Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses our work on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) actions to enforce the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 (HMSA), as amended, which prohibits the inhumane treatment of livestock in slaughter plants and generally requires that animals be rendered insensible--that is, unable to feel pain--before being slaughtered. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is responsible for enforcing HMSA. Concerns about the humane handling and slaughter of livestock have increased in recent years, particularly after possible HMSA violations were revealed at a slaughter plant in California in 2008 and one in Vermont in 2009. This statement summarizes our report being released today that (1) evaluates USDA's efforts to enforce HMSA, (2) identifies the extent to which FSIS tracks recent trends in FSIS inspection resources for enforcing HMSA, and (3) evaluates FSIS's efforts to develop a strategy to guide HMSA enforcement. To perform this work we, among other things, conducted a survey of inspectors-in-charge--those responsible for reporting on humane handling enforcement in the plants--from a random sample of inspectors-in-charge at 257 livestock slaughter plants from May 2009 through July 2009. Our sample allowed us to …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act)--initially estimated to cost $787 billion in spending and tax provisions--aims to promote economic recovery, make investments, and minimize or avoid reductions in state and local government services. The Recovery Act provided the Department of Energy (DOE) more than $43.2 billion, including $36.7 billion for projects and activities and $6.5 billion in borrowing authority, in areas such as energy efficiency and renewable energy, nuclear waste clean-up, and electric grid modernization. This testimony discusses (1) the extent to which DOE has obligated and spent its Recovery Act funds, and (2) the factors that have affected DOE's ability to select and start Recovery Act projects. In addition, GAO includes information on ongoing work related to DOE Recovery Act programs. This testimony is based on prior work and updated with data from DOE."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Counties containing federal lands have historically received a percentage of the receipts generated by the sale or use of natural resources on the federal lands. A steep decline in federal timber sales during the 1990s, however, resulted in a significant decrease in federal payments to counties that previously depended on timber receipts. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, reauthorized in 2008, was enacted, in part, to address this decline by stabilizing payments to counties that depended on revenues from timber sales on Forest Service and certain Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Under the aceach county may continue to receive a portion of the revenues generated from the sale or use of resources from these lands or may choose instead to receive annual payments based in part on historical revenue payments to the county. Among other things, the act provides for the Forest Service and BLM to implement certain land management projects, known as Title II projects, using a portion of these funds. The act mandates that a certain percentage of Title II projects involving the sale of merchantable timber be carried out under …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. government's reliance on contractors, including the State Department's and Department of Defense's (DOD) use of private security contractors in Iraq, has been well documented. We and others have examined many of the challenges the government faces using contractors in Iraq, including issues related to the scope of private security contractors' activities, the challenges in providing sufficient oversight, the appropriate accountability processes, and difficulties in conducting background screenings of foreign national contractor employees. What has not been so well examined is the comparative cost of using civilian employees or military members versus the cost of using contractors, particularly private security contractors, during contingency operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Generally, when costs have been discussed, the focus has been on the daily rate paid to contractor employees, rather than on the total costs of using State Department or DOD personnel. However, in October 2005, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a study that compared the cost of using military personnel, federal civilians, or contractors to provide logistic support for overseas operations. The study concluded that over a 20-year period, using Army military units would cost roughly 90 …