A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2007, the Department of the Interior (Interior) collected about $10.5 billion in revenues from companies that hold federal oil and gas leases. Interior's Minerals Management Service manages offshore leases, while its Bureau of Land Management manages onshore leases and leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Acquiring a federal lease gives the lessee the rights to explore for and develop the oil and gas resources under the lease. Development entails many tasks, including drilling wells and building pipelines that may lead to oil and gas production. GAO agreed to (1)describe Interior's efforts to encourage development of federal oil and gas leases and compare them to states' and private landowners' efforts, (2)examine trends in leasing and factors that may affect development, and (3) describe development on a sample of leases. GAO reviewed data on about 55,000 leases and spoke to officials at Interior and in eight states with leasing experience, among others."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied extensively on contractors to carry out a range of services in Iraq and Afghanistan. While recognizing the benefits of using contractors, GAO and others have noted the challenges and risks associated with an increased reliance on contractors and the ability of agencies to manage their growing number of contractors. As directed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, GAO analyzed DOD, State, and USAID data on contracting activities in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2007 and the first half of fiscal year 2008 including (1) the number and value of contracts and the extent they were awarded competitively; (2) the number of contractor personnel, including those performing security functions; and (3) the number of contractor personnel who were killed or wounded. GAO also reviewed the status of the three agencies' memorandum of understanding (MOU) related to maintaining data on contracts and contractor personnel. GAO reviewed selected contract files and compared personnel data to other available sources to assess the reliability of the data reported …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) are designed to help improve stability in Afghanistan and Iraq by increasing the host nation's capacity to govern; enhancing economic viability; and strengthening local governments' ability to deliver public services, such as security and health care. PRTs are a means of coordinating interagency diplomatic, economic, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency efforts among various U.S. agencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. PRTs are intended to be interim structures; after a PRT has achieved its goal of improving stability, it may be dismantled to allow traditional development efforts to occur. In Afghanistan, the first PRTs were created in 2002 with the mission of facilitating security and reconstruction by helping the central government extend its authority to the provinces. Since then, PRTs have expanded their purpose to include strengthening local governance and community development. In Iraq, PRTs were initiated in 2005 with the mission to increase the capacity of provincial and local governments to govern effectively and, for newer embedded PRTs (ePRT), to support moderates and assist in the military's counterinsurgency efforts. To accomplish their missions, PRTs engage in and fund a variety of activities, such as developing the …