Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditor's opinion that, without exception, the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Military Order or the World Wars for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit reports included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly on a modified cash basis of accounting."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the Jewish War Veterans, U.S.A., National Memorial, Incorporated, for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Washington Convention Center Authority will build, maintain, and operate the new convention center as well as maintain and operate the existing convention center. This report reviews (1) the status of the new convention center project as of July 2001 and (2) the guaranteed maximum price (GMP) agreement. The revised GMP has not yet been set because WCCA and the construction manager haven't agreed on the project schedule and the estimated cost of pending charges. The GMP--which covers most of the hard costs of actual construction, such as masonry, carpentry, and metals, but excludes soft-cost items--is based on a set of agreed-upon assumptions about work quantities and unit costs of performing such work. The GMP amount of $500.6 million will be adjusted as the project progresses. As of July 2001, WCAA's monthly report estimates total construction costs at $778.2 million, including a $14.6 million contingency amount as a cushion against unforeseen future increases. This represents a nine-percent increase over the original estimate of $714 million. WCCA included a project contingency of $30.5 million in the September 1998 cost estimate. The estimated project cost of $778.2 million as of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Although the Department of Education spent millions of dollars to modernize and integrate its nonintegrated financial aid systems during the past 10 years, these efforts have met with limited success. Recently, Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (SFA) began using a software approach known as middleware to provide users with a more complete and integrated view of information in its many databases. In selecting middleware, SFA has adopted a viable, industry-accepted means for integrating and utilizing its existing data on student loans and grants. To meet its human capital needs, SFA has solicited the help of a private sector "modernization partner" with experience in implementing and managing middleware solutions--particularly in the financial industry--and has also chosen to use a leading middleware software product."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed an audit report covering the financial statement of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, U.S.A., for fiscal year 2000. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance. The audit report included the auditors' opinion that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the military's efforts to attack time-critical targets, such as mobile theater missiles, surface-to-air missile launchers, and cruise missile batteries. GAO found that the Defense Department (DOD) has developed guidance to help the armed services achieve system interoperability as well as develop oversight controls, directives, and policies and to achieve interoperability. DOD has also worked to develop joint capabilities through exercises and advanced concept technology demonstrations. The individual services have undertaken various efforts to improve their own capability to attack time-critical targets. Although these efforts are helping DOD to improve the sensor-to-shooter process, much more needs to be done to significantly reduce the time it takes to strike time-critical targets. First, DOD needs to overcome cultural impediments to joint warfighting. Second, some of DOD's current oversight and control mechanisms are simply not working. Third, DOD still lacks a joint service concept of operations to defeat time-critical targets. As a result, each military service plans and acquires systems to meet requirements under its own concept of operations. DOD has recently developed plans and initiatives to address these problems. It is too early to determine whether these steps …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1997, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) adopted a pilot program, known as the Corporate Maintenance Philosophy, that reduced the frequency of periodic maintenance and certification in FAA's Alaskan Region. In 2001, the Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled that FAA must revert back to the national maintenance and certification standards in the Alaskan Region because it had not negotiated an extension of the pilot program with its unions. GAO found that FAA's Alaskan Region has not fully returned to the national standards, but FAA officials believe that the transition will be completed by January 1, 2002. Seven of 12 locations had finished updating maintenance and certification information into FAA's computerized maintenance management system (MMS) by the October 1, 2001, deadline. In several locations where MMS had been updated, however, the standards that incorporated were not subjected to quality control checks. GAO was unable to determine whether periodic maintenance in some areas has been done with the frequency required by the national guidelines. FAA is hiring additional staff to perform maintenance and certifications and will appoint managers to check the accuracy of MMS data. The process of certifying equipment …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed purchase card activity at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Navy Public Works Center in San Diego and found significant breakdowns in internal controls over purchase card transactions, including fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchases and theft and misuse of government property. Neither SPAWAR nor the Navy Public Works Center had effective policies for issuing purchase cards, establishing credit limits, and minimizing the federal government's financial exposure. Any employee having supervisory approval could get a card. GAO found that the units did not do credit checks on prospective cardholders. GAO also found that nearly half of SPAWAR's fiscal year 2000 purchase card transactions and more than half of the Navy Public Works Center's transactions were made by employees who did not have documented evidence of timely training. Policies for rebate management were deficient, including a lack of procedures to maximize rebates and ensure that bank calculations of rebates were correct. Management was not effectively using internal reviews and audits to determine whether purchase card internal controls were effectively implemented. These internal control weaknesses allowed purchases that were potentially fraudulent, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Before Social Security, being old often meant being poor. Today, dependency on public assistance has dropped to a fraction of its Depression-era levels, and poverty rates among the elderly are now lower than for the population as a whole. At the same time, Social Security has become the single largest source of retirement income for more than 90 percent of persons aged 65 and older. Automatic adjustments were introduced in 1972 to reflect increases in the cost of living. Other program changes gradually increased social security coverage to larger portions of the workforce and extended eligibility to family members and disabled workers. Other benefit programs, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicare, and Medicaid, have also been added over the years. With regard to measuring income adequacy, various measures help examine different aspects of this concept, but no single measure can provide a complete picture. For various subgroups of beneficiaries that have lower lifetime earnings, poverty rates have also declined. Although the Social Security benefit formula favors lower lifetime earners, their lower earnings and work histories can leave them with incomes below the poverty level when …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. drinking water and wastewater systems encompass thousands of treatment and collection facilities and more than a million miles of pipes and conduits. The estimated cost to repair, replace, or upgrade aging facilities; accommodate the nation's growing population; and meet new water quality standards ranges from $300 billion to $1 trillion over the next 20 years. Although user rates are the major source of facilities' financing, federal and state government agencies also offer financial support. From fiscal years 1991 through 2000, nine federal agencies provided $44 billion for drinking water and wastewater capital improvements. Four agencies--the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce--accounted for about 98 percent of that account. State governments made $25 billion available for water infrastructure programs during the past 10 years."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997 requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to complete mandated planning activities before developing a loan monitoring system (LMS). In February 2000, GAO testified that SBA had made substantial progress in completing the mandated planning actions and made recommendations on additional steps needed for each action, and for project management and control of LMS. In August 2000, GAO found that SBA had completed its work on only one recommendation. SBA's actions to develop and implement LMS software were not consistent with the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997 and SBA's agreement with the House Committee on Small Business not to acquire hardware or software before completing the mandated planning. These actions could result in significant project cost increases and delays."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "It is essential that the U.S. military--the government's largest user of information technology (IT)--adopt effective IT acquisition practices. This report presents a generic framework of IT acquisition practices from leading commercial firms. Grouped into seven phases, the practices and underlying critical success factors provide the underpinnings for an effective IT outsourcing process."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A "voided arrest" is any arrest resulting in the release of a person without the filing of formal charges, dismissal of proceedings against the person arrested, or a determination that the arrest was without probable cause. GAO's ongoing review of the number of "voided arrests," originally intended to support the Clear Your Good Name Act, was closed out because of the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the legislative agenda in Congress. Complete data on the number of "voided arrests," as defined by the Clear Your Good Name Act (H.R. 1154) that occur at national and state levels are not available. None of the federal, state, or local agencies GAO contacted use the term "voided arrest." They do not have data for the category "voided arrests," and the data that they have do not include all arrests in those jurisdictions that can be considered "voided arrests" as defined by H.R. 1154. The Bureau of Justice Statistics and the state criminal history record repositories generally have data for the arrest disposition categories of prosecutor declinations and dismissals, and these dispositions can be considered "voided arrests." However, prosecutor …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the audit report covering the financial statements of the National Federation of Music Clubs for fiscal year 2000. The audit report included the auditors' opinions that the financial statements of the corporation were presented fairly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAO found no reportable instances of noncompliance."

This document provides information that will be useful to FEMP in targeting and identifying Federal sites for energy efficiency project potential. The document consolidates Federal energy data into a single source reference from which FEMP can work to more efficiently target opportunities.

Studies were initiated at the Hanford Site to evaluate the process controlling the transport of fluids in the vadose zone and to develop a reliable database upon which vadose-zone transport models can be calibrated. These models are needed to evaluate contaminant migration through the vadose zone to underlying groundwaters at Hanford. A study site that had previously been extensively characterized using geophysical monitoring techniques was selected in the 200 E Area. Techniques used previously included neutron probe for water content, spectral gamma logging for radionuclide tracers, and gamma scattering for wet bulk density. Building on the characterization efforts of the past 20 years, the site was instrumented to facilitate the comparison of nine vadose-zone characterization methods: advanced tensiometers, neutron probe, electrical resistance tomography (ERT), high-resolution resistivity (HRR), electromagnetic induction imaging (EMI), cross-borehole radar (XBR), and cross-borehole seismic (XBS). Soil coring was used to obtain soil samples for analyzing ionic and isotopic tracers.

This report summarizes the earthquake activity on the Hanford Site for the Fiscal year 2001

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Weekly student newspaper from San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Sulphur Springs, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

In 2000, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (TAF) embarked on an initiative to quantify the potential benefits of Heat Island Reduction (HIR) strategies (shade trees, reflective roofs and pavements) in reducing cooling energy use in buildings, lowering the ambient air temperature and improve air quality. This report summarizes the efforts of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to assess the impacts of HIR measures on building cooling- and heating-energy use. We discuss our efforts to calculate annual energy savings and peak-power avoidance of HIR strategies in the building sector of the Greater Toronto Area. The analysis is focused on three major building types that offer most saving potentials: residence, office and retail store. Using an hourly building energy simulation model, we quantify the energy saving potentials of (1) using cool roofs on individual buildings [direct effect], (2) planting deciduous shade trees near south and west walls of building [direct effect], (3) planting coniferous wind-shielding vegetation near building [direct effect], (4) ambient cooling by a large-scale program of urban reforestation with reflective building roofs and pavements [indirect effect], (5) and the combined direct and indirect effects. Results show potential annual energy savings of over $11M (with uniform residential and commercial electricity and gas …

This project is aimed at preparation of thin (1-10? m) membranes of a modified strontium ceramic material with improved hydrogen permeance on mesoporous substrates. The research work conducted in this reporting period was focused on the following three aspects: (1) preparation of thick proton-conducting ceramic membranes and synthesis of porous substrates as support for thin proton-conducting ceramic film, (2) setting up RF sputter deposition unit for deposition of thin ceramic films and performing deposition experiments with the sputter deposition unit, and (3) modeling hydrogen permeation through the proton-conducting ceramic membranes. Proton-conducting thulium doped strontium cerate membranes were reproducibly prepared by the citrate method. Mesoporous ceria membranes were fabricated by a sol-gel method. The membranes will be used as the substrate for coating thin strontium cerate films. A magnetron sputter deposition unit was set up and good quality thin metal alloy films were formed on the mesoporous substrates by an alternative deposition method with the sputter deposition unit. A theoretical model has been developed for hydrogen permeation through proton conducting ceramic membranes. This model can be used to quantitatively describe the hydrogen permeation data.