Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a request by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, for GAO's views on the need for postal reform and is based upon prior testimonies related to this issue. Since the Postal Service's transformation efforts and financial outlook had been placed on GAO's High-Risk List in April 2001, the Comptroller General has testified on several occasions about the governance, financial, operational, and human capital challenges that threaten the Service's ability to carry out its mission. If not effectively addressed in a timely manner, these challenges serve to threaten the Service's ability to remain self-supporting while providing affordable, high-quality, and universal postal services to all Americans."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "China's 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) required China to reform its economy and trade practices. As part of ongoing work, GAO reviewed how the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, and State pursued China's WTO compliance in 2003. Specifically, this report (1) discusses the scope and disposition of China's compliance problems, (2) reviews the U.S. government's bilateral and multilateral approaches for resolving these problems, (3) assesses the key agencies' strategies and plans for ensuring compliance, and (4) assesses how the agencies have adapted their staff resources to conduct compliance activities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The safety of the nation's flying public depends, in large part, on the aviation industry's compliance with safety regulations and the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) enforcement of those regulations when violations occur. FAA attempts to gain the industry's compliance through enforcement tools, including levying fines and suspending or revoking operating certificates, and partnership programs that allow participating companies or individuals to self-report violations of safety regulations and mitigate or avoid fines or other legal actions. GAO was asked to assess how FAA uses its enforcement options to address noncompliance and what management controls are in place to ensure that enforcement efforts and partnership programs result in compliance with aviation safety regulations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is attempting to integrate 22 federal agencies, each specializing in one or more interrelated aspects of homeland security. An enterprise architecture is a key tool for effectively and efficiently accomplishing this. In September 2003, DHS issued an initial version of its architecture. Since 2002, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued various components of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), which is intended to be, among other things, a framework for informing the content of agencies' enterprise architectures. GAO was asked to determine whether the initial version of DHS's architecture (1) provides a foundation upon which to build and (2) is aligned with the FEA."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) enforces the rights of federal employees and applicants for federal employment under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994. USERRA provides for the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees who leave their employment to perform military service. USERRA also prohibits discrimination against persons because of their military service. In light of the significant number of National Guard members and reservists serving in the war in Iraq and in other conflicts who will be demobilized and returning to the federal workforce in the coming months, the Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, asked us to review issues surrounding enforcement of the act in the federal sector, particularly by OSC. Under USERRA, a federal employee or applicant who believes that his or her USERRA rights have been violated may file a claim with the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), which investigates and attempts to resolve the claim. If VETS cannot resolve the claim, the individual may request that it be referred to OSC. In addition to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the passage of the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998 (CUMAA), many in the credit union industry have sought legislative changes to the net worth ratio central to prompt corrective action (PCA). The current debate centers on the issue of allowing federally insured credit unions to include additional forms of capital within the definition of net worth. In light of the issues surrounding the debate, GAO reviewed (1) the underlying concerns that have prompted the credit union industry's interest in making changes to the current capital requirements, (2) the issues associated with the potential use of secondary capital in all federally insured credit unions, and (3) the issues associated with the potential use of risk-based capital in all federally insured credit unions."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a Congressional request for information on trends in prices for prescription drugs frequently used by Medicare beneficiaries and other individual with health insurance. We obtained data from two state pharmaceutical assistance programs for the elderly on the usual and customary prices reported by retail pharmacies for selected drugs. The usual and customary price is the undiscounted price individuals without drug coverage would pay. We tracked monthly price trends from January 2000 through June 2004 for a total of 99 drugs, which include 77 drugs frequently used by certain Medicare enrollees and 79 drugs frequently used by certain non-Medicare enrollees. We also compared the price trends during this period separately for the 52 brand drugs and 47 generic drugs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, the Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) managed about $60 billion in new financial aid. In 1998, the Congress designated FSA as a performance-based organization. In so doing, it specified purposes for the agency, such as to reduce program costs and increase accountability of its officials, and provided flexibilities such as allowing FSA to pay bonuses. Also FSA is required to annually prepare a performance plan and report and have performance agreements for its senior officials. Past reviews revealed serious problems and concerns about FSA's management. In January 2003, GAO reported that FSA had made progress but had not sufficiently addressed some key management issues. Also, GAO noted that FSA, like other agencies needed to address human capital issues. GAO assessed FSA's progress in (1) addressing key management issues and meeting requirements for planning and reporting, and (2) developing a human capital strategy and increasing the accountability of its officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For more than 30 years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has worked to achieve full visibility over and accessibility to its spare parts inventory. This initiative, called total asset visibility (TAV), aims to provide timely, accurate information on the location, movement, status, and identity of units, personnel, equipment, and supplies. In 1999, GAO examined DOD's TAV implementation approach and recommended that DOD develop a strategic plan to guide its efforts. DOD did not concur and stated it would rely on the components to individually achieve TAV. DOD's current target to achieve TAV is 2010. As requested, GAO examined DOD's progress towards, and impediments to, achieving TAV over its spare parts inventory. GAO also assessed DOD's progress in ensuring that its inventory management systems comply with federal financial management standards."

A chapter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In light of the passage of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and increased competition within the financial services industry at home and abroad, GAO was asked to report on the current state of the U.S. financial services regulatory structure. This report describes the changes to the financial services industry, focusing on banking, securities, futures, and insurance; the structure of the U.S. and other regulatory systems; changes in regulatory and supervisory approaches; efforts to foster communication and cooperation among U.S. and other regulators; and the strengths and weaknesses of the current regulatory structure."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of increased awareness of threats to national security and efforts to privatize federal jobs, the demand for security clearances for government and industry personnel has increased. Industry personnel are taking on a greater role in national security work for the Department of Defense (DOD) and other federal agencies. Because many of these jobs require access to classified information, industry personnel need security clearances. As of September 30, 2003, industry workers held about one-third of the approximately 2 million DOD-issued security clearances. Terrorist attacks have heightened national security concerns and underscored the need for a timely, high-quality personnel security clearance process. However, GAO's past work found that DOD had a clearance backlog and other problems with its process. GAO was asked to review the clearance eligibility determination process and backlog for industry personnel. This testimony presents our preliminary observations on the security clearance process for industry personnel and describes (1) the size of the backlog and changes in the time needed to issue eligibility determinations, (2) the impediments to reducing the backlog and delays, and (3) some of the initiatives that DOD is considering to eliminate the backlog …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The D.C. Family Court Act (P.L. 107-114) mandated that GAO examine the performance of the D.C. Family Court. GAO addressed the following objectives: (1) What procedures were used to make judicial appointments to the Family Court and what effect did qualification requirements have on appointment timeframes? (2) How timely was the Family Court in meeting established timeframes for transferring and resolving abuse and neglect cases, and what impact did magistrate judges have on the workload of judges and other personnel? (3) What progress has the D.C. Courts made in procuring permanent space? And (4) What progress have the Superior Court and District agencies made in sharing data from their computer systems? To address these objectives, GAO analyzed court data on its timeliness in resolving cases, reviewed the Family Court Act, applicable District laws, and reports required by the act; reviewed documents regarding the Family Court's progress in acquiring permanent space and those related to sharing data from the computer systems of the Superior Court and the District; and interviewed relevant District, Superior Court, and Family Court officials. In commenting on this report, the Superior Court agreed …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government is interested in the use of smart cards--credit card-like devices that use integrated circuit chips to store and process data--for improving the security of its many physical and information assets. Besides providing better authentication of the identities of people accessing buildings and computer systems, smart cards offer a number of other potential benefits and uses, such as creating electronic passenger lists for deploying military personnel and tracking immunization and other medical records. Over the past 2 years, GAO has studied and reported on the uses of smart cards across the federal government. Congress requested that GAO testify on federal agencies' efforts in adopting smart card technology--based on the results of this prior work--and on the specific actions that the Department of Veterans Affairs is taking to implement smart card technology."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO summarized the results of its investigation, performed at Congress' request, of street narcotic sales in the vicinity of certain drug rehabilitation clinics in the District of Colombia. To obtain an overview of the problem, we conducted physical surveillance of five clinics in the District of Columbia and interviewed clinic personnel and law enforcement officials. In brief, we found that a significant amount of illegal drug trafficking activity takes place around these clinics. Patients frequently must navigate their way through a virtual bazaar of illegal drug dealing when they enter and exit the facilities."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative called the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that provides funds to increase the quality of visitor experience and enhance resource protection. Under the program, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service--all within the Department of the Interior--and the Forest Service--within the U.S. Department of Agriculture--are authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees at a number of sites to, among other things, address a backlog of repair and maintenance needs. Also, sites may retain and use the fees they collect. The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether to make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively the agencies are using the revenues that they have collected. This testimony focuses on the potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the issues GAO raised previously in its work on the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. Specifically, it examines the extent to which H.R. 3283 would affect (1) federal agencies' deferred maintenance programs, (2) the management and distribution of the revenue collected, and (3) interagency coordination on fee collection and use."

BRAC 2005 Intelligence Joint Cross-Service Group Meeting Minutes of October 6, 2004. The document is redacted and includes the IJCSG Principals Meeting brief (PowerPoint slides).

Above-boiling temperature conditions, as encountered, forexample, in geothermal reservoirs and in geologic repositories for thestorage of heat-producing nuclear wastes, may give rise to stronglyaltered liquid and gas flow processes in porous subsurface environments.The magnitude of such flow perturbation is extremely hard to measure inthe field. We therefore propose a simple temperature-profile method thatuses high-resolution temperature data for deriving such information. Theenergy that is transmitted with the vapor and water flow creates a nearlyisothermal zone maintained at about the boiling temperature, referred toas a heat pipe. Characteristic features of measured temperature profiles,such as the differences in the gradients inside and outside of the heatpipe regions, are used to derive the approximate magnitude of the liquidand gas fluxes in the subsurface, for both steady-state and transientconditions.

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 home-rule city may extend a Tax Code, chapter 311 reinvestment zone’s termination date beyond the date provided in the ordinance designating the zone (RQ-0238-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; Consequences for a municipality if five of it's seven council members are removed at a recall election (RQ-0156-GA)

Geometries and energy separations of the various low-lying electronic states of Nb{sub n} and Nb{sub n}{sup -} (n = 4, 5) clusters with various structural arrangements have been investigated. The complete active space multi-configuration self-consistent field (CASMCSCF) method followed by multi-reference singles and doubles configuration interaction (MRSDCI) calculations that included up to 52 million configuration spin functions have been used to compute several electronic states of these clusters. The ground states of both Nb{sub 4} ({sup 1}A', pyramidal) and Nb{sub 4}{sup -} ({sup 2}B{sub 3g}, rhombus) are low-spin states at the MRSDCI level. The ground state of Nb{sub 5} cluster is a doublet with a distorted trigonal bipyramid (DTB) structure. The anionic cluster of Nb{sub 5} has two competitive ground states with singlet and triplet multiplicities (DTB). The low-lying electronic states of these clusters have been found to be distorted due to Jahn-Teller effect. On the basis of the energy separations of our computed electronic states of Nb{sub 4} and Nb{sub 5}, we have assigned the observed photoelectron spectrum of Nb{sub n}{sup -}(n = 4, 5) clusters. We have also compared our MRSDCI results with density functional calculations. The electron affinity, ionization potential, dissociation and atomization energies of Nb{sub 4} …

A survey of the technical literature was performed to summarize the mechanical properties of inorganic components in K Basins sludge. The components included gibbsite, ferrihydrite, lepidocrocite and goethite, hematite, quartz, anorthite, calcite, basalt, Zircaloy, aluminum, and, in particular, irradiated uranium metal and uranium dioxide. Review of the technical literature showed that information on the hardness of uranium metal at irradiation exposures similar to those experienced by the N Reactor fuel present in the K Basins (typically up to 3000 MWd/t) were not available. Measurements therefore were performed to determine the hardness of coupons taken from three irradiated N Reactor uranium metal fuel elements taken from K Basins. Hardness values averaged 30 {+-} 8 Rockwell C units, similar to values previously reported for uranium irradiated to {approx}1200 MWd/t. The physical properties of candidate uranium metal and uranium dioxide surrogates were gathered and compared. Surrogates having properties closest to those of irradiated uranium metal appear to be alloys of tungsten. The surrogate for uranium dioxide, present both as particles and agglomerates in actual K Basin sludge, likely requires two materials. Cerium oxide, CeO2, was identified as a surrogate of the smaller UO2 particles while steel grit was identified for the UO2 agglomerates.

During the last quarter of FY2004, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) conducted a brief study of power plant options for a z-pinch-based inertial fusion energy (Z-IFE) power plant. Areas that were covered include chamber design, thick-liquid response, neutronics and activation, and systems studies. This report summarizes the progress made in each of these areas, provides recommendations for improvements to the basic design concept, and identifies future work that is needed. As a starting point to the LLNL studies, we have taken information provided in several publications and presentations. In particular, many of the basic parameters were taken from the ZP-3 study, which is described in reference 4. The ZP-3 design called for 12 separate target chambers, with any 10 of them operating at a given time. Each chamber would be pulsed at a repetition rate of 0.1 Hz with a target yield of 3 GJ. Thus, each chamber would have a fusion power of 300 MW for a power plant total of 3000 MW. The ZP-3 study considered several options for the recyclable transmission lines (RTL). Early in the study, the LLNL group questioned the use of many chambers as well as the yield limitation of 3 GJ. The feeling …

This report discusses privilege under the Court Recognition of Fifth Amendment Protection for Acts of Production. The privilege covers an individual’s actions rather than his speech or writing, yet many incriminating actions such as providing a blood sample or a handwriting sample are ordinarily not protected because they are not testimonial.

We have measured the polarization of the heliumlike sulfur resonance line 1s2p {sup 1}P{sub 1} {yields} 1s{sup 2} {sup 1}S{sub 0}, and of the blend of the lithiumlike sulfur resonance lines 1s2s2p {sup 2}P{sub 3/2} {yields} 1s{sup 2}2s {sup 2}S{sub 1/2} and 1s2s2p {sup 2}P{sub 1/2} {yields} 1s{sup 2}2s {sup 2}S{sub 1/2} as a function of electron beam energy from near threshold to 144 keV. These lines were excited with the LLNL high-energy electron beam ion trap and measured using a newly modified two-crystal technique. Our results test polarization predictions in an energy regime where few empirical results have been reported. We also present calculations of the polarization using two different methods, and good agreement is obtained.