Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) new rule on Regional Transmission Organizations (RTO). GAO noted that: (1) the rule requires that each public utility that owns, operates, or controls facilities for the transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce make certain filings with respect to forming and participating in a RTO; and (2) FERC complied with applicable requirements in promugating the rule."

Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO developed congressional protocols for governing its work to better serve Congress, to improve the efficacy and efficiency of its work, and to ensure equitable treatment of all requesters."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the risk-focused approaches used by the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), focusing on: (1) the general characteristics of the regulators' risk-focused approach to examinations of large, complex banks, explaining how they differ from past examination practices; (2) comparing the implementation of the Federal Reserve's and OCC's risk-focused examination approaches; and (3) the challenges faced by both agencies as they continue to implement their examination programs for large, complex banks."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its report on how federal requirements affect local school districts, focusing on: (1) the major federal requirements that affect school districts; (2) the issues school districts face in implementing these requirements; and (3) recent initiatives by Congress and the Department of Education to provide flexibility to school districts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) efforts to implement changes to the Medicare program, focusing on HCFA's implementation of the: (1) expansion of the partial hospitalization benefit; and (2) more recent changes under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) to determine whether HCFA is acting upon lessons learned from the partial hospitalization program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the development of competition in telecommunications markets, focusing on the: (1) development of competition in local telephone markets and the market strategies employed by new carriers in five states under the 1996 Telecommunications Act; and (2) key issues affecting that development and the enforcement activities of federal and state regulators to address those issues."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO evaluated the extent to which the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has implemented commercial inventory practice initiatives contained in a schedule submitted to Congress, focusing on: (1) DLA's progress in implementing the initiatives; and (2) opportunities to build on and expand existing efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed three agencies' annual performance plans to determine whether the plans met congressional requirements, focusing on: (1) which aspects of congressional information needs were met by the agency's annual performance plan or some other source; (2) where those needs were not met, and what accounted for the discrepancies or gaps in the information provided; and (3) what options agencies could use to practically and efficiently provide the desired performance information."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on mandatory country-of-origin labelling for beef and lamb, focusing on the potential: (1) compliance costs associated with mandatory country-of-origin labelling for fresh and processed beef and lamb; (2) enforcement costs associated with such a requirement; (3) trade issues associated with such a requirement; and (4) benefits of mandatory country-of-origin labelling."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed: (1) the total amount of the District of Columbia (DC) Court's reported fiscal year (FY) 1999 obligations for the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), Counsel on Child Abuse and Neglect (CCAN), and Guardianship programs; (2) whether the reported FY 1999 obligations appear to have been lawfully incurred; and (3) whether the reported obligations exceeded DC Court's obligational authority available to pay such amounts."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the role of the Department of Defense (DOD) in reducing the supply of illegal drugs entering the United States, focusing on: (1) the decline in DOD's aerial and maritime support allocated to counterdrug activities from fiscal years 1992 through 1999 and some of the consequences and reasons for the decline; (2) the obstacles DOD faces in helping foreign governments counter illegal drug activities; and (3) DOD's counterdrug strategy and the need for performance measures to judge its counterdrug program effectiveness."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on agencies' fiscal years 1997 and 1998 Federal Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) remediation plans."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the eligibility for education tax benefits for students receiving financial assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), focusing on: (1) the major differences between VA's process of approving courses of study and the Department of Education's process of certifying schools; and (2) the number of VA students and schools that could be affected by expanding eligibility for educational tax benefits to include schools that Education does not now certify."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the change of century rollover, focusing on: (1) the reporting structure established by the government to obtain information on year 2000-related failures during the rollover period; (2) examples of year 2000 errors and their resolution; and (3) lessons from the year 2000 effort that can be carried forward to improve the management of information technology activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) decision to select a commercial reactor for the production of tritium and to designate an accelerator to function as a backup, focusing on: (1) whether the cost estimates used by the Secretary of Energy during the process of selecting between the tritium production technology options were comparable and adequately supported; (2) what management, technological, and legal activities could affect the completion of the commercial reactor option on schedule and within budget; and (3) whether DOE's current plan for the development and design of the accelerator option is an effective backup that DOE could construct and operate within cost and schedule estimates."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO analyzed the costs of operating five Superfund cleanup sites, focusing on: (1) what portion of the total funds the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent on each site was used to pay contractors for remedial actions as opposed to other activities and how the contractors spent these funds; and (2) whether the actual cost for remedial actions differed from the estimated costs and if so, why."

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) use of "radiation dose reconstruction" as a tool for determining veterans' eligibility for benefits, focusing on: (1) studies that assessed the validity of dose reconstruction for estimating veterans' radiation exposure and discussing the issue with experts in the field and other knowledgeable individuals; (2) what activities are in place to oversee the dose reconstruction process; and (3) alternatives for deciding veterans' claims for compensation related to radiation exposure."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO identified the private sector's key principles for strategically and effectively managing their human capital to provide federal agencies with information and examples to help them improve their human capital management."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on enrollment in the Department of Defense's (DOD) pilot Medicare health maintenance organization (HMO) for military retirees, focusing on: (1) how successful the demonstration has been in enrolling eligible beneficiaries; (2) what influenced retirees to join DOD's pilot HMOs; and (3) what factors accounted for differences in enrollment rates across demonstration sites."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the federal agencies who regulate workplace safety and health, focusing on the: (1) key federal agencies responsible for promoting workplace safety and health, specifically on those that have regulatory and enforcement authority or otherwise significantly assist in the enforcement process; and (2) federal laws and regulations that serve as the basis of enforcement and the types of worker and industries covered by these regulations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Department of State has implemented its new responsibilities for U.S. policy regarding U.S. participation in the Universal Postal Union (UPU)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information from state and federal agencies on the number of cramming complaints nationwide, focusing on: (1) determining whether they were seeing an increase or decrease in cramming complaints during 1999; (2) learning whether they were taking additional actions to protect consumers from cramming; and (3) obtaining updated information about their enforcement actions against crammers during 1999."

Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This document has been superseded by GAO-09-232G. GAO published a manual to provide auditors guidance for evaluating internal controls over the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data maintained in computer-based information systems. The manual's sections provide detailed guidance on evaluating and testing computer-based controls, including guidance on:(1) identifying the auditee's significant computer-supported operations, assessing the risk associated with these operations, and identifying the controls to be tested; (2) control objectives and commonly used control techniques, as well as audit procedures; and (3) common application control objectives and related control techniques, as well as suggested audit procedures. This 2001 release of the FISCAM document has been reformatted from the January 1999 version. It includes only formatting changes, refers to several different GAO documents, and adds hypertext links to GAO referenced documents; No other content has been modified or updated from the January 1999 release."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published this report on federal trust and other earmarked funds. GAO developed this report to answer some basic questions that often arise about trust funds and other earmarked funds."