A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Coast Guard's Deepwater program, the largest acquisition program in its history, involves modernizing or replacing ships, aircraft, and communications equipment. The Coast Guard awarded the Deepwater contract to Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) in June 2002. The Coast Guard estimates the program will cost $17 billion over a 30-year period. ICGS is a system integrator, with responsibility for identifying and delivering an integrated system of assets to meet the Coast Guard's missions. GAO was asked to assess whether the Coast Guard is effectively managing the Deepwater program and overseeing the contractor and to assess the implications of using the Deepwater contracting model on opportunities for competition."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The President's vision for space exploration (Vision) directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to retire the space shuttle following completion of the International Space Station, planned for the end of the decade. The retirement process will last several years and impact thousands of critically skilled NASA civil service and contractor employees that support the program. Key to implementing the Vision is NASA's ability to sustain this workforce to support safe space shuttle operations through retirement. Because of the potential workforce issues that could affect the safety and effectiveness of operations through the space shuttle's retirement, GAO was asked to identify (1) the progress of efforts to develop a strategy for sustaining the space shuttle workforce through retirement and (2) factors that may have impeded these efforts."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO contracted with Clifton Gunderson LLP to audit the financial statements of the Senate Restaurants Revolving Fund for fiscal years 2003 and 2002. Clifton Gunderson LLP found that (1) the financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; (2) the Fund maintained effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with laws and regulations; and (3) there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations it tested."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies rely extensively on computerized information systems and electronic data to carry out their missions. The security of these systems and date is essential to preventing data tampering, disruptions in critical operations, fraud, and inappropriate disclosure of sensitive information. Congress and the executive branch have taken actions to address this challenge, such as enacting and implementing the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). FISMA and other federal guidance discuss the need for specific technical controls to secure information systems. In order to meet the requirements of FISMA to effectively implement these technical controls, it is critical that federal agencies consider whether they have adequately implemented available cybersecurity technologies. GAO was asked by the Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and its Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census to identify commercially available, state-of-the-practice cybersecurity technologies that federal agencies can use to defend their computer systems against cyber attacks."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reported on the conclusions and recommendations resulting from its audits and other reviews of federal departments and agencies. GAO provided summary information on the status of all recommendations that have not been fully implemented in the areas of national security, international affairs, community and economic development, health care, human services, justice, general government, and financial and information management for use in congressional review of budget requests."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report provides information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) management and oversight of project grants. Specifically, GAO examines (1) the dollar amounts of project grants EPA awarded in fiscal years 1996 through 1999 and the program activities they funded, by grantee type; (2) how the activities funded by the project grants align with the Government Performance and Results Act goals and objectives identified by EPA; and (3) the extent to which EPA uses its authority to deviate from relevant regulations in awarding grants. GAO found that EPA awarded about 17,000 project grants totaling more than $2.8 billion in fiscal years 1996 through 1999. Five categories accounted for nearly 80 percent of all project grant funds (1) general investigations, surveys or studies involving air and water quality; (2) research; (3) studies and cleanups of specific hazardous waste sites; (4) nonprofit organizations; and (5) training activities. EPA identified about 82 percent of the $1.4 billion in project grants awarded in fiscal years 1999 and 2000 as supporting four strategic goals under the Results Act. GAO found this to be the case in 93 of 100 grants reviewed. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on acid rain emissions trends in the eastern United States, focusing on: (1) sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted into the air at the national level; (2) deposition in the eastern United States and in three environmentally sensitive areas; (3) sulfates and nitrates in lakes in the Adirondack Mountains and the prospects for the lakes' recovery from the damage caused by acid rain; and (4) the extent to which utilities in 11 midwestern states used sulfur dioxide allowances originally assigned to utilities in their states, compared with allowances that originated in other states from 1995 through 1998."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on weaknesses in the donation of U.S. planting seed to Russia in 1999, focusing on: (1) how the seed was procured in the United States; (2) how seeds were distributed and monitored in Russia; and (3) what the process was for selling the seed and distributing the proceeds to agricultural development institutions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has invested more than $6.2 billion in the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI) and Afghan National Police (ANP). The Department of Defense's (Defense) Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), with the Department of State (State), leads U.S. efforts to enhance MOI and ANP organizational structures, leadership abilities, and pay systems. This report assesses the status of U.S. efforts to help Afghanistan (1) restructure MOI and ANP, (2) retrain ANP units, (3) screen MOI and ANP personnel, and (4) enhance MOI and ANP pay systems. GAO reviewed Defense, State, and United Nations (UN) data and met with officials in the United States and Afghanistan."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO contracted with Clifton Gunderson LLP to audit the financial statements of the Senate Restaurants Revolving Fund for fiscal years 2004 and 2003. Clifton Gunderson LLP found that (1) the financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; (2) the Fund maintained effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with laws and regulations; and (3) there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations it tested."

Initial scoping calculations of the unconfined aquifer at the Hanford Site were carried out for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to investi¬gate the potential impacts on the Hanford unconfined aquifer that would result from leakage from the proposed Black Rock Reservoir to the west. Although impacts on groundwater flow and contaminant transport were quantified based on numerical simulation results, the investigation represented a quali¬tative assessment of the potential lateral recharge that could result in adverse effects on the aquifer. Because the magnitude of the potential leakage is unknown, hypothetical bounding calculations were performed. When a quantitative analysis of the magnitude of the potential recharge from Black Rock Reservoir is obtained, the hydrologic impacts analysis will be revisited. The analysis presented in this report represent initial bounding calculations. A maximum lateral recharge (i.e., upland flux) was determined in the first part of this study by executing steady-state flow simulations that raised the water table no higher than the elevation attained in the Central Plateau during the Hanford operational period. This metric was selected because it assumed a maximum remobilization of contaminants that existed under previous fully saturated conditions. Three steady-state flow fields were then used to analyze impacts to transient …

This report includes information regarding background and the United States policy response to terrorism and national security.

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This report discusses the Invisible Hand Theorem, which states that when certain assumptions hold, market outcomes will be efficient.

This report provides a general overview of HEA provisions that affect institutional eligibility for participation in Title IV student aid programs and, in some instances, discusses specific issues that may arise during the HEA reauthorization process.

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This report reviews the public record concerning federal continuity of government arrangements.

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This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It summarizes the status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related congressional activity, and is updated as events warrant. The Interior and related agencies appropriations bill includes funds for the Department of the Interior (DOI), except for the Bureau of Reclamation, and for some agencies and programs within the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Health and Human Services.

The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 authorized a drinking water state revolving loan fund program to help public water systems finance infrastructure projects needed to comply with federal drinking water regulations and to protect public health.

Self-organized one- and two-dimensional arrays of nanoscale surface features ("ripples" and "dots") sometimes form spontaneously on initially flat surfaces eroded by a directed ion beam in a process called "sputter patterning". Experiments on this sputter patterning process with focused and unfocused ion beams, combined with theoretical advances, have been responsible for a number of scientific advances. Particularly noteworthy are (i) the discovery of propagative, rather than dissipative, behavior under some ion erosion conditions, permitting a pattern to be fabricated at a large length scale and propagated over large distances while maintaining, or even sharpening, the sharpest features; (ii) the first demonstration of guided self-organization of sputter patterns, along with the observation that defect density is minimized when the spacing between boundaries is near an integer times the natural spatial period; and (iii) the discovery of metastability of smooth surfaces, which contradicts the nearly universally accepted linear stability theory that predicts that any surface is linearly unstable to sinusoidal perturbations of some wave vector.

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $941.54 reconciled for the period ending on February 28, 2002.

Radioactive supernate, salt, and/or sludge wastes (i.e., high level wastes) are confined in 49 underground storage tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The waste is transported between tanks within and between the F and H area tank farms and other facilities on site via underground and a limited number of aboveground transfer lines. The Department of Energy - Savannah River Operations Office (DOE-SR) performed a comprehensive assessment of the structural integrity program for the Tank Farm waste transfer system at the SRS. This document addresses the following issues raised during the DOE assessment: (1) Inspections of failed or replaced transfer lines indicated that the wall thickness of some core and jacket piping is less than nominal; (2) No corrosion allowance is utilized in the transfer line structural qualification calculations. No basis for neglecting corrosion was provided in the calculations; (3) Wall loss due to erosion is not addressed in the transfer line structural qualification calculations; and (4) No basis is provided for neglecting intergranular stress corrosion cracking in the transfer line structural qualification calculations. The common theme in most of these issues is the need to assess the potential for occurrence of material degradation of the transfer line piping. …