A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) performs critical functions that contribute to ensuring safe, orderly, and efficient air travel in the national airspace system. To that end, it operates and relies extensively on an array of interconnected automated information systems and networks that comprise the nation's air traffic control systems. These systems provide information to air traffic controllers and aircraft flight crews to help ensure the safe and expeditious movement of aircraft. Interruptions of service by these systems could have a significant adverse impact on air traffic nationwide. Effective information security controls are essential for ensuring that the nation's air traffic control systems are adequately protected from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, disruption, or destruction. Accordingly, GAO was asked to evaluate the extent to which FAA has implemented information security controls for these systems."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In January 2002, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) initiated the Container Security Initiative (CSI) to address the threat that terrorists might use maritime cargo containers to ship weapons of mass destruction. Under CSI, CBP is to target and inspect high-risk cargo shipments at foreign seaports before they leave for destinations in the United States. In July 2003, GAO reported that CSI had management challenges that limited its effectiveness. Given these challenges and in light of plans to expand the program, GAO examined selected aspects of the program's operation, including the (1) factors that affect CBP's ability to target shipments at foreign seaports, (2) extent to which high-risk containers have actually been inspected overseas, and (3) extent to which CBP formulated and documented strategies for achieving the program's goals."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has expressed concerns about servicemembers' use of predatory consumer loans as well as their overall financial conditions. "Predatory lending" has no precise definition but describes cases where a lender takes unfair advantage of a borrower, sometimes through deception, fraud, or terms such as very high interest or fees. Serious financial problems can adversely affect unit morale and readiness as well as servicemembers' credit history and military career. DOD has tools such as off-limits lists to help curb the use and effects of predatory loans. GAO answered two questions: (1) To what extent do active duty servicemembers use consumer loans considered to be predatory in nature? and (2) Are DOD and active duty servicemembers fully utilizing the tools that DOD has to curb the use and effects of predatory lending practices?"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) operates 59 elementary and secondary schools serving over a dozen military bases in the continental United States Periodically, questions have been raised concerning the continuing need for such schools. In 2002, DOD commissioned the Donahue Institute of the University of Massachusetts to examine the potential for transferring these schools to local education agencies (LEAs). GAO's assessment focused on (1) the extent to which DOD has established a school closure policy and the effect such policies have on quality-of-life issues for servicemembers and their dependents; and (2) the transfer study, including the clarity of the basis for conclusions reached, the overall financial impact, and issues identified but not resolved by the study. GAO's report also identifies issues not addressed in the transfer study that could impact the future of DOD's domestic schools."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Increasing computer interconnectivity has revolutionized the way that our government, our nation, and much of the world communicate and conduct business. While the benefits have been enormous, this widespread interconnectivity also poses significant risks to our nation's computer systems and, more importantly, to the critical operations and infrastructures they support. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 and federal policy established DHS as the focal point for coordinating activities to protect the computer systems that support our nation's critical infrastructures. GAO was asked to determine (1) DHS's roles and responsibilities for cyber critical infrastructure protection, (2) the status and adequacy of DHS's efforts to fulfill these responsibilities, and (3) the challenges DHS faces in fulfilling its cybersecurity responsibilities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Established in 1934 to enforce the securities laws and protect investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of the U.S. securities markets. Pursuant to the Accountability for Tax Dollars Act of 2002, the SEC is required to prepare and submit to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget audited financial statements. GAO agreed, under its audit authority, to perform the initial audit of SEC's financial statements. GAO's audit was done to determine whether, in all material respects, (1) SEC's fiscal year 2004 financial statements were reliable, (2) SEC's management maintained effective internal control over financial reporting and compliance with laws and regulations, and (3) SEC's management complied with applicable laws and regulations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies spend billions of dollars every year on information technology and are increasingly using performance-based contracting methods where agencies specify desired outcomes and allow contractors to design the best solutions to achieve those outcomes. Share-in-savings contracting is one such method under which a contractor provides funding for a project, and the agency compensates the contractor from any savings derived as a result of contract performance. The E-Government Act of 2002 authorized the use of share-in-savings contracting for information technology and required implementing regulations by mid-September 2003. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reported in December 2004 that no share-in-savings contracts had been awarded. The act's authority expires in September 2005. The act required GAO to assess the effectiveness of share-in-savings contracts. Because no such contracts have been awarded, GAO cannot provide an assessment. Instead, GAO reviewed the status of regulations and tools available to agencies in developing these contracts and identified the reasons agencies have not used the authority provided by the act. OMB and the General Services Administration (GSA) generally agreed with GAO's report."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since its creation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has operated passenger aircraft services. These operations have been questioned in several prior audit reports. GAO was asked to perform a series of audits of NASA's controls to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. In this audit, GAO assessed (1) the relative cost of NASA passenger aircraft services in comparison with commercial costs, (2) whether NASA aircraft services were retained and operated in accordance with governmentwide guidance, and (3) the effectiveness of NASA's oversight and management of this program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Emerging domestic and international threats have generated a growing interest in the use of less-than-lethal weapons by government and law enforcement agencies and other entities such as commercial airlines. One such weapon--the Taser--is a hand-held weapon that delivers an electric shock via two stainless steel barbs, effectively incapacitating an individual. According to the manufacturer--Taser International, Incorporated (Taser International)--Tasers are currently used by over 7,000 of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, with more than 140,000 Tasers in use by police officers in the field and an additional 100,000 Tasers owned by civilians worldwide. Tasers have been used on over 100,000 volunteers, including individuals involved in training seminars and research experiments, and involved in over 70,000 actual field uses during police encounters. In light of the expanding interest in the Taser, GAO was asked to provide information on (1) the policies and procedures related to the issues of "use-of-force," training, operations, and safety for selected law enforcement agencies that have purchased and used Tasers and (2) federal, state, and local laws that specifically address Tasers, including the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) authority to regulate …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the years, Congress has enacted a variety of laws designed to encourage federal agencies to purchase U.S. supplies and services. These laws are commonly referred to as domestic preference laws or domestic source restrictions. Perhaps the best known of these laws is the Buy American Act, a 1933 law that established a statutory preference for U.S. supplies and construction materials. At the same time, Congress has approved a number of international agreements that open certain government procurements to goods and services from countries that are parties to those agreements. In addition, the Department of Defense (DOD) has entered into reciprocal procurement memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with some of its foreign counterparts, under which DOD may procure goods and services from those countries. Congress asked us to determine the effect of international agreements on the applicability of U.S. domestic source restrictions. In response, this report (1) identifies the current international trade agreements to which the U.S. is a party that contain government procurement provisions, as well as the reciprocal defense procurement MOUs, and (2) describes how these trade agreements and MOUs affect the applicability of selected …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Several provisions of federal law allow for or require certain federal benefits to be denied to individuals convicted of drug offenses in federal or state courts. These benefits include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, federally assisted housing, postsecondary education assistance, and some federal contracts and licenses. Given the sizable population of drug offenders in the United States, the number and the impacts of federal denial of benefit provisions may be particularly important if the operations of these provisions work at cross purposes with recent federal initiatives intended to ease prisoner reentry and foster prisoner reintegration into society. GAO analyzed (1) for selected years, the number and percentage of drug offenders that were estimated to be denied federal postsecondary education and federally assisted housing benefits and federal grants, contracts, and licenses and (2) the factors affecting whether drug offenders would have been eligible to receive TANF and food stamp benefits, but for their drug offense convictions, and for a recent year, the percentage of drug offenders released who would have been eligible to receive these benefits. Several agencies reviewed a draft of this report, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2005, Americans will pay about $2.1 trillion in combined federal taxes, including income, payroll, and excise taxes, or about 16.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, the amount of taxes paid does not reflect the total cost to taxpayers of the federal tax system. In addition to taxes paid, taxpayers also bear compliance costs and efficiency costs. Understanding the magnitude of these additional costs is important because every dollar spent on compliance and lost due to inefficiency represents a dollar that society could have spent for other purposes. In response to a congressional request for information on the magnitude of the compliance and efficiency costs of the current federal tax system, this study describes the nature of these costs, presents the difficulties associated with estimating them, and summarizes existing estimates of their magnitude. GAO did not make independent estimates of compliance or efficiency costs nor did we replicate any of the studies. GAO is not making any recommendations in this report."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Between fiscal years 2001 and 2004, the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA) provided over $1 billion funded from import duties to U.S. companies deemed injured by unfair trade. Some supporters state CDSOA helps U.S. companies compete in the face of continuing unfair trade. Some opponents believe CDSOA recipients receive a large, unjustified windfall from the U.S. treasury. Also, 11 World Trade Organization (WTO) members lodged a complaint over the law at the WTO. This report assesses (1) key legal requirements guiding and affecting agency implementation of CDSOA; (2) problems, if any, U.S. agencies have faced in implementing CDSOA; and (3) which companies have received CDSOA payments and their effects for recipients and non-recipients; and describes (4) the status of WTO decisions on CDSOA."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "With the number of airplane passengers using U.S. airports expected to grow to almost 1 billion by the year 2015, ground access to U.S. airports has become an important factor in the development of our nation's transportation networks. Increases in the number of passengers traveling to and from airports will place greater strains on our nation's airport access roads and airport capacity, which can have a number of negative economic and social effects. U.S. transportation policy has generally addressed these negative economic and social effects from the standpoint of individual transportation modes and local government involvement. However, European transportation policy is increasingly focusing on intermodal transportation as a possible means to address congestion without sacrificing economic growth. This report addresses the development of intermodal capabilities at U.S. airports, including (1) the roles of different levels of government and the private sector; (2) the extent such facilities have been developed; (3) benefits, costs, and barriers to such development; and (4) strategies to improve these capabilities. GAO provided a draft of this report to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Amtrak. DOT generally concurred with the report, and …

A chapter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1984, wildland fires have burned an average of more than 850 homes each year in the United States and, because more people are moving into fire-prone areas bordering wildlands, the number of homes at risk is likely to grow. The primary responsibility for ensuring that preventive steps are taken to protect homes lies with homeowners and state and local governments, not the federal government. Although losses from wildland fires made up only 2 percent of all insured catastrophic losses from 1983 through 2002, fires can result in billions of dollars in damages. Once a wildland fire starts, various parties can be mobilized to fight it, including federal, state, local, and tribal firefighting agencies and, in some cases, the military. The ability to communicate among all parties--known as interoperability--is essential but, as GAO has reported previously, is hampered because different public safety agencies operate on different radio frequencies or use incompatible communications equipment. GAO was asked to assess, among other issues, (1) measures that can help protect structures from wildland fires, (2) factors affecting use of protective measures, and (3) the role technology plays in improving …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress and the Department of Defense (DOD) are concerned about the financial conditions of servicemembers and their families, particularly in light of recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Serious financial issues can negatively affect unit readiness. According to DOD, servicemembers with severe financial problems risk losing security clearances, incurring administrative or criminal penalties or, in some cases, face discharge. Despite increases in compensation and DOD programs on personal financial management (PFM), studies show that servicemembers, particularly junior enlisted personnel, continue to report financial difficulties. GAO assessed (1) the extent deployment impacts the financial condition of active duty servicemembers and their families, (2) whether DOD has an oversight framework for evaluating military programs designed to assist deployed and non-deployed servicemembers in managing their finances, and (3) the extent junior enlisted servicemembers receive required PFM training."

This cleanup verification package documents completion of remedial action for the 300-18 waste site. This site was identified as containing radiologically contaminated soil, metal shavings, nuts, bolts, and concrete.

A simplified mechanical model is used to simulate the deformation of a scoria cone due to pressurization of magma in a feeder conduit. The scoria cone is modeled as consisting of a cone of stabilized scoria with an axial region of loose scoria (height h{sub 1}), all overlying a vertically oriented cylindrical conduit intruded into rhyolite tuff country rock. For our analyses, the conduit is filled with basalt magma, usually with the upper length (h{sub 2}) solidified. The style of deformation of the cone depends on both h{sub 1} and h{sub 2}. If magma is prevented from hydrofracturing out of the conduit (as, for example, might be the case if the magma is surrounded by a solidified, but plastically deformable layer acting as a gasket backed up by the brittle country rock) pressures in the magma can build to 10s of MPa. When h{sub 1} is 100 m, not unusual for a small isolated basaltic cinder cone, the magma pressure needed to destabilize the cone when molten magma extends all the way to the original ground surface (h{sub 2} = 0) is only about one-third of the pressure when the upper part of the conduit is solidified (h{sub 2} = …

A probabilistic analysis was conducted to estimate ranges for the numbers of waste packages that could be damaged in a potential future igneous event through a repository at Yucca Mountain. The analyses include disruption from an intrusive igneous event and from an extrusive volcanic event. This analysis supports the evaluation of the potential consequences of future igneous activity as part of the total system performance assessment for the license application for the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP). The first scenario, igneous intrusion, investigated the case where one or more igneous dikes intersect the repository. A swarm of dikes was characterized by distributions of length, width, azimuth, and number of dikes and the spacings between them. Through the use in part of a latin hypercube simulator and a modified video game engine, mathematical relationships were built between those parameters and the number of waste packages hit. Corresponding cumulative distribution function curves (CDFs) for the number of waste packages hit under several different scenarios were calculated. Variations in dike thickness ranges, as well as in repository magma bulkhead positions were examined through sensitivity studies. It was assumed that all waste packages in an emplacement drift would be impacted if that drift were intersected …

Eruptive conduit geometry has direct relation to number of waste packages that would be damaged if a new volcano were to form at the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository, and therefore is a key factor in predicting the consequences of such an eruption. Current risk calculations treat conduits as having circular plan view and range from a few meters to 150 m diameter at repository depths ({approx}300 m). We present new observations of shallow basaltic plumbing at analog sites aimed at testing these parameter values. East Grants Ridge. NM, is a remnant of a {approx}2.6 Ma alkali basaltic volcano with a chain of 2-3 vents that fed {approx}10-km long lava flows. The south side of the ridge exposes a plug of vertically jointed, dense basalt that intruded rhyolitic tuffs. The plug is exposed vertically for {approx}125 m, including 40 m beneath the paleosurface, and has a relatively constant width of {approx}135 m with no indication of downward narrowing. The size of the plug in the third dimension is not well known but could extend laterally up to {approx}1.5 km beneath the chain of vents. Paiute Ridge, NV, is an 8.6 Ma alkali basalt intrusion into Paleozoic carbonate and shale …

Formation of desert pavement and accretionary soils are intimately linked in arid environments such as the Mojave Desert. Well-sorted fallout scoria lapilli at Lathrop Wells (75-80 ky) and Red Cone ({approx}1 Ma) volcanoes (southern Nevada) formed an excellent starting material for pavement, allowing infiltration of eolian silt and fine sand that first clogs the pore space of underlying tephra and then aggrades and develops vesicular A (Av) horizons. Variations in original pyroclast sizes provide insight into minimum and maximum clast sizes that promote pavement and soil formation: pavement becomes ineffective when clasts can saltate under the strongest winds, while clasts larger than coarse lapilli are unable to form an interlocking pavement that promotes silt accumulation (necessary for Av development). Contrary to predictions that all pavements above altitudes of {approx}400 m would have been ''reset'' in their development after late Pleistocene vegetation advances (about 15 ka), the soils and pavements show clear differences in maturity between the two volcanoes. This indicates that either the pavements/soils develop slowly over many 10,000's of years and then are very stable, or that, if they are disrupted by vegetation advances, subsequent pavements are reestablished with successively more mature characteristics.

The objective of the proposed work is to develop an intelligent distributed fiber optical sensor system for real-time monitoring of high temperature in a boiler furnace in power plants. Of particular interest is the estimation of spatial and temporal distributions of high temperatures within a boiler furnace, which will be essential in assessing and controlling the mechanisms that form and remove pollutants at the source, such as NOx. The basic approach in developing the proposed sensor system is three fold: (1) development of high temperature distributed fiber optical sensor capable of measuring temperatures greater than 2000 C degree with spatial resolution of less than 1 cm; (2) development of distributed parameter system (DPS) models to map the three-dimensional (3D) temperature distribution for the furnace; and (3) development of an intelligent monitoring system for real-time monitoring of the 3D boiler temperature distribution. Under Task 1, we set up a dedicated high power, ultrafast laser system for fabricating in-fiber gratings in harsh environment optical fibers, successfully fabricated gratings in single crystal sapphire fibers by the high power laser system, and developed highly sensitive long period gratings (lpg) by electric arc. Under Task 2, relevant mathematical modeling studies of NOx formation in practical …

The method selected for dealing with spent nuclear fuel in the US is to seal the fuel in waste packages and then to place them in an underground repository at the Yucca Mountain Site in Nevada. This article describes the Waste Package Closure System (WPCS) currently being designed for sealing the waste packages.

This cleanup verification package documents completion of interim remedial action for the 600-47 waste site. This site consisted of several areas of surface debris and contamination near the banks of the Columbia River across from Johnson Island. Contaminated material identified in field surveys included four areas of soil, wood, nuts, bolts, and other metal debris.