A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As part of its Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (ACE), the U.S. Census Bureau interviewed people across the country to develop an estimate of the number of persons missed, counted more than once, or otherwise improperly counted in the 2000 census. In conducting the interviews, which took place in person or over the phone, Census faced several challenges, including (1) completing the operation on schedule, (2) ensuring data quality, (3) overcoming unexpected computer problems, (4) obtaining a quality address list, and (5) keeping the interviews independent of census follow-up operations to ensure unbiased estimates of census errors. The Bureau completed the interviews largely ahead of schedule. On the basis of the results of its quality assurance program, the Bureau assumes that about one-tenth of one percent of all cases nationally would have failed the program because they were believed to have been falsified. Early on, the Bureau dealt with an unexpected problem with its automated work management system, which allows supervisors to selectively reassign work among interviewers. According to the Bureau officials, the Bureau addressed the underlying programming error within two weeks, and the operations proceeded on …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Each day, nearly two million passengers on 25,000 flights depend on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Air Traffic Control (ATC) system to safely reach their destinations. Because the ATC system requires thousands of controllers, each of whom typically manages just a section of airspace or one aspect of an aircraft's takeoff or landing, FAA depends on supervisors to monitor air traffic operations and controllers' workload and performance to ensure that the system is operating safely. In negotiating its 1998 collective bargaining agreement with its controllers' union, FAA agreed to a national plan that would reduce by attrition the number of supervisors who oversee air traffic controllers. To avoid compromising safety, FAA will increasingly have its controllers performing supervisory duties as Controllers-in-Charge (CIC) when supervisors are not present. Nationwide, FAA has selected 8,268 controllers to serve as CICs, which is about 55 percent of its air traffic controller workforce. GAO found that the materials for FAA's CIC training program were through and comprehensive, but FAA has little assurance that the training was effectively presented and achieved its objectives. Although FAA assessed training at a few facilities, the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Passengers on the same commercial airline flight may pay very different fares. This situation has led to dissatisfaction among some passengers who believe that airline ticketing practices are unfair. To reduce their cost of flying, some passengers have tried to use "hidden-city" and "back-to-back" ticketing. Hidden-city ticketing occurs when a passenger books a flight to one city but purposely deplanes at an intermediate city. Though never intending to make the last leg of the flight, the passenger buys the ticket because it is cheaper than a ticket to the intermediate city. Back-to-back ticketing occurs when a passenger buys two round-trip tickets that include a Saturday night stay but either uses only half the ticket coupons or uses all the coupons out of sequence. This practice results in a lower price than would be possible by purchasing round-trip tickets that did not include a Saturday night stay. Most airlines expressly forbid the use of hidden-city and back-to-back ticketing. This report reviews (1) the factors that airlines consider when setting fares; (2) the factors that create hidden-city ticketing and the pricing practices that foster back-to-back ticketing practices; (3) …

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 "This report focuses on the debt collection processes and procedures used by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The primary reason for the growth of CMS' civil monetary penalties (CMP) receivables was the expansion of fraud and abuse detection activities from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 1997 that significantly increased reported fraud and abuse debts in fiscal year 1997. GAO's analysis of CMS' CMP receivable data revealed similar financial accountability and reporting issues as those identified for non-CMP receivables by CMS' external financial statement auditors. GAO identified (1) unreconciled differences of tens of millions of dollars in the CMP receivables balances reported by HHS and CMS for fiscal years 1997 through 1999 and (2) an unreconciled net difference of about $22 million between the CMP receivables balance in CMS' general ledger and the detailed subsidiary systems as of September 30, 2000. The data reliability issue prevented GAO from determining the overall adequacy of the CMP debt collection policies and procedures. However, GAO's limited tests showed that debt collection policies and procedures were followed for 11 of …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report focuses on debt collection processes and procedures used by the Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining (OSM). GAO discusses (1) the primary reasons for the growth in civil monetary penalties owed to OSM; (2) whether OSM's receivables for civil monetary penalties have financial accountability and reporting issues similar to those of its other receivables; (3) whether adequate processes exist to collect this debt; and (4) what roles, if any, the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department play in overseeing and monitoring OSM's collection of civil monetary penalties debt."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the effects of proposed legislation--H.R. 1833--on the pay of officers at the U.S. Customs Service. The proposal would amend the 1911 Act governing Customs officers' overtime and premium pay, and it would more closely align Customs differential pay with that of other federal agencies. Should the provision be enacted, Customs officers would be limited to the amount and times for which they would be eligible for night differential pay. In addition, another section of the proposed law would remove premium pay from the calculation of the $30,000 fiscal year overtime and premium pay cap that Customs officers may not exceed. GAO's analysis of Customs data showed that had the provisions of H.R. 1833 been in effect during fiscal year 1999, many officers would have experienced significant pay decreases. Managers and supervisors asked to analyze the proposal had mixed reviews, but those not in favor of the proposal were concerned that less eligibility for night differential pay would lead to low morale and staffing problems."

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 Department of Defense's (DOD) ability to contract for goods and services by acquiring and implementing a standard procurement system (SPS). DOD's management of SPS is a lesson in how not to justify, make, and monitor the implementation of information technology investment decisions. Specifically, DOD has not (1) ensured that accountability and responsibility for measuring progress against commitments are clearly understood, performed, and reported; (2) demonstrated, on the basis of reliable data and credible analysis, that the proposed system solution will produce economic benefits commensurate with costs; (3) used data on progress against project cost, schedule, and performance commitments throughout a project's life cycle to make investment decisions; and (4) divided this large project into a series of incremental investment decisions to spread the risks over smaller, more manageable components. Because it has yet to effectively apply any of these basic tenets of effective investment management to SPS, DOD lacks the basic information needed to make informed decisions on how to proceed with the project. Nevertheless, DOD continues to push forward in acquiring and deploying additional versions of SPS. Continuing this approach involves …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it will spend as much as $20 billion to clean up contamination at thousands of properties that were once owned, leased, or operated by the Defense Department (DOD). These properties contain hazardous, toxic, and radioactive wastes in the soil and water or in containers, such as underground storage tanks. The Corps is responsible for cleaning up the hazards, including removing underground storage tanks. DOD's annual report on its environmental restoration activities can provide a misleading picture of the Corps' accomplishments. DOD's accounts of completed projects include projects that were ineligible or that did not involve any actual cleanup effort. As a result, the impression is that--after 15 years and expenditures of $2.6 billion--more than half of the projects at formerly used defense sites have been completed. In reality, only about 32 percent of those projects that required actual cleanup actions have been completed, and those are the cheapest and least technologically challenging. The Corps estimates that the remaining projects will cost more than $13 billion and take upwards of 70 years to complete. The Corps' reporting of completed …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Americans have become increasingly concerned about the downside of growth and development--increasing dependence on automobiles; worsening traffic congestion; and the loss of farmland, forests, and open space. Some are also concerned that "urban sprawl" can increase air and water pollution, endanger their health, and even threaten their livelihood. Most local transportation planners and state air quality managers do not consider the effects of different land use strategies on air quality. They do not do so principally because nonpoint sources are diffuse and difficult to identify and measure. According to local transportation planners and state air quality managers, federal agencies could help remove barriers to, and provide incentives for, assessing and mitigating the environmental impacts of land use. They proposed actions in the following three key areas: (1) financial incentives for transportation, environmental, and local decisionmakers to collaborate on land use strategies that limit adverse impacts on air and water quality; (2) technical capacity to assess and mitigate land use impacts; and (3) educating the public and local officials about the environmental impacts of their transportation and land use decisions and alternative development strategies that better protect …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. defense industry and some foreign government purchasers have expressed concern that the U.S. export control process is unnecessarily burdensome. Defense industry officials contend that extended reviews of export license applications by the State Department have resulted in lost sales and are harming the nation's defense industry. The State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls is responsible for licensing the export and temporary import of defense articles and services. Many license applications take a long time to review because of their complexity and the need to consider different points of view. However, several conditions make the application review process less efficient and cause delays. The State Department has not established formal guidelines for determining the agencies and offices that need to review license applications. As a result, the licensing office refers more license applications to other agencies and offices than may be necessary. Furthermore, many license application reviewers in State Department reviewing offices consider license reviews a low priority. The State Department lacks procedures to monitor the flow of license applications through the review process. The State Department has hired new licensing officers which license …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The United States and several major trading partners created the Missile Technology Control Regime in 1987 to control the spread of missile technology. To carry out the U.S. commitment to the agreement, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1991, which amended two U.S. export control statutes: the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act. Two federal agencies, the Department of Commerce and the Department of State, are responsible for implementing the regulations for controlling missile technology exports. This report discusses whether the regulations for controlling the export of Missile Technology Control Regime items (1) are consistent with U.S. law and (2) provide a consistent U.S. policy on the control of missile technology. GAO found that Commerce's export regulations are inconsistent with an amendment to the Export Administration Act that requires an individual export license for all controlled dual-use missile equipment and technology to all countries. Commerce's regulations do not require licenses for the export of controlled missile equipment and technology to Canada. Commerce did not cite any section of this statute or its legislative history to justify the inconsistency between …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since October 1994, the Export-Import Bank of the United States has had statutory authority to provide loans, guarantees, and insurance to help finance U.S. exports of dual-use defense articles and services, provided that these items are nonlethal and meant primarily for civilian use. These dual-use exports include air traffic control systems. The U.S. Export-Import Bank used $153.2 million during fiscal year 1999 to finance three dual-use exports, including transport aircraft and aircraft parts to be used to develop and protect the Amazon region in Brazil and radar systems to be used for vessel and air traffic control in Croatia. End-use monitoring procedures are in place, but no end-use reports have been filed for these dual-use exports because none of the exports has been delivered. In fiscal year 2000, the Bank used $31.2 million to finance five dual-use exports, including transport aircraft parts, vehicles, and construction equipment to be used to protect and develop rural regions in Venezuela. In fiscal year 2001, the Bank used $202.6 million to finance three dual-use exports, including transport aircraft and support systems to be used for pipeline monitoring in Algeria and construction equipment …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Concerns have been raised that federal agencies may not have been considering locating facilities in rural areas, as required by the Rural Development Act of 1972 (RDA), despite recent advances in telecommunications technology. GAO found that, since its 1990 report (GGD-90-109) on this issue, federal agencies generally continue to be located in higher cost, urban areas. Eight of the 13 cabinet agencies surveyed had no formal RDA siting policy, and there was little evidence that agencies considered RDA's requirements when siting new federal facilities. Furthermore, GSA has not developed the cost-conscious, governmentwide location policy recommended by GAO in 1990. In GAO's survey, the sites that involved relocated operations still largely remained in urban areas, while the sites that involved newly established operations were more evenly spread over rural and urban areas. Federal agencies' mission requirements, such as the need to be near clients or other organizations, apparently have led them to select urban areas. GAO found that government functions, such as research and development, data processing, accounting and finance, and teleservice centers, can be located in rural areas. Although it is unclear from the information GAO …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 encourages tribes to participate in and manage programs that for years had been administered on their behalf by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of the Interior. The act authorizes tribes to take over the administration of such programs through contractual arrangements with the agencies that previously ran them: HHS' Indian Health Service and Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. For the Indian Health Service, the programs include mental health, dental care, hospitals and clinics. For the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the programs that can be contracted by tribes include law enforcement, education, and social services. Under the first 15 years of the Self-Determination Act, tribal contractors generally assumed liability for accidents or torts (civil wrongdoings) caused by their employees. However, in 1990, the federal government permanently assumed this liability when Congress extended the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) coverage to tribal contractors under the Self-Determination Act. Originally enacted in 1946, FTCA established a process by which individuals injured by federal employees could seek compensation from the federal government. As a result of extending this …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Franchises are business arrangements that require payment for the opportunity to sell trademarked goods and services. Business opportunity ventures do not involve a trademark, but require payment for the opportunity to distribute goods or services with assistance in the form of locations or accounts. The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Trade Regulation Rule on Franchising and Business Opportunity Ventures (Franchise Rule) requires franchise and business opportunity sellers to disclose financial and other information to prospective purchasers before they pay any money or sign an agreement. In addition, FTC enforces section 5 of the FTC Act, which addresses unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Over the past several years, Congress has debated the need for a federal statute to generally regulate franchises, including issues that arise between franchisors and franchisees after the franchise agreement is signed. Much of the debate centers on the relative bargaining power franchisees have when dealing with their franchisors over various issues, such as the location of new franchised outlets or the termination of franchise relationships without good cause and advance, written notice. This report reviews FTC's enforcement of its Franchise Rule and discusses …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Carlesbad office is developing a computerized project-tracking system for its consultation and habitat conservation planning (HCP) projects. This system, if properly implemented, should improve the office's record keeping and its ability to track the status of projects and help determine why they are in that status. The new system could also improve project management by allowing office managers to determine how long an applicant has been involved in the consultation or HCP process and whether the recommended time frames for completing consultations and the targeted frames for processing HCPs have been exceeded. The Carlsbad office will still have difficulty completing its consultations and HCP projects within recommended or targeted time frames if it is unable to address its staffing problems. An inability to hire new staff and retain existing, experienced staff has made it difficult for the Carlsbad office to meet the demands of its workload. Because the Carlsbad office does not maintain its project files in accordance with federal internal control standards and FWS' guidelines, there has often been confusion between the office and its customers on what was …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) regulations for seafood, the food industry has made some progress in ensuring the safety of seafood. However, several important weaknesses compromise the overall effectiveness of the federal seafood safety system. If left uncorrected, they will continue to undermine the goal of HACCP systems--that is, controlling hazards in the production process before the product reaches the market. More importantly, U.S. consumers may remain at risk of contracting foodborne illness from contaminated domestic and imported seafood products."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The nation's forests have undergone significant changes during the last century and a half. Human activities, especially the federal government's decades-old practice of suppressing all wildland fires, have resulted in the dangerous accumulation of hazardous fuel on federal lands. To help address this problem, Congress provided the Forest Service with more than $205 million in fiscal year 2001 to reduce these accumulated fuels. To put as much of this money on-the-ground as quickly as possible, the Forest Service identified and funded those hazardous fuel reduction projects for which it had completed the necessary environmental analysis. As of July 2001, the Forest Service had completed the necessary environmental analyses and had decided to implement 1,671 hazardous fuel reduction projects in fiscal year 2001. Of these projects, 20 had been appealed and none had been litigated. Applicants included environmental groups, recreation groups, private industry interests, and individuals."

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 …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress has funded many highway demonstration projects either through legislation authorizing surface transportation programs or annual appropriations for the Department of Transportation. As of April 2001, 28 highway demonstration projects with unobligated balances were no longer needed by the states because, according to the Federal Highway Administration, the projects are completed. These projects accounted for about $14.6 million in unobligated funds."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 and the subsequent appearance of letters containing anthrax, terrorism rose to the top of the national agenda. The Attorney General has indicated that the country needs to be prepared for still more terrorist incidents. The Department of Justice is working with state and local governments to complete risk management tools for the domestic preparedness program. However, the FBI told GAO that these will be limited to threat assessments only and will not include other aspects of risk management that GAO advocates. Despite these inconclusive results, the federal government can benefit from risk management. Risk management is a systematic and analytic process to consider the likelihood that a threat will endanger an asset and to identify actions that reduce the risk and mitigate the consequences of an attack. An effective risk management approach includes a threat assessment, a vulnerability assessment, and a criticality assessment. Such an approach could help the nation prepare against threats it faces and help better target finite resources to areas of highest priority."