A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the amounts of funding available and expended for implementing the states' drinking water programs, focusing on: (1) how the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget requests for the states' implementation of their drinking water programs compare with the amounts authorized and estimated to be needed; (2) how much the states have spent since the passage of the 1996 amendments to implement these programs and how the expenditures compare with the estimated needs; (3) what effects federal funding levels have had, and may have in the future, on the states' ability to implement their programs; and (4) what existing practices have the potential to help the states implement their drinking water programs more effectively and efficiently."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed top-heavy rules in relation to other pension laws and regulations intended to ensure that workers benefit equitably from their pension plans, focusing on: (1) key differences between top-heavy rules and the general rules for nondiscrimination and vesting in contributions and benefits; (2) the most recent data available for GAO analysis on the characteristics of new plans that report being top-heavy; and (3) what is known about the overall effects of top-heavy rules on numbers of plans and participants and on employer costs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the project approval process the Postal Service used in proposing to relocate postal operations for the Antelope Valley, California, area from the Main Post Office in Mojave, California, to a new facility in Lancaster, California."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a concern that budget-scoring restrictions were forcing the General Services Administration (GSA) to rely on shorter term leases that increase the costs to the Federal Buildings Fund because their per-square-foot costs are greater than longer term leases. Budget-scorekeeping rules are to be used by the scorekeepers to ensure compliance with budget laws and that legislation are consistent with scorekeeping conventions and that specific legal requirements. The rules are reviewed annually and revised as necessary to achieve those purposes. The way in which budget-scoring rules were implemented affected the lease or lease project term of at least 13 of the 39 federal agency leases GAO reviewed. Since GSA officials do not generally seek comparisons of long-term versus short-term leases in the solicitation process, GAO could not determine the overall monetary impact of budget scoring in the lease term. However, GAO identified three isolated cases that had comparisons of long term versus short-term leases in the solicitation process, and, in each case, the price per net useable square foot was lower with the longer term lease. GSA officials said that while budget scoring affects …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to remove barriers to hazardous waste cleanup, focusing on: (1) cleanups of remediation waste at sites subject to the three Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requirements; and (2) the management factors that had slowed the pace of cleanups under the corrective action program in particular."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1990, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided more than $27 billion in disaster assistance, more than half of which was spent for public assistance projects, such as repairs of damaged roads, government buildings, utilities, and hospitals. FEMA uses established criteria to determine whether to (1) recommend that the President declare a disaster and (2) once a disaster has been declared, approve and fund Public Assistance projects. In 1999, FEMA published formal criteria for recommending the presidential approval of disaster declarations. These criteria include both minimum financial thresholds and other qualitative measures that FEMA applies in deciding whether to recommend presidential approval. These criteria do not necessarily indicate a state's ability to pay for the damage because they do not consider the substantial differences in states' financial capacities to respond when disasters occur. As a result, federal funds may be provided for some disasters when they are not needed. Problems with applying FEMA's criteria remain. In part, these problems may persist because many of the staff assigned to disaster field offices who make eligibility decisions are temporary and may not have the skills and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) progress on implementing the Free Flight Program, which would provide more flexibility in air traffic operations. This program would increase collaboration between FAA and the aviation community. By using a set of new automated technologies (tools) and procedures, free flight is intended to increase the capacity and efficiency of the nation's airspace system while helping to minimize delays. GAO found that the scheduled March 2002 date will be too early for FAA to make an informed investment decision about moving to phase 2 of its Free Flight Program because of significant technical and operational issues. Furthermore, FAA's schedule for deploying these tools will not allow enough time to collect enough data to fully analyze their expected benefits. Currently, FAA lacks enough data to demonstrate that these tools can be relied upon to provide accurate data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) evaluates a state's program for regulating insurer solvency about once every five years to determine if it meets the association's minimum standards. The accreditation program has been in place for about 10 years. During that time, NAIC expanded the standards and modified the process for evaluating the adequacy of states' solvency regulation. Weaknesses in solvency regulation in Tennessee, Mississippi, and three other states allowed a $200 million insurance fraud to continue for eight years, resulting in the failure of seven insurance companies. During 2000, both Tennessee and Mississippi underwent accreditation reviews by NAIC and were reaccredited. NAIC has tried to strengthen its accreditation program by adding model laws and regulations to the required standards. It has also revised the way in which accreditation reviews are performed and scored and has improved training for members of review teams. Accreditation reviews done in Tennessee and Mississippi disclosed gaps and weaknesses in the accreditation program. In particular, the program does not cover a key area of solvency regulation--chartering and change in ownership of insurance companies. Oversight of chartering and change in ownership …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request GAO compared the Department of Education's Longitudinal Evaluation of School Change and Performance Plan (LESCP) to its previous assessment program, the Prospect Study, focusing on: (1) the purpose of each study and how these purposes relate to the needs of policymakers and educators; (2) the process used to design and implement the studies, including obtaining feedback from review panels and releasing the results to Congress and the public ; and (3) the studies' strengths and limitations in light of their purposes and determine the effect these strengths and limitations have on the conclusions that can be drawn from the data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on developments in the local telephone service market, focusing on the: (1) number of rural access lines that have been sold since the Telecommunications Act's passage by large incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC); (2) development of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology and the basis for variations in its rate of deployment; and (3) quality of local telephone service, as indicated by customer complaints and customer survey data reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by the major ILECs."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the status of federal agencies' research activities on indoor environmental air quality."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the impact of the national water efficiency standards, focusing on: (1) the estimated impact of the national water efficiency standards on water consumption levels and wastewater flows; and (2) how repealing the national standards might affect projected investments in drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure, state and local governments' ability to finance their infrastructure needs, and the likelihood of moratoria on new residential and commercial construction if the demand for water is unabated."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed worker protection, focusing on: (1) the extent to which employers experiencing labor unrest are more likely to be inspected than employers not experiencing labor unrest; and (2) whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has policies for performing inspections during labor unrest and whether these policies are followed."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defenses (DOD) health care system in Europe and the Pacific, focusing on: (1) what DOD health care resources are available in Europe and the Pacific and what is their cost; (2) how does DOD integrate host nation care into its military health care system; (3) how does DOD ensure the quality of such care; (4) whether beneficiaries have adequate access to medical care; and (5) whether beneficiaries encounter obstacles when obtaining healthcare."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the effectiveness of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) fee collection activities, focusing on: (1) FCC's controls for ensuring that required regulatory and application fees are paid; and (2) the extent to which FCC is collecting the civil monetary penalties resulting from its enforcement actions against entities that have violated its regulations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status and basis for the Department of Defense's (DOD) defense cooperation initiatives, focusing on the : (1) data and analysis supporting the 47 initiatives; and (2) likelihood that the initiatives will achieve DOD's desired outcomes."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, the booming growth in scheduled commercial airline traffic has tended to obscure developments in another part of the aviation industry--general aviation. General aviation covers all civil aircraft not flown by commercial airlines or the military. In 1994, concerned that general aviation was in decline, Congress passed the General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA), which sought to boost the industry by placing limitations on product liability lawsuits against aircraft manufacturers. Trends show that there was a decline in most general aviation indicators prior to the 1994 enactment of GARA and that this decline reversed in the years after GARA--sharply in manufacturing indicators and to a lesser extent in flying activity indicators. Trends in general aviation since GARA was enacted suggest that the law has reduced manufacturers' liability concerns, leading to a rebound in the manufacturing industry. The amount of federal funding available for capital development at general aviation airports has consistently been below what has been requested by the airport officials to fund their airports' planned projects. In 2000, for example, the amount of federal funding available was almost $900 million short of what …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "According to the World Health Organization, infectious diseases account for more than 13 million deaths every year, including nearly two-thirds of all deaths among children under age 5. Infectious diseases present a substantial threat to people in all parts of the world, and this threat has grown in volume and complexity. New diseases have emerged, others once viewed as declining in significance have resurged in importance, and many have developed substantial resistance to known antimicrobial drugs. Infectious disease surveillance provides national and international public health authorities with information that they need to plan and manage efforts to control these diseases. In the mid-1990s, public health experts in the United States and abroad determined that global infectious disease surveillance was inadequate, and both the World Health Assembly and the President of the United States called for the development of an effective global infectious disease surveillance and response system. The strongest influence on the evolution of the current global infectious disease surveillance framework has been the international community's focus on specific diseases or groups of diseases. The international community has created diverse surveillance programs to support global and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) runs one of the nation's largest health care systems. In fiscal year 2000, roughly four million patients made 39 million outpatient visits to more than 700 VA health care facilities nationwide. However, excessive waiting times for outpatient care have been a long-standing problem. To ensure timely access to care, VA established a goal that all nonurgent primary and specialty care appointments be scheduled within 30 days of request and that clinics meet this goal by 1998. Yet, three years later, reports of long waiting times persist. Waiting times at the clinics in the 10 medical centers GAO visited indicate that meeting VA's 30-day standard is a continuing challenge for many clinics. Although most of the primary care clinics GAO visited (15 of 17) reported meeting VA's standard for nonurgent, outpatient appointments, only one-third of the specialty care clinics visited (18 of 54) met VA's 30-day standard. For the remaining two-thirds, waiting times ranged from 33 days at one urology clinic to 282 days at an optometry clinic. Although two-thirds of the specialty clinics GAO visited continued to have long waiting …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Cleveland and Milwaukee school voucher programs, which provide money for low-income families to send their children to private schools. Both programs require participating private schools to be located within the city or the city's school district and to adhere to state standards for private schools, such as those covering health and safety. In both Cleveland and Milwaukee, voucher students were more likely than public school students to come from poorer families that were headed by a single parent. Some information about the racial and ethnic composition of Cleveland's and Milwaukee's public school and voucher students is available, but it is unclear whether the composition changed as a result of the voucher programs. Ohio and Wisconsin use different methods to provide state funds for the voucher programs and spend less on voucher students than on public school students. The Cleveland voucher program is funded with Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid funds up to a limit set by the Ohio Legislature. Wisconsin funds the Milwaukee voucher program with general state aid funds on the basis of number of students participating in the program in a …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To assist the growing number of taxpayers facing foreclosure or mortgage restructuring, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, and its 3-year extension as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, allows taxpayers to generally exclude from taxable income forgiven mortgage debt used to buy, build, or substantially improve a principal residence. Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates originally suggested that the exclusion of forgiven mortgage debt from taxable income may result in about $968 million in federal revenue losses from fiscal year (FY) 2008 through FY 2013 and more recent estimates suggest that the revenue losses could be closer to $1.9 billion. The Department of Treasury estimates suggest that the exclusion may result in federal revenue losses of about $1.4 billion from FY 2008 through FY 2013. Some taxpayers with forgiven mortgage debts may be bankrupt or insolvent; however, others are not and therefore may have the ability to pay taxes on forgiven mortgage debts. The briefing slides summarize our assessment of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) administration of this tax provision. In response to your request, our objectives were to identify …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides direct temporary housing assistance in response to disasters primarily through a combination of travel trailers and manufactured homes and for a period of up to 18 months. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated much of the housing stock across the Gulf Coast region, leaving thousands of persons in need of temporary housing for lengthy periods. Uncertainty with respect to neighborhood and community recovery and individual and community resistance to the use of travel trailers for extended temporary housing challenged the effectiveness of FEMA's traditional temporary housing options. Recognizing these challenges, Congress, in the Fiscal Year 2006 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, provided for alternative housing pilot programs in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and the other hurricanes of the 2005 season, and appropriated $400 million to DHS for this purpose. To implement this provision of law, FEMA announced a competitive grant program--the Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHPP)--inviting the five Gulf Coast states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) to submit proposals for projects that …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent nearly $4 billion on prescriptions for veterans. In general, VA provides drugs on its national formulary. However, all VA medical centers must have a nonformulary drug request process that is overseen by their regional Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN). This report responds to a House Committee on Appropriations report directing GAO to review VA's formulary process and to an additional congressional request. Specifically, GAO reviewed (1) the process VA uses to review drugs for its national formulary, (2) the approaches VISNs and medical centers take to implementing the nonformulary drug request process, (3) the extent to which VA ensures the timely adjudication of nonformulary drug requests, and (4) the mechanisms VA has in place to obtain beneficiary input on the national formulary and make the drug review process transparent. GAO reviewed VA policy guidance and VA's pharmacy-related information technology (IT) initiatives, analyzed 2008 and 2009 drug review data and 2009 nonformulary drug request data, and interviewed VA officials from the national level, each VISN, and a judgmental sample of four medical centers."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed a court ruling that exempted certain medical residents from paying Federal Insurance Contributions Act taxes and Social Security coverage, focusing on: (1) how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration are proceeding since the court decision; and (2) what decisions IRS has made about refunding taxes for social security paid by medical residents and their employers and the effect of those decisions on the Social Security Trust Funds."