Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "It is important to ensure that longterm spending on transportation programs meets the goals of increasing mobility and improving transportation safety. In this testimony, GAO discusses what recently completed work on four transportation programs suggests about challenges and strategies for improving the oversight and use of taxpayer funds. These four programs are (1) the federal-aid highway program, administered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA); (2) highway safety programs, administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); (3) the New Starts program, administered by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA); and (4) the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, administered out of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. Differences in the structure of these programs have contributed to the challenges they illustrate. The federal-aid highway program uses formulas to apportion funds to the states, the highway safety programs use formulas and grants, the New Starts program uses competitive grants, and the EAS program provides subsidies. For each program, GAO describes in general how the program illustrates a particular challenge in managing or overseeing long-term spending and in particular what challenges and strategies for addressing the challenges GAO and others …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Comptroller General formed the Employee Advisory Council (EAC) about 4 years ago to be fully representative of the GAO population and advise him on issues pertaining to both management and employees. The members of the EAC represent a variety of employee groups and almost all employees outside of the senior executive service (more than 3,000 of GAO's 3,200 employees or 94 percent). The EAC operates as an umbrella organization that incorporates representatives of GAO's long-standing employee organizations including groups representing the disabled, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, veterans, and women, as well as employees in various pay bands, attorneys, and administrative and professional staff. As established in our charter, the Employee Advisory Council serves as an advisory body to the Comptroller General and other senior executives by: seeking and conveying the views and concerns of the individual employee groups it represents while being sensitive to the mutual interests of all employees, regardless of their grade, band, or classification group; proposing solutions to concerns raised by employees, as appropriate; providing input by assessing and commenting on GAO policies, procedures, plans, and practices; and, communicating issues and concerns …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization, House Committee on Government Reform seeks GAO's views on its latest human capital proposal that is slated to be introduced as a bill entitled the GAO Human Capital Reform Act of 2003."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a cooperative program between the Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. allies for developing and producing next generation fighter aircraft to replace aging inventories. As currently planned, the JSF program is DOD's most expensive aircraft program to date, costing an estimated $200 billion to procure about 2,600 aircraft and related support equipment. Many in DOD consider JSF to be a model for future cooperative programs. To determine the implications of the JSF international program structure, GAO identified JSF program relationships and expected benefits, and assessed how DOD is managing challenges associated with partner expectations, technology transfer, and recent technical concerns."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government invests over $11 billion in early childhood education and care programs. These programs exist to ensure that children from low-income families are better prepared to enter school and that their parents have access to early childhood education and care that allow them to obtain and maintain employment. The federal government invests more in Head Start, which was funded at $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2002, than any other early childhood education and care program. Head Start has served over 21 million children at a total cost of $66 billion since it began. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions asked GAO to discuss Head Start--how it fits within the array of early childhood education and care programs available to low-income children and their families and what is known about its effectiveness."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management, House Committee on Government Reform asked GAO to testify on the implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (PL 107-300) and related Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance, and on GAO's strategies to reduce improper payments."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In May 2003, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a revised Circular A-76, which represents a comprehensive set of changes to the rules governing competitive sourcing--one of five governmentwide items in the President's Management Agenda. Determining whether to obtain services in-house or through commercial contracts is an important economic and strategic decision for agencies, and the use of Circular A-76 is expected to grow throughout the federal government. In the past, however, the A-76 process has been difficult to implement, and the impact on the morale of the federal workforce has been profound. Concerns in the public and private sectors were also raised about the timeliness and fairness of the process for public-private competitions. It was against this backdrop that the Congress enacted legislation mandating a study of the A-76 process, which was carried out by the Commercial Activities Panel, chaired by the Comptroller General of the United States. This testimony focuses on how the new Circular addresses the Panel's recommendations reported in April 2002, the challenges agencies may face in implementing the new Circular A-76, and the need for effective workforce practices to help ensure …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1998, the Congress and Administration have focused considerable attention on improving the quality of care in the nation's nursing homes, which provide care for about 1.7 million elderly and disabled residents in about 17,000 homes. GAO has earlier reported on serious weaknesses in processes for conducting routine state inspections (surveys) of nursing homes and complaint investigations, ensuring that homes with identified deficiencies correct the problems without recurrence, and providing consistent federal oversight of state survey activities to ensure that nursing homes comply with federal quality standards. GAO was asked to update its work on these issues and to testify on its findings, as reported in Nursing Home Quality: Prevalence of Serious Problems, While Declining, Reinforces Importance of Enhanced Oversight, GAO-03-561 (July 15, 2003). In commenting on this report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) generally concurred with the recommendations to address survey and oversight weaknesses. In this testimony, GAO addresses (1) the prevalence of serious nursing home quality problems nationwide, (2) factors contributing to continuing weaknesses in states' survey, complaint, and enforcement activities, and (3) the status of key federal efforts to oversee state survey …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1936, the Social Security Administration (SSA) established the Social Security Number (SSN) to track worker's earnings for social security benefit purposes. However, the SSN is also used for a myriad of non-Social Security purposes. Today, the SSN is used, in part, as a verification tool for services such as child support collection, law enforcement enhancements, and issuing credit to individuals. Although these uses of SSNs are beneficial to the public, SSNs are also a key piece of information in creating false identities. Moreover, the aggregation of personal information, such as SSNs, in large corporate databases, as well as the public display of SSNs in various public records, may provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity crimes. SSA, the originator of the SSN, is responsible for ensuring SSN integrity and verifying the authenticity of identification documents used to obtain SSNs. Although Congress has passed a number of laws to protect an individual's privacy, the continued use and reliance on SSNs by private and public sector entities and the potential for misuse underscores the importance of identifying areas that can be strengthened. Accordingly, this testimony focuses on describing (1) …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The difficulties of managing, preserving, and providing access to the vast and rapidly growing volumes of electronic records produced by federal agencies present challenges to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the nation's recordkeeper and archivist. Complex electronic records are being created in volumes that make them difficult to organize and keep accessible. These problems are compounded as computer hardware, application software, and even storage media become obsolete, as they may leave behind electronic records that can no longer be read. As a result, valuable government information may be lost. GAO was requested to testify, among other things, on NARA's recent actions to address the challenges of electronic records management, including its effort to address the problem of preserving electronic records by acquiring an advanced Electronic Records Archive (ERA)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since September 11, 2001, visa operations have played an increasingly important role in ensuring the national security of the United States. The Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Justice, as well as other agencies, are involved in the visa process. Each plays an important role in making security decisions so that potential terrorists do not enter the country. In two GAO reports, we assessed the effectiveness of the visa process as an antiterrorism tool."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) has had difficulty in conducting timely reviews of beneficiaries' cases to ensure they are still eligible for disability benefits. SSA has been taking steps to improve the cost-effectiveness of its review process. SSA has linked the review process to eligibility for a new benefit that provides return-to-work services. This testimony looks at SSA's ability to stay current with future reviews, identifies potential improvements to the review process, and assesses the review process--return-to-work link."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Providing benefits to disabled individuals is one of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) most important service delivery obligations--touching the lives of about 10 million individuals. In recent years, however, providing this benefit in a timely and efficient manner has become an increasing challenge for the agency. This past January, in fact, GAO designated SSA's disability programs as highrisk. Following a prior unsuccessful attempt, the agency is now in the midst of a major initiative to automate its disability claims functions, taking advantage of technology to improve this service. Seeking immediate program improvements, SSA is using an accelerated approach--called AeDib--to develop an electronic disability claims processing system. At the request of the Subcommittee on Social Security, House Committee on Ways and Means, GAO is currently assessing the strategy that underlies SSA's latest initiative to develop the electronic disability system. For this testimony, GAO was asked to discuss its key observations to date regarding the AeDib initiative, including strategy, risks, and stakeholder involvement. GAO plans to discuss more fully the results of this continuing review in a subsequent report"

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The potential losses that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), through its single-employer insurance program, might face from the termination of underfunded plans have been a longstanding concern of the Congress and GAO. In 1990, as part of our effort to call attention to high-risk areas in the federal government, we noted that weaknesses in the single-employer insurance program's financial condition threatened PBGC's longterm viability. We stated that minimum funding rules still did not ensure that plan sponsors would contribute enough for terminating plans to have sufficient assets to cover all promised benefits. In 1992, we also reported that PBGC had weaknesses in its internal controls and financial systems that placed the entire agency, and not just the single employer program, at risk. Three years later, we reported that legislation enacted in 1994 had strengthened PBGC's program weaknesses and that we believed improvements had been significant enough for us to remove the agency's high-risk designation. However, given the potential for significant changes in the program's position, we continued to monitor the situation. Early this year, PBGC's single-employer pension insurance program reported a $3.6 billion accumulated deficit …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Energy (DOE) oversees the treatment and disposal of 94 million gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear weapons program, currently at DOE sites in Washington, Idaho, and South Carolina. In 2002, DOE began an initiative to reduce the estimated $105-billion cost and 70-year time frame of this cleanup. GAO was asked to testify on the status of this initiative, the legal and technical challenges DOE faces in implementation, and any further opportunities to reduce costs or improve program management. GAO's testimony is based on a report (GAO-03-593) released at the hearing."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the Air Force's report on the planned lease of 100 Boeing 767 aircraft modified for aerial refueling. These aircraft would be known by a new designation, KC-767A. Section 8159 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002 authorizes the Air Force to lease up to 100 KC-767A aircraft. We received the report required by section 8159 when it was sent to the Congress on July 10. We subsequently received a briefing from the Air Force and some of the data needed to review the draft lease and lease versus purchase analysis. However, we were permitted to read the lease for the first time on July 18 but were not allowed to make a copy and so have not had time to fully review and analyze the terms of the draft lease. As a result, this testimony today will be based on very preliminary work. It will (1) describe the condition of the current aerial refueling fleet, (2) summarize the proposed lease as presented in the Air Force's recent report, (3) present our preliminary observations on the Air Force lease report, and (4) …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This letter provides GAO's response for the record to the question posed by Congress concerning whether GAO believes that the Department of Homeland Security should consolidate databases in order to enable the correlation of relationships in that data that can point to developing threats."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A recent report by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that racial and ethnic minority groups tend to receive a lower quality of health care than nonminorities, even when access-related factors such as income and insurance coverage are controlled. It concluded that the elimination of racial and ethnic health care disparities is a major challenge in the United States. Racial and ethnic minority groups identified by the federal government--American Indians or Alaska Natives, Asians, Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders--are expected to make up an increasingly large portion of the U.S. population in coming years. The federal government, primarily through programs under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), plays a major role in providing and financing health care for minority groups. HHS is also the primary federal entity involved in projects and research aimed at understanding and addressing disparities in health care. HHS has focused on racial and ethnic disparities in health access and outcomes in six areas: cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV infection/AIDS, immunizations, and infant mortality. …

This paper considers the potential impacts of climate change on protected areas (PAs) and actions that can be taken to mitigate them. Recent research suggests that the types of environmental changes predicted in climatic models are now taking place. Studies of many animals and plants that show significant alterations in range or behaviour find that the most consistent explanation for these is climate change. These impacts may necessitate a fundamental rethinking in the approach to protection. Protected areas are rooted in the concept of permanence: protection works best as a conservation tool if the area remains protected for the foreseeable future. But under climate change, species for which a particular protected area was established may no longer survive there. Some protected areas - for instance in coastal, arctic and mountain regions - may disappear altogether in their current form.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the Hutto Education Development Corporation may pay for construction of a hippopotamus statue as a promotional purpose (RQ-0038-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a legislator may engage ina business providing consulting, marketing, and public relation services to business clients that have dealings with local and federal officials and local governmental bodies (RQ-0016-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Occupations Code, section 1704.304, providing that certain persons may not recommend a bail bond surety, an attorney, or a law firm to a criminal defendant, precludes those persons from furnishing a list of attorneys or bail bond sureties (RQ-0022-GA)

Rohm and Haas conducted a plant-wide energy assessment at its Knoxville, Tennessee, chemicals manufacturing facility. The assessment identified potential annual energy savings of nearly 47,000 MMBtu in steam and fuel and 11,000 MWh in electricity. Annual cost savings were estimated at almost$1.5 million. After the assessment was replicated in California and Kentucky plants, the companys additional estimated cost savings were$500,000 annually. Additional annual energy savings were about 23,000 MMBtu and 6,000 MWh. The assessments also indicated the plants would reduce nitrous oxide emissions.

Augusta Newsprint undertook a plant-wide energy efficiency assessment of its Augusta, Georgia, plant in 2001. The assessment helped the company decide to implement five energy efficiency projects. Four of the five projects will save the company 11,000 MWh of electrical energy (about$369,000) each year. The remaining project will produce more than$300,000 annually, from sale of the byproduct turpentine. The largest annual savings,$881,000, will come from eliminating Kraft pulp by using better process control. All of the projects could be applied to other paper mills and most of the projects could be applied in other industries.