Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report presents the results of our audit of the expenditures of the Office of Special Counsel-Patrick J. Fitzgerald (OSC-Fitzgerald) for the 6 months ended March 31, 2008. The expenditures we audited were those made by the Department of Justice (DOJ) between October 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, from the permanent, indefinite appropriation (fund) for OSC-Fitzgerald. DOJ determined that the appropriation established by Public Law 100-202 to fund expenditures by independent counsels appointed pursuant to the independent counsel law or other law is available to fund the expenditures of U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was appointed as a special counsel within the Department of Justice by the then-Acting Attorney General. Under this law, we are required to perform semiannual financial reviews of expenditures from the fund and report our findings to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. To satisfy this requirement, we audit each expenditure processed by DOJ to determine whether it was: properly authorized and approved, supported by appropriate documentation, recorded accurately, and made in accordance with selected provisions of laws and regulations. On December 30, 2003, the then-Acting Attorney General appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In February 2008, GAO released a report entitled Highway Public-Private Partnerships: More Rigorous Up-Front Analysis Could Better Secure Potential Benefits and Protect the Public Interest (GAO-08-44) that reviewed: (1) the benefits, costs, and trade-offs of highway public-private partnerships; (2) how public officials have identified and acted to protect the public interest in these arrangements; and (3) the federal role in highway public-private partnerships and potential changes in this role. The enclosed statement discusses these issues."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To help Medicare beneficiaries manage the rising cost of prescription drugs, Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), which established the outpatient prescription drug benefit known as Medicare Part D. The benefit was first available in January 2006, and that year it provided federally subsidized prescription drug coverage for nearly 28 million beneficiaries at a cost of $47.4 billion--almost 12 percent of total Medicare spending. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), manages and oversees the Part D program. Part D sponsors--entities that enter into contracts with Medicare--administer the benefit and compete for beneficiary enrollment. To provide coverage, the sponsors often enter into contractual relationships with pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), drug manufacturers, and retail pharmacies, among others. The Part D program relies on sponsors to generate prescription drug savings, in part through their ability to negotiate price concessions, such as rebates and discounts, with these entities. Sponsors must report the price concession amounts to CMS and pass price concessions on to the program. CMS uses the reported data to calculate final …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Health-care-associated infections (HAI) in hospitals can be expensive to treat and, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HAIs are estimated to be one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States. HAIs can be caused by bacteria or viruses, which may be introduced to a patient through the use of a device used to treat them, such as a needle or tube to deliver medicine, fluids, or blood. Common HAIs that are often associated with the use of medical devices are urinary tract infections (UTI), surgical site infections (SSI), pneumonia, and bloodstream infections (BSI). A number of federal agencies within HHS, including CDC and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), currently collect HAI-related data for a variety of purposes. Nearly half of the states also require public reporting of hospital HAI rates, according to a summary report of these state laws. The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 requires us to conduct work on HAIs in hospitals associated with medical devices. The act defines these infections as those that are …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories that designs and develops nuclear weapons for the U.S. stockpile. LANL employees rely on sensitive and classified information and assets that are protected at different levels, depending on the risks posed if they were lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised. However, LANL has experienced several significant security breaches during the past decade. This testimony provides GAO's (1) views on physical security at LANL, as discussed in Los Alamos National Laboratory: Long-Term Strategies Needed to Improve Security and Management Oversight, GAO-08-694 (June 13, 2008); (2) preliminary observations on physical security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and (3) views on cyber security at LANL as discussed in Information Security: Actions Needed to Better Protect Los Alamos National Laboratory's Unclassified Computer Network, GAO-08-1001 (Sept. 9, 2008). To conduct this work, GAO analyzed data, reviewed policies and procedures, interviewed laboratory officials, and conducted site visits to the two laboratories."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2007, the Department of the Interior's (Interior) Minerals Management Service (MMS) collected over $9 billion in oil and natural gas (hereafter referred to as oil and gas) royalties and disbursed these funds to federal, state, and tribal accounts. The federal portion of these royalties, which totaled $6.7 billion, represents one of the country's largest non-tax sources of revenue. In addition to this substantial financial value to the government, oil and gas production on federal lands and waters represents a critical component of the nation's energy portfolio, supplying roughly 35 percent of all the oil and 30 percent of all the gas produced in the United States in 2006. Companies that develop and produce oil and gas resources from federal lands and waters do so under leases obtained from and administered by agencies of Interior--the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for onshore leases and MMS's Offshore Energy and Minerals Management (OEMM) for offshore leases. Together, these agencies are responsible for overseeing oil and gas operations on more than 28,000 producing leases to help ensure that oil and gas companies comply with applicable laws, regulations, and agency …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since October 1994, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) has had statutory authority to provide loans, guarantees, and insurance to help finance U.S. exports of dual-use (military and civilian) defense articles and services, provided that it determines these items are nonlethal and meant primarily for civilian use. These dual-use exports include such items as vehicles that are primarily used by the military for civilian or humanitarian purposes. Legislation providing this authority also requires us to report annually on the end uses of the dual-use exports financed by Ex-Im during the second preceding fiscal year--which, for the purposes of this letter, corresponds to 2006."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Various public records in the United States contain Social Security numbers (SSN) and other personal identifying information that could be used to commit fraud and identity theft. For the purposes of this report, public records are generally defined as government agency-held records made available to the public in their entirety for inspection, such as property and court records. Although public records were traditionally accessed locally in county courthouses and government records centers, public record keepers in some states and localities have more recently been maintaining electronic images of their records. In electronic format, records can be made available through the Internet or easily transferred to other parties in bulk quantities. Although we previously reported on the types of public records that contain SSNs and access to those records, less is known about the extent to which public records containing personal identifying information such as SSNs are made available to private third parties through bulk sales. In light of these developments, you asked us to examine (1) to what extent, for what reasons, and to whom are public records that may contain SSNs available for bulk purchase and online, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures the retirement future of nearly 44 million people in more than 30,000 private-sector defined benefit pension plans. In July 2003, GAO designated PBGC's single-employer pension insurance program--its largest insurance program--as "high risk," including it on GAO's list of major programs that need urgent attention and transformation. The program remains on the list today with a projected financial deficit of just over $13 billion, as of September 2007. Because Congress exercises oversight of PBGC, GAO was asked to testify today on 1) the critical role PBGC plays in protecting the pension benefits of workers and how PBGC is funded, 2) the financial challenges facing PBGC, and 3) the PBGC's governance, oversight and management challenges. To address these objectives, we are relying on our reports from the last several years that, as part of our designation of PBGC's single-employer program as high-risk, explored the financial and management challenges facing the agency. GAO has made a number of recommendations and matters for Congressional consideration in these past reports. PBGC generally agreed with these past recommendations and is implementing many of them. No new recommendations …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has launched several military operations that have dramatically increased the operations tempo of the military services and required the large-scale mobilization of reservists. These factors have particularly affected the active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard, which have shouldered the bulk of the personnel burden associated with ongoing operations in Iraq. A 2007 Congressional Research Service report notes that many observers have expressed concern that these factors might lead to lower recruiting and retention rates, thereby jeopardizing the vitality of today's all-volunteer military. Additionally, in 2004 the Army began its modular force transformation to restructure itself from a division-based force to a more agile and responsive modular brigade-based force--an undertaking it considers to be the most extensive reorganization of its force since World War II. Both ongoing military operations and transformation have prompted the Army to increase its recruitment efforts. To encourage military service, Congress, through Section 681 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, temporarily authorized the Army to provide not more than four new recruitment …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Military servicemembers engaged in combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq are at risk of developing combat-related mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In many cases, signs of potential mental health conditions do not surface until months after servicemembers return from deployment. In 2004, Army researchers published a series of articles that indicated a significant increase in the number of servicemembers reporting mental health concerns 90 to 120 days after returning from deployment, compared with mental health concerns reported before or soon after deployment. These findings led the Department of Defense (DOD) in March 2005 to develop requirements and policies for the post-deployment health reassessment (PDHRA) as part of its continuum of deployment health assessments for servicemembers. PDHRA is a screening tool for military servicemembers; it is designed to identify and address their health concerns--including mental health concerns--90 to 180 days after return from deployment. Servicemembers answer a set of questions about their physical and mental health conditions and concerns, and health care providers review the answers and refer servicemembers for further evaluation and treatment if necessary. A November 2007 study showed that a larger number of …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Media coverage of airline service problems, combined with congressional hearings on these problems, has put flight delays and cancellations in the spotlight. Department of Transportation (DOT) data show that flight delays and cancellations have generally increased over the last decade. Since 1998, the number of flight delays and cancellations has increased 62 percent nationwide, while the number of scheduled flight operations has increased about 38 percent. Also, a May 2008 report by the Joint Economic Committee found that, collectively, passengers were delayed 320 million hours in 2007. The report also estimated that domestic flight delays last year cost the U.S. economy as much as $41 billion and raised airlines' operating costs by $19 billion. In 2007, airlines reported to DOT that 73 percent of flights were on time, while 24 percent were delayed and 2 percent were canceled. Of those flights that were delayed, airlines reported the majority of flight delays were caused by 3 categories of delays: a previous aircraft arriving late; the national aviation system--a category of delays that encompasses a broad set of circumstances, such as congestion or bad weather; and air carrier--a category of …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for granting or denying applications or petitions of foreign nationals seeking to become citizens of the United States or to study, work, or live in this country. In order to process the millions of applications and petitions that USCIS receives each year, USCIS uses contractors to perform various support services including SI International, Inc. and Stanley Associates for mail operations, fee collection, data collection, and file operations at its four service centers, in California, Nebraska, Vermont, and Texas. The contracts with these two firms are expiring, and USCIS has the option to extend the contracts for one year beginning in December 2008. We understand that USCIS may be planning to propose possible contract changes for the option year. Based on our ongoing work on USCIS user fees, we believe that improvements could be made to these contracts before the options to extend the contracts are exercised. The purpose of this report is to summarize our initial observations on performance standards and financial deductions to assist USCIS in obtaining the most value and highest level …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As part of its mission to protect human health and the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) enforcement office maintains civil and criminal enforcement programs to help enforce the requirements of major federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. EPA's civil and criminal enforcement programs work with the Department of Justice (DOJ), and in some cases states, to take legal actions to bring polluters into compliance with federal laws. While civil enforcement actions require polluters to pay penalties and take other corrective actions, criminal enforcement actions also may include imprisonment. EPA's enforcement office sets national priorities to focus resources on significant environmental risks and non-compliance patterns; prepares nationally significant civil and criminal cases for legal action by DOJ; uses 10 regional offices to implement civil enforcement actions on a day-to-day basis; and pursues criminal violations of environmental laws through its criminal enforcement office. The agency exercises its authority to independently pursue some violators through administrative proceedings--civil administrative actions--and to refer significant matters to DOJ when it believes cases need to be filed in federal court as civil judicial actions. DOJ is …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal policy identifies 18 infrastructure sectors--such as banking and finance, energy, public health and healthcare, and telecommunications--that are critical to the nation's security, economy, public health, and safety. Because these sectors rely extensively on computerized information systems and electronic data, it is crucial that the security of these systems and data is maintained. Further, because most of these infrastructures are owned by the private sector, it is imperative that public and private entities work together to protect these assets. The federal government uses both voluntary partnerships with private industry and requirements in federal laws, regulations, and mandatory standards to assist in the security of privately owned information technology (IT) systems and data within critical infrastructure sectors. As agreed, our objectives were to (1) identify, for each critical infrastructure sector, the federal laws, regulations, and mandatory standards that pertain to securing that sector's privately owned IT systems and data and (2) identify enforcement mechanisms for each of the above laws, regulations, and mandatory standards."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Rapid spending growth for Medicare Part B--which covers physician and other outpatient services--has heightened concerns about the long-range fiscal sustainability of Medicare. Medicare Part B expenditures are expected to increase over the next decade at an average annual rate of about 8 percent, which is faster than the projected 4.8 percent annual growth rate in the national economy over this time period. As we noted in our June 2008 report, spending on physician imaging services has been one of the fastest-growing sets of services paid for under the Medicare Part B physician fee schedule (PFS), the payment system used to determine fees for Medicare physician-billed services. From 2000 through 2006, Medicare spending for physician imaging services doubled from about $7 billion to about $14 billion--an average annual increase of 13 percent, compared to an 8 percent increase in spending for all Medicare physician-billed services over the same time period. We also found that by 2006 about two-thirds of spending on physician imaging services occurred in physician office settings--an indicator of a shift toward providing imaging services in physicians' offices as opposed to providing such services in hospital or …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In July 2006, the former Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) announced plans to relocate certain functions from Cheyenne Mountain to create an integrated command center in Building 2 at Peterson Air Force Base (AFB), Colorado. In May 2007, we reported that NORAD and USNORTHCOM had not analyzed the anticipated operational effects--both positive and negative--of the relocation, and that the Department of Defense (DOD) could not discern the full costs or security implications of the move until ongoing security assessments had been completed and a protection level designated for the integrated command center. We suggested that Congress should consider restricting DOD's authority to fund the relocation until all security analyses were complete, the full costs for the move were determined, and DOD provided Congress with an analysis of the operational effects of the proposed realignments. As a result, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), Congress directed the Secretary of Defense to submit a report by March 1, 2008, assessing the relocation of the NORAD Command Center and related functions from …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Major changes affecting the U.S. Postal Service (USPS)--including declining mail volumes, increasing operating expenses such as rising fuel costs, and a more competitive marketplace--have reinforced the need for USPS to increase efficiency and reduce expenses in its mail processing network. This network includes over 600 facilities that sort mail and prepare it for transportation and delivery. First-Class Mail provides USPS with high revenue per piece and has traditionally helped USPS cover its overhead costs. However, First-Class Mail volumes have been declining since 2001 and this downward trend is expected to continue. Furthermore, while First-Class Mail volumes have been declining, worksharing by mailers has increased. Worksharing allows mailers to earn discounts on postage rates by presorting, preparing, and transporting their mail to a postal facility near the mail's destination. As worksharing has increased, ever-larger volumes of mail have bypassed most of USPS's processing activities, creating excess network capacity. To address these trends affecting its mail processing network, USPS has developed several initiatives to reduce costs and increase efficiency. One such initiative, area mail processing, is designed to consolidate operations at facilities with excess machine capacity, and thereby increase the …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) are large livestock and poultry operations that raise animals in a confined situation. CAFOs may improve the efficiency of animal production, but the large amounts of manure they produce can, if improperly managed, degrade air and water quality. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates CAFOs and requires CAFOs that discharge certain pollutants to obtain a permit. This testimony summarizes the findings of a September 4, 2008 GAO report (GAO-08-944) on (1) trends in CAFOs, (2) amounts of waste they generate, (3) findings of key research on CAFOs' health and environmental impacts, (4) progress made in developing CAFO air emissions protocols, and (5) the effect of recent court decisions on EPA's regulation of CAFO water pollutants. GAO analyzed U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) data from 1982 through 2002 for large farms as a proxy for CAFOs; reviewed studies, EPA documents, laws, and regulations, and obtained the views of federal and state officials."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "An accurate decennial census relies on finding and counting people-- only once--in their usual place of residence, and collecting complete and correct information on them. This is a daunting task as the nation's population is growing steadily larger, more diverse, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau), increasingly difficult to find and reluctant to participate in the census. Historically, undercounts have plagued the census and the differential impact on various subpopulations such as minorities and children is particularly problematic. GAO was asked to describe (1) key activities the Bureau plans to use to help reduce the differential undercount and improve participation, (2) the various challenges and opportunities that might affect the Bureau's ability to improve coverage in 2010, and (3) how different population estimates can impact the allocation of federal grant funds. This testimony is based primarily on GAO's issued work in which it evaluated the performance of various Census Bureau operations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB) initiative, under Office of Management and Budget (OMB) direction and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) management, aims to increase operational efficiencies and cost savings governmentwide by transitioning outdated and decentralized federal agency human resources information technology systems to pre-qualified public sector or commercial shared service center providers. Section 747 of Division D of the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Pub. L. No. 110-161) required OMB to provide to the Congressional Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate a report on a number of issues, including the role of public-private competition as part of HR LOB, and for GAO to review OMB's report and brief the committees on GAO's views concerning the report. On September 10, 2008, we briefed congressional staff on the results of our review, and that briefing is reprinted in full as an enclosure to this letter. As agreed, this concludes our work performed under this mandate."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On April 2, 2008, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invited Albania and Croatia to begin accession talks for NATO membership. NATO wants new members to be democracies, have harmonious relations with neighboring countries, modernize and restructure their defense capabilities, protect civil liberties and human and minority rights, and have open market economies. The admission of new members requires ratification by two-thirds of the United States Senate. To ensure that Congress had sufficient information on the countries invited to join NATO, the Senate mandated in a 1999 resolution that the President provide Congress with information on countries seeking to join the alliance--before NATO made any decision on enlarging its membership. In particular, the President was required to assess how countries would further the principles of the North Atlantic Treaty, contribute to North Atlantic security, and affect U.S. national security interests. The President also was required to evaluate countries' eligibility for membership and estimate the military requirements and costs associated with a country's membership for both NATO and U.S. budgets. The President submitted this classified report on Albania and Croatia to Congress on March 28, 2008. Prior to signing …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress has taken a number of steps to facilitate the deployment of innovative, new commercial wireless services to consumers, including authorizing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to assign licenses through auctions and requiring more spectrum to be transferred from federal government use to commercial use. In addition, in 2004, Congress passed the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (CSEA), which established a Spectrum Relocation Fund (the Fund) to cover the costs incurred by federal entities within certain spectrum bands as they relocate to new frequency assignments or transition to alternative technologies. The Fund is administered by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in consultation with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Department of Commerce. In September 2006, FCC concluded an auction of licenses for Advanced Wireless Services on radio spectrum in the 1710 megahertz (MHz) to 1755 MHz band that is currently used by federal agencies. The auction raised almost $6.9 billion in net winning bids from the sale of these frequencies, which was deposited into the Fund to be available to the federal entities for their eligible relocation expenses. Any auction proceeds remaining in the …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the years since the 2001 terrorist attacks, balancing the need to secure U.S. borders while maintaining the flow of legitimate cross-border travel and commerce has taken on an added importance. The United States and Canada share a border that extends nearly 4,000 miles, and one of the world's largest trading relationships. Each year, approximately 70 million travelers and 35 million vehicles cross the border from Canada into the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Given the volume of cross-border travel and trade between the United States and Canada, border congestion and the resulting wait times have a substantial economic impact on both nations. Furthermore, according to an analysis by DHS, the heightened emphasis on border security following the 2001 terrorist attacks has lengthened processing time for travelers and cargo crossing into the United States. Recognizing the need to improve both border security and border-crossing efficiency, the United States and Canada have cooperated on various cross-border management initiatives intended to increase the flow of legitimate travel across the border while maintaining security. For example, to facilitate the travel of low-risk prescreened individuals across the …