercial Activities Panel. There are several areas, however, where the proposed revisions to the Circular are not consistent with the principles or recommendations of the Commercial Activities Panel. Specifically, these include the absence of a link between sourcing policy and agency missions, unnecessarily complicated source selection procedures, certain unrealistic time frames, and insufficient guidance on calculating savings."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Emissions from mobile sources, such as automobiles and trucks, contribute to air quality degradation and can threaten public health and the environment. Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates these emissions. The act generally allows one set of federal standards for new motor vehicle emissions and pre-empts states from adopting or enforcing their own standards. However, it also authorizes the EPA Administrator to waive this provision to allow the state of California1 to enact and enforce emission standards for new motor vehicles that are as protective, in the aggregate, as federal government standards. Other states may also adopt California's standards if they choose. The waiver provision was added to the Federal Air Quality Act (one of the precursors of the current Clean Air Act) in 1967 because of California's severe air pollution problems and because the state had already established its own emission standards for mobile sources. California has used this waiver provision regularly to establish and enforce standards for vehicle emissions more stringent than those required by federal law. However, California must request a waiver of federal pre-emption and the EPA Administrator must …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2002, the federal government spent nearly $100 billion on capital investments intended to yield long-term benefits for its own operations. Interested in ensuring that good investment decisions are made, the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management, House Committee on Government Reform, asked GAO to evaluate agency experiences with the capital planning principles embodied in the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Capital Programming Guide and GAO's Executive Guide on leading state, local, and private sector capital investment practices. This report examines selected agencies' implementation of this guidance and OMB's use of long-term capital planning data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the years, the traveling public, flight attendants, and the medical community have raised questions about how airliner cabin air quality contributes to health effects, such as upper respiratory infections. Interest in cabin air quality grew in 2003 when a small number of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infections may have occurred on board aircraft serving areas that were experiencing outbreaks of the disease. In 2001, a National Research Council report on airliner cabin air quality and associated health effects recommended that additional research be done on the potential health effects of cabin air. GAO reviewed what is known about the health effects of cabin air, the status of actions recommended in the 2001 National Research Council report, and whether available technologies should be required to improve cabin air quality."

A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Agriculture provided $15 billion in food stamp benefits to 17 million recipients in 2000. Until the mid-1990s, most recipients received paper coupons that they could use to buy food; today, 80 percent of all benefits are provided electronically. Recipients use cards, much like debit cards, to pay for their groceries at the checkout counter, and the costs are deducted from the recipients' monthly allocation. GAO found that 42 of the 53 jurisdictions it studied will likely meet the October 1, 2002, deadline for implementing a statewide electronic benefit transfer (EBT) system. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia had already implemented a statewide EBT system by October 2001, and six other states had signed EBT contracts and were on track to meet the October 2002 deadline for statewide implementation. GAO did not identify any technical barriers to statewide implementation of EBT systems that are interoperable and portable."

BRAC 2005 Intelligence Joint Cross-Service Group Meeting Minutes of January 16, 2004. The document is redacted and includes the BRAC 2005 Military Value Analysis Training Module brief (PowerPoint slides).

This report describes estimates of earthquake hazards and risk in the United States; the current federal programs that support earthquake monitoring and that provide notification after a seismic event; and the programs that support mitigation and research aimed at reducing U.S. vulnerability to earthquakes.

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This report provides historical background on the enactment of declarations of war and authorizations for the use of force and analyzes their legal effects under international and domestic law.

This report analyzes the amendments that the Design Piracy Prohibition Act would have made to Chapter 13 of the copyright Act. It also summarizes arguments both in favor of and against extending copyright protection to fashion design.

This report tracks the FY2008 congressional appropriations process and provides a detailed discussion of the funding and issues related to the majority of accounts in HUD’s budget.

This report explores in broad terms the relationship between the production of intelligence and the making of policy as reflected in the period prior to the war against Iraq in March 2003 and the implications for Congress.

The reports is categorized into sic categories: (I) Types of Retirement Plans, (II) Enrollment Practices, (III) IRS Rulings, (IV) Policy Issues, (V) Plan Participation, and (VI) The Pension Protection Act.

This report provides a brief overview on the issue of climate change as well as other Clean Air Act issues of interest to the 111th Congress.

This report discusses the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included tax cut and spending provisions totaling at a cost of $787 billion in an attempt to mitigate the economic fallout of the housing and financial crises on the general economy. The report examines issues surrounding fiscal stimulus such as timeliness, the magnitude of stimulus, long-term effects and previously adopted policies.

This report examines arguments presented by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the National Governors Association (NGA) to include state fiscal assistance in an economic recovery plan, several arguments to exclude state assistance from such a plan, and the implications the proposals presented by NCSL and NGA might have for the economy. It also examines issues related to the targeting of state fiscal assistance and arguments for and against including infrastructure construction projects in an economic recovery plan, and presents key provisions in proposed economic recovery plans that directly affect state and local governments.

This report provides background information on continuation health insurance under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) and on the COBRA population.

This report discusses what the concept of green building means, major federal policies and programs relating to green building, and associated issues, including some that may confront the 111th Congress.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which formally ended the Mexican-American War, the United States assumed control over vast new territories, including much of what is now the state of New Mexico. The United States agreed to recognize ownership of property, including the ownership of land grants, in the ceded areas. Whether the United States carried out the provisions of the treaty, especially with regard to community land grants, has been a controversial issue for generations. Land grant documents contain no direct reference to "community land grants," nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. GAO did find, however, that some grants refer to lands set aside for general communal use or for specific purposes, such as hunting, maintaining pastures, wood gathering, or watering. Scholars, the land grant literature, and popular terminology commonly use the phrase "community land grants" to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use of the entire community. GAO used this broad definition to determine which Spanish and Mexican land grants could be identified as community land grants. GAO identified 152 community land grants …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Corporation for National and Community Service (the Corporation) was created to help meet community needs and expand educational opportunity by providing education awards to participants. The Corporation oversees and funds the AmeriCorps program as well as the National Service Trust (the Trust), which pays the education awards. From November 2002 to March 2003 the Corporation suspended AmeriCorps enrollments because there would not have been sufficient funds in the Trust to pay education awards. GAO was asked to determine (1) if all AmeriCorps enrollments were accurately recorded, (2) how the Corporation estimated its funding needs, and (3) if the Corporation made changes to prevent another enrollment suspension and to address requirements established in the Strengthen AmeriCorps Program Act. GAO analyzed laws, reviewed documents, interviewed officials, assessed the reliability of the Trust database, examined the model used to estimate funding needs, and surveyed Americorps grantees."