Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the progress of welfare reform. GAO found that states are transforming the nation's welfare system into a work-based, temporary assistance program for needy families, with a focus on moving people into employment rather than signing them up for cash assistance. States' implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), undertaken in a time of strong economic growth, has been accompanied by a 50 percent decline in the number of families receiving cash welfare. GAO's review of state-sponsored studies available in 1999 and several more recent studies show that most of the adults in families remaining off the welfare rolls were employed at some time after leaving welfare. All six of the states GAO visited have modified their "work first" programs to better serve recipients who face difficulties in entering the workforce. States have found that some of the recipients with such difficulties do, in fact, find jobs. Although states have made significant progress in meeting work-focused goals attention should be paid to the following issues: (1) emphasizing and enhancing work-based strategies, including engaging hard-to-employ recipients in work and helping families stay off welfare and increase …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "More than half the estimated 220 million acres of marshes, bogs, swamps, and other wetlands in the United States during the colonial times, have disappeared, and others have become degraded. This decline is due, primarily, to farming and development. Developers whose projects may harm wetlands must, according to environmental regulations, first avoid and then minimize adverse impacts to wetlands to the extent practicable. If harmful impacts are unavoidable, the developer must compensate by restoring a former wetland, enhancing a degraded wetland, creating a new wetland, or preserving an existing wetland. Such mitigation efforts can occur under the following three types of arrangements: (1) mitigation banks, under which for-profit companies restore wetlands under Army Corps of Engineers agreements and then sell credits for these wetlands to developers; (2) in-lieu-fee arrangements under which developers pay public or non-profit organizations fees for establishing wetland areas, usually under formal Corps agreements; and (3) ad hoc arrangements, under which developers pay individuals or companies to perform the mitigation. This report, determines the extent to which (1) the in-lieu-fee option has been used to mitigate adverse impacts to wetlands, (2) the in-lieu-fee …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Birdwatching, hunting, and wildlife photography provide important recreational, aesthetic, and income-generating benefits to the American public. In addition, wildlife help maintain ecosystems, and the mere knowledge that wildlife exist is viewed as beneficial by many people. At the same time, however, some wildlife destroy crops, kill livestock, damage property, and pose risks to public health and safety. Further, as the U.S. population has grown and impinged upon wildlife habitats, conflicts between wildlife and humans and their property have become increasingly common. Wildlife Services, a program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, is tasked with controlling damage by wildlife. Mammals and birds damage crops, forestry seedlings, and aquaculture products each year, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. In fiscal year 2000, predators killed half a million livestock--mostly lambs and calves--valued at $70 million. To reduce such threats, Wildlife Services conducts operational and research activities with federal, state, and local agencies; agricultural producers and ranchers; private homeowners; and others. In carrying out these activities, Wildlife Services applies the most appropriate methods, whether lethal or nonlethal, of prevention and …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO analyzed data from the Department of Labor's Current Population Survey (CPS) to better understand the challenges that women face in advancing their careers. Female managers in most of the industries GAO examined had less education, were younger, were more likely to work part-time, and were less likely to be married than were male managers. There was no statistically significant difference between the percent of management positions filled by women and the percent of all positions filled by women for five of the 10 industries GAO examined. In addition, in 1995 and 2000, full-time female managers earned less than full-time male managers, after controlling for education, age, marital status and race."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report reviews the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) inclusion of women in clinical drug trials. GAO found that women were a majority of the clinical trial participants in the new drug applications (NDA) it examined and that every NDA included enough women in the pivotal studies to be able to statistically demonstrate that the drug is effective in women. Although these findings are welcome, GAO also found three areas of concern. The first is the relatively small proportion of women in early small-scale safety studies. These early studies provide important information on drugs' toxicity and safe dosing levels for later stages of clinical development, and many of the NDAs GAO examined found significant sex differences in a drug's pharmacokinetics, or how it is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, excreted, and concentrated in the bloodstream. Second, GAO is not confident that either NDA sponsors or FDA's reviewers took full advantage of the available data to learn more about the effects of the drug in women and to explore potential sex differences in dosing. This is because NDA summary documents are not required to include analyses of sex differences, …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1997, 4,369 corporations earned a total of $135 million in Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC). The employers who earned most of the credit were large companies with gross receipts exceeding $1 billion and engaged in nonfinancial services and retail trade. GAO's analysis of state agency data for California and Texas from 1997 through 1999 showed that three percent of participating employers accounted for 82 percent of all hires of WOTC-certified workers. Many employers who participated in the tax credit program in those two states in 1999 say that, besides the opportunity to obtain the credit, their participation in the program was also greatly influenced by such factors as the need to address a labor shortage and the opportunity to be a good corporate citizen. The results of GAO's two state analysis indicate a low probability of replacing employees who were not eligible for the tax credit."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses how workers' compensation (WC) benefits affect benefit programs run by the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other agencies. GAO (1) examines the effects of WC benefits on SSA programs, focusing on SSA's progress in administering the WC offset provision; (2) discusses other federal programs whose benefit payments are also affected by WC benefits; and (3) discusses ways to address federal benefit payment errors related to workers' compensation. GAO found that SSA's administration of the WC offset provision continues to be undermined by the lack of reliable information on WC benefits received by Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries which causes some beneficiaries to be overpaid and others to be underpaid. No national reporting system identifies WC beneficiaries. Instead, SSA largely relies on applicants and beneficiaries to report their receipt of WC benefits and any changes that occur in the benefit amounts--an approach that makes it very difficult for SSA to make accurate benefit payments. Other federal agencies also need WC information to make accurate benefit payments and face similar difficulties identifying WC beneficiaries. Like SSA, Medicare relies on its applicants and beneficiaries to …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A competitive national economy depends on providing individuals with marketable skills and employers with access to qualified workers. In the past, the nation's job training system was fragmented and did not serve job seekers or employers well. The Workforce Investment Act in 1998 created a system that links employment, education, and training services to better match workers and labor market trends. The act represented a significant change from earlier workforce development efforts. Many of the act's provisions took effect in July 2000, and state and local organizations are at different stages of implementing them. Although the act's mandatory partners are making efforts to participate in the one-stops, programmatic or financial concerns are affecting the partners' level of participation as well as their ability to fully integrate their services at the one-stop. As implementation of the act progresses, training options for job seekers may be diminishing rather than improving, as trained providers reduce the number of courses offered to job seekers. Private-sector representatives may be discouraged from participating on workforce investment boards as a result of how states and localities are operating their boards and associated entities."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Workforce Investment Act was passed in 1998 to unify a fragmented employment and training system. The act sought to change the workforce development system by streamlining the delivery of employment and training services, enabling job seekers to make informed choices among training providers and course offerings and enhancing the private-sector role. During the early stages of the act's implementation, state and local implementers were challenged by the significant changes to the workforce system. Mandatory partners have concerns about how to participate in one-stops without adversely affecting their respective target populations, violating their own programs' rules, or straining their financial resources. Training providers have struggled to find ways to effectively meet the act's data collection and reporting requirements that they believe are burdensome and, as a result, have reduced the courses offered to job seekers."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Several factors affect employers' decisions to participate in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) consultation program. GAO surveyed industry associations, employee representatives, and participating employers and found that the two main incentives for program participation are (1) making the employer's workplace safer and reducing worker injury and illness by promoting workplace safety and health and (2) preparing the employer's workplace for an OSHA inspection. The measurement system OSHA uses lacks enough data to separate the program outcomes from the outcomes of OSHA's other efforts to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses. OSHA's process for allocating funds to the state consultation programs plays no role in encouraging participating states to achieve agency goals."