Guidance issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This publication has been superseded by GAO-02-69G, Strategies to Manage Improper Payments: Learning From Public and Private Sector Organizations, October 2001. This executive guide is intended to identify effective practices and provide case illustrations and other information for federal agencies' consideration when developing strategies and planning and implementing actions to manage improper payments in their programs."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the preliminary results of GAO's ongoing review of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Administration's (FEMA) Federal Insurance Administration (FIA) and Mitigation Directorate, a major component of the federal government's efforts to provide flood assistance. This program creates standards to minimize flood losses. GAO found that FEMA has several performance goals to improve program results, including increasing the number of insurance policies in force. Although these goals provide valuable insight into the degree to which the program has reduced flood losses, they do not assess the degree to which the most vulnerable residents--those living in flood-prone areas--participate in the program. Capturing data on the number of uninsured and insured structures in flood-prone areas can provide FEMA with another indication of how well the program is penetrating those areas with the highest flood risks, whether the financial consequences of floods in these areas are increasing or decreasing, and where marketing efforts can better be targeted. However, before participation rates can be used to measure the program's success, better data are needed on the total number …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "TThe United States and Russia began an ambitious nonproliferation program, the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), to create sustainable job opportunities for weapons scientists in Russia's closed nuclear cities and to help Russia accelerate the downsizing of its nuclear weapons complex in in 1998. The program, however, poses a daunting challenge. The nuclear cities are geographically and economically isolated, access is restricted for security reasons, and weapons scientists are not accustomed to working for commercial businesses. Thus, Western businesses are reluctant to invest in the nuclear cities. This report reviews (1) the costs to implement NCI, including the amount of program funds spent in the United States and Russia, as well as planned expenditures; (2) the impact of NCI projects; and (3) the status of the European Nuclear Cities Initiative. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Nuclear Nonproliferation: DOE's Efforts to Secure Nuclear Material and Employ Weapons Scientists in Russia, by Gary L. Jones, Director Natural Resources and Environment, before the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Senate Committee on Armed Services. GAO-01-726T, May 15 (10 pages)."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The District of Columbia Appropriations Act of 2001 provided $250,000 for a contract to study and develop a plan to simplify the compensation systems, schedules, and work rules for DC government employees. The act placed several conditions on the appropriation, one of which was that GAO review the proposed solicitation for the contract to ensure that it adequately addressed all of the elements stipulated in the act. Government officials initially told GAO that they planned to apply the $250,000 payment to existing contracts that were being used in the District's independent effort to reform its classification and compensation systems--and therefore would not carry out the conditions that Congress had set for receipt of the funds. More recently, however, the officials said that they no longer plan to use the funds because doing so would delay the District's reform effort."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The West Valley nuclear facility in western New York State was built in the 1960s to convert spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors into reusable nuclear fuel. New York State, the owner of the site, and the Atomic Energy Commission--the predecessor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy (DOE)--jointly promoted the venture. However, the timing of the venture was poor because the market for reprocessed nuclear fuel was limited and because new, more restrictive health and safety standards raised concerns about the facility. West Valley was shut down in the 1970s, and Congress enacted the West Valley Demonstration Project Act in 1980, which brought DOE to West Valley to carry out cleanup activities. This report examines the: (1) status of the cleanup; (2) factors that may be hindering the cleanup; (3) degree of certainty in the Department's estimates of total cleanup costs and schedule; and (4) degree to which the West Valley cleanup may reflect, or have implications for, larger cleanup challenges facing DOE and the nation. DOE has almost completed solidifying the high-level wastes at West Valley, but major additional cleanup …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A January report by the National Science Foundation (NSF) identified a $5 billion gap between the amount of money that federal agencies reported as research and development (R&D) support and the amount of money that those who did the R&D work reported as spent in 1998. According to NSF, federal agencies earmarked about $72 billion for R&D support in 1998, while those who carried out the R&D reported spending about $67 billion. GAO found that this gap results primarily from annually comparing two separate and distinct types of financial data--federal obligations and performer expenditures--that are not comparable. In addition, R&D funding are collected on a yearly basis, but,in reporting, the period that defines a year can vary. Furthermore, agencies and performers do not always agree on what type of activities fall under the category of R&D. Because the gap results from comparing two dissimilar types of financial data, it does not necessarily reflect poor-quality data, nor does it reflect whether performers are receiving or spending all the federal R&D funds obligated to them. Thus, even if the data collection and reporting issues were addressed, a gap would still …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 allows the use of performance-based payment (PBP) as an alternative to other forms of contract financing. According to the Department of Defense (DOD), the paying office processed about one million invoices for 363,000 major contracts. In fiscal year 1999, only 195 of these contracts contained performance-based provisions. These contracts are so few in number because they are a relatively new form of contracting within DOD. In November 2000, however, DOD indicated that performance-based financing will be military's preferred contract financing method for future fixed-price contracts. This report reviews the C-17 aircraft production program as a case study of the business processes used to make investment expenditures during the production phase of a major weapons system. GAO chose this contract because it is mature, stable, and is performance-based rather than cost-based. GAO found internal control weaknesses in the C-17 program affecting compliance with regulations, policies, and procedures over (1) establishing withhold amounts by the Air Force contracting officer for conditionally accepted items, (2) processing by the Administrative Contracting Officer for performance-based payment requests, (3) processing by the Administrative Contracting Officer of invoices …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The states and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot ensure that all active underground storage tanks have the required leak-, spill-, and overfill-protection equipment installed, nor can they guarantee that the installed equipment is being properly operated and maintained. Although the states and EPA regions focus most of their limited resources on monitoring active tanks, empty or inactive tanks can also potentially contaminate soil and groundwater. Half of the states have not physically inspected all of their tanks, and several others have not done inspections often enough to ensure the tanks' safety. Moreover, most states and EPA lack authority to use the most effective enforcement tools, and many state officials acknowledge that additional enforcement tools and resources were needed to ensure tank safety. EPA has the opportunity to correct these limitations within its own regions and to help states correct them through its new tank program initiatives. However, the agency has yet to define many of the implementation details, so it is difficult to determine whether the proposed actions will ensure more inspection coverage and more effective enforcement, especially within the states. Congress could help alleviate …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) developed a computer-assisted training program, known as the Training and Performance Support System (TPSS), to help its employees become more accurate in processing disability compensation and pension claims. The program seeks to provide uniform and consistent training to employees in 57 regional offices. Although VBA's long-term goal is to attain a 96 percent accuracy rate for claims processing, VBA reported an accuracy rate of only 59 percent for fiscal year 2000. This report reviews (1) the status of the TPSS program's development and implementation and (2) the extent to which TPSS will meet its objectives. GAO found that despite VBA's objective to centrally develop a standardized training program, significant delays in the development of TPSS are hindering the program's ability to provide standardized training to claims processing employees. According to VBA's current schedule, the full development of the program will not be completed until at least 2004, or about two years later than VBA had planned. Although VBA provided nine training modules to regional offices to begin the program, the extent to which the offices implemented them varied considerably. Many offices …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1994, the United States has appropriated $227 million to support two multilateral science centers in Russia and Ukraine. The science centers pay scientists who once developed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and missile systems for the Soviet Union to conduct peaceful research. By employing scientists at the science centers, the United States seeks to reduce the risks that these scientists could be tempted to sell their expertise to terrorists. This report examines the (1) selection procedures the State Department uses to fund projects that meet program objectives and (2) monitoring procedures the State Department uses to verify that scientists are working on the peaceful research they are paid to produce. GAO found that State lacks complete information on the total number and locations of senior scientists and has not been granted access to senior scientists at critical research institutes under the Russian Ministry of Defense. GAO also found that State has designed an interagency review process to select and fund research proposals submitted by weapons scientists to the science centers in Russia and Ukraine. The overall goal is to select projects that reduce proliferation risks …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "For fiscal year 2002, Congress has before it two separate budget requests for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)--the traditional request prepared by the administration and a separate request prepared by the IRS Oversight Board. There are some significant differences between the two requests. The administration is requesting about $9.4 billion while the Board is requesting an additional $300 million. This correspondence addresses several questions related to (1) the differences between the two requests, (2) IRS' hiring plans for its Staffing Tax Administration for Balance and Equity initiative, (3) the productivity of IRS staff, and (4) business systems modernization."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) information technology (IT) program faces many challenges, including filling its chief information officer position, improving computer security, and refining its process for selecting, controlling, and evaluating its information technology investments. This correspondence answers several questions from Congress on these and other challenges facing VA's IT program."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's January 2001 Performance and Accountability Series provides an overview of management issues at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In the series, GAO made several recommendations to improve HUD's programs and operations. This report reviews the status of nine key recommendations. GAO found that HUD has taken important steps toward addressing some of its management deficiencies; however, significant weaknesses persist in some major areas, including single-family mortgage insurance, rental housing assistance, information and financial management systems, and human capital."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses the Emergency Steel Loan Program, which provides loan guarantees to qualified steel producing companies. GAO found that there has been only one guaranteed loan disbursed by a private lender for $110 million. With an 85 percent guarantee, the federal government's potential loss is $93.5 million, assuming no repayments and no recovery from property pledged as collateral. The financial condition of program applicants is not strong, and repayments of loans depend upon many future factors. Economic analysis indicates a flat demand for steel, moderate prices, and static imports of foreign steel forecasted for 2002 and 2003. Because of the low loan amount, the program has had a minimal overall effect on the U.S. steel industry through March 2001."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the Veterans Health Administration's (VHA) efforts to improve veterans' access to health care through its Community-Based Outpatient Clinics Initiative. Overall, through its clinics, VHA is steadily making primary care more available within reasonable proximity of patients who have used VHA's system in the past. However, the uneven distribution of patients living more than 30 miles from a VHA primary care facility suggests that access inequities across networks may exist. Also, the improvements likely to result from VHA's planned clinics indicate that achieving equity of access may be difficult. In addition, GAO's assessment suggests that new clinics may have contributed to, but are not primarily responsible for, the marked rise in the number of higher-income patients who have sought health care through VHA in recent years. Although the clinics have undoubtedly attracted some new patients to VHA, GAO's analysis suggests that new patients would have sought care at other VHA facilities in the absence of the clinics. Enhanced benefits and access improvements afforded by eligibility reform may have attracted more new patients, including those with higher incomes."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In recent years, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and three subsequent laws that create new federal standards for private health insurance which covers nearly 175 million Americans under the age of 65. These laws include standards guaranteeing access to health insurance for small employers and individuals with existing health conditions as well as requirements for health plans regarding mental health services, hospital care for mothers and newborns following childbirth, and reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy. Since HIPAA's enactment in 1996, federal agencies' enforcement roles have continued to evolve as they have established new or expanded existing enforcement activities to ensure compliance with standards under HIPAA and the related federal laws. Agency officials state that they have enough staff resources and expertise to carry out their current enforcement responsibilities. The Health Care Financing Administration's future role depends on the actions of states in enforcing the federal standards, as well as on congressional decisions about whether to reauthorize the Mental Health Parity Act or to enact additional patient protection legislation. In addition, the scope of the Department of Labor's future enforcement activities may depend on …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This is the third in a series of GAO reports evaluating the military services' efforts to reduce weapons systems operating and support costs. GAO previously reported on Army and Air Force efforts. This report evaluates the Navy and Marine Corps pilot programs. GAO found that the Navy and Marine Corps have begun several efforts to reduce weapon system operating and support costs. For example, they are using an open architecture design method that reduces the cost of component replacement and changes later in system life. In addition, the Navy has other related objectives and initiatives that could significantly reduce operating and support costs. Through these and other initiatives, the Navy and Marine Corps have reported progress in reducing operating and support cost in its pilot programs."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This correspondence (1) discusses the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) report on mutual fund fee disclosures and (2) reviews SEC's response to GAO's recommendations on improving fee disclosure. The results of SEC staff's comprehensive analyses and other findings generally corroborate the findings of GAO's report and provide considerable additional information on the trend in mutual fund fees. The SEC staff's report also contains several recommendations to the agency's Commissioners, and the Commission has already approved recommendations on after-tax return disclosure and fund governance. In response to GAO's recommendation that mutual fund investors' quarterly account statements disclose the specific dollar amount of fees they paid, SEC staff recommends that investors receive additional fee information in funds' annual and semiannual reports. The SEC staff's proposal would provide investors with more information on fees in a form that allows comparison among funds. However, it will not provide information specific to each investor, nor will it be provided in the most frequent and relevant source--the quarterly statement. Therefore, it may be less likely to increase investor awareness and spur additional price competition among mutual funds to the same degree as GAO's recommendation …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report identifies U.S. locations where beryllium was used in workplace processes or detected as present in the workplace. Data show that beryllium was used or detected at locations in 45 of 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. However, the number of locations varied by state. For example, 30 states and the District of Columbia were reported as having from one to 10 locations, while 15 states were reported as having from 11 to 41 locations. The states without reported beryllium use were Alaska, Delaware, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wyoming."

A briefing report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Concerns have been growing about the air quality, visibility, and respiratory illnesses around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. This report analyzes recent trends in and contributing factors to (1) visibility impairments, (2) ground-level ozone, and (3) respiratory illnesses. This report also examines the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) plans to reduce its emission of regulated pollutants from generating electricity. Visibility impairments and ozone are largely attributable to the following three types of emissions: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds. The counties that border the park generally have slightly higher mortality rates from two types of respiratory illness. The three types of emissions interact in the atmosphere to form ozone gas and sulfate particles, which are linked to respiratory illnesses. In response to federal laws and other factors, TVA is making substantial environment-related investments and expects to reduce its annual emissions of sulfur dioxide by 40 percent and its "ozone-season"' emissions of nitrogen oxides by 70 percent between 1999 and 2005."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The consensus of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization, and other major health agencies is that the research to date does not show radiofrequency energy emitted from mobile phones has harmful health effects, but there is not yet enough information to conclude that they pose no risk. Although most of the epidemiological and laboratory studies done on this issue have found no adverse health effects, the findings of some studies have raised questions about cancer and other health problems that require further study. The Cellular Telecommunication & Internet Association (CTIA) and FDA will jointly conduct research on mobile phone health affects. Although the initiative is funded solely by CTIA, FDA's active role in setting the research agenda and providing scientific oversight should help alleviate concerns about the objectivity of the report. The media has widely reported on the debate over whether mobile phones can cause health problems. Thus, the federal government's role in providing the public with clear information on this issue is particularly important. FDA has a consumer information update on mobile phone health issues but has not revised that data …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "According to the Navy, the primary purpose of forward-deployed naval forces is to project power from the sea to influence events ashore. To be successful, naval forces must be able to gain access to, and operate in the coastal areas of potential adversaries. Consequently, they must be able to detect and neutralize enemy sea mines and other antiship weapons. Finally, they must be able to launch and support offensive operations against enemy forces ashore. This report assesses the Navy's (1) existing mine countermeasures, (2) antisubmarine warfare, (3) ship self-defense, (4) surface fire support capabilities, and (5) progress in the acquisition programs the Navy is pursuing to address shortfalls in these areas. GAO found that the Navy's current force of specialized ships, helicopters, and other assets developed to detect and neutralize enemy sea mines lack several key warfighting capabilities it needs for shoreline operations. Although the Navy is making some progress in overcoming shortfalls in antisubmarine warfare, a lack of resources and priorities among competing programs persists. The Navy's ship defense capabilities against cruise missiles are marginal, and surface ships will be at risk when operating within …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which is a permanent repository and principal disseminator of scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information. NTIS acquires research reports primarily from federal agencies and their contractors and grantees as well as from international sources. GAO discusses (1) the various functions of NTIS; (2) the quantity, age, and demand trends of reports in NTIS' repository; (3) the extent to which the reports in NTIS' repository are readily available from other public sources; and (4) whether federal agencies are sending their reports to NTIS for sale to the public, as required by law. GAO found that NTIS provides its basic statutory clearinghouse repository function of collecting and disseminating full-text paper reports and various other fee-based services for agencies. These include brokerage services, distribution services, and Web services. NTIS has about 2.5 million reports in its repository that are to be retained permanently. About 75 percent of the reports are more than 12 years old, and NTIS has sold one or more copies of about eight percent of its 2.5 million reports. Of the 1.8 million reports …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Coast Guard is in the final stages of planning the largest procurement project in its history-the modernization or replacement of more than 90 cutters and 200 aircraft used for missions more than 50 miles from shore. This project, called the Deepwater Capability Replacement Project, is expected to cost more than $10 billion and take 20 years or longer to complete. Congress and the Coast Guard are at a major crossroads with the project. Planning is essentially complete, and Congress will soon be asked to commit to a multibillion-dollar project that will define the way the Coast Guard performs many of its missions for decades to come. The deepwater acquisition strategy is unique and untried for a project of this magnitude. It carries many risks that could potentially cause significant schedule delays and cost increases. The project faces risks in the following four areas: (1) planning the project around annual funding levels far above what the administration has told the Coast Guard it can expect to receive, (2) keeping costs under control in the contract's later years, (3) ensuring that procedures and personnel are in place …