A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed federal agencies' certification requirements for goods and services, focusing on: (1) the extent and variety of certification activities in the federal government; (2) the extent to which there are policies, procedures, or guidance governing those activities, either governmentwide or within selected agencies; and (3) an agency certification procedure that could serve as an example or best practice for other agencies."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on small business tax requirements, focusing on: (1) the federal filing, reporting, and deposit requirements that apply to small businesses; and (2) the actual experience of small businesses in meeting these requirements, including their involvement in the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) enforcement process."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the significant differences in two Department of Defense training programs, focusing on the: (1) training categories and military services with the most significant funding changes from the 1998 to the 1999 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP); (2) bases for the changes; and (3) potential impact of the changes on the services' future training budgets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Navy's declining ship maintenance workload, focusing on: (1) the Navy's policies and procedures for allocating ship maintenance work to public and private facilities in the Norfolk area; (2) ship maintenance and modernization funding obligated to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and private ship repair companies during the fiscal years (FY) 1994 through 1998; and (3) the extent to which the Atlantic Fleet's ship maintenance program has been affected by the movement of funds out of the ship depot maintenance program since FY 1994."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined: (1) whether exporter notification to the Department of Commerce of proposed sales of high performance computers (HPC) to countries of concern has resulted in license applications and what final action was taken on these licenses; and (2) how Commerce is conducting post-shipment verifications of the use of high performance computers after their export to these countries."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA) selection process for awarding discretionary grants, focusing on: (1) determining how FHwA has implemented the requirements specified in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21); and (2) comparing the results of the selection process for fiscal years (FY) 1998-1999 with the results of the selection process for FY 1995 through FY 1997 that GAO previously reported on."

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 Defense's (DOD) pricing of commercial items, focusing on: (1) the extent of price analysis DOD contracting personnel were performing to arrive at fair and reasonable prices for commercial sole-source items; (2) how well contract personnel performed price analyses; and (3) what guidance and training was available to assist them in determining price reasonableness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed large bank holding company mergers and the impact of such mergers on low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas, focusing on: (1) the Federal Reserve Board's (FRB) legal responsibilities in assessing Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHC) mergers for Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) performance; (2) FRB's process for assessing the CRA performance of six large BHC merger applicants, including how FRB addressed the principal public concerns related to the CRA performance; and (3) the premerger and postmerger mortgage lending in LMI and minority communities for three large BHC mergers."

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 operations other than war (OOTW) on the military services, focusing on the: (1) impact of OOTW on the warfighting capability of each of the services, including the time to recover warfighting skills; (2) extent to which reporting systems fully capture the impacts; (3) available information on the effect of OOTW on morale and retention; (4) ability of U.S. forces to respond to a major theater war while engaged in OOTW; (5) Department of Defense (DOD) efforts to alleviate any adverse impacts; and (6) funding provided by Congress for OOTW."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) ongoing efforts to develop resource-based practice expense relative value units (RVUs), focusing on: (1) whether the new methodology is an acceptable approach for revising Medicare's fee schedule; (2) questions about the data, assumptions, and adjustments underlying the new methodology that need to be addressed during the 3-year phase-in period; and (3) the need for future updates to the practice expense RVUs to reflect changes in health care delivery and for ongoing assessments of the fee schedule's effect on Medicare beneficiaries' access to physicians' care."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the types of health research conducted outside the Common Rule and Federal Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, focusing on: (1) examining how medical information is used for research and the need for personally identifiable information; (2) identifying research that is and is not subject to current federal oversight requirements; (3) examining how institutional review boards (IRB) ensure the confidentiality of health information used in research; and (4) identifying the safeguards health care organizations have put in place to protect the confidentiality of health information used in research."

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) safe drinking water research efforts, focusing on: (1) comparing EPA's budget requests for drinking water research during fiscal years (FY) 1997 through 2000 with: (a) the amounts authorized for such purposes by the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996; and (b) the amounts estimated by EPA to be needed to support the regulations and regulatory determinations required under the amendments; (2) obtaining the views of stakeholders--those involved with supplying and ensuring the safety of drinking water--regarding the likelihood that EPA will be able to complete the research necessary to support new regulations and regulatory decisions over the next 10 years and the potential consequences if the research is not completed; and (3) assessing EPA's drinking water research plans, including the tasks, projected funding, and anticipated accomplishments, to support the development of new regulations and regulatory decisions over the next 10 years."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's Comanche Helicopter Program, focusing on: (1) the risks in the Army's restructured plans for developing and testing the Comanche; (2) the changes in the Comanche's performance capabilities and requirements; (3) cost estimates for development; and (4) the Comanche's impact on the Army's overall aviation modernization efforts."

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) barracks program in the United States, focusing on: (1) the status of the services' implementation of the 1 plus 1 barracks design standard, which calls for more space and increased privacy in new barracks; (2) DOD's rationale for adopting the standard; (3) the costs of alternatives for the 1 plus 1 standard; and (4) service views of the impact of the standard from a team-building, individual isolation, or similar perspective."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on alleged misconduct by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees in their treatment of other IRS employees and taxpayers, focusing on: (1) the specific allegations made at the Senate Committee on Finance hearings; and (2) any underlying systemic or programmatic problems that need to be resolved to protect the rights of taxpayers and IRS employees."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on state and local public tax disclosure programs, focusing on: (1) which state and local governments are operating programs to publicly disclose the names of taxpayers that are delinquent in paying the income taxes they owe or do not file income tax returns; (2) the differences, if any, among these programs; and (3) state and local revenue office officials' views on whether their disclosure programs are improving compliance."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on: (1) the level of Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) accountability and control over its Housing Credit Assistance (HCA) program direct loan and loan sale activities: and (2) actions needed to improve VA's internal control environment and financial and budgetary reporting for these activities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the guidance the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used to ensure that the recipients of grants and cooperative agreements for scientific research provide management controls over the equipment they acquire with federal funds; and (2) whether four NSF recipients from the Washington, D.C., area had acquired equipment under 14 awards of varying dollar amounts."

'With the increased sensitivity of waste-level measurements in the H-Area Tanks and with periods of isolation, when no mass transfer occurred for certain tanks, waste-level changes have been recorded with are unexplained.'

This report details concerns surrounding the election of Abdulaziz Bouteflika to the presidency of Algeria in 1999. Specifically, the opposing party labeled the election as corrupt. After seven years of civil war Bouteflika proposed a civil concord and is restoring Algerian foreign relations to what they once were. Currently, the relationship between the U.S. and Algeria looks positive for the foreseeable future.

No abstract is available for this document at this time.

No abstract is available for this document at this time.

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This report examines factors which might be relevant for U.S. policy towards Macau after it reverts to Chinese administration on December 20, 1999. It includes a brief background to the reunification, followed by the discussion of economic and social factors which make the case of Macau different for China than the case of Hong Kong, as well as Macau's economic relevance to the United States.