Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) is the federal government's largest purchaser of contractor-provided services and relies on contractors to support its varied missions. DOD's contractors provide a range of services, such as consulting and administrative support, information technology services, and weapon system and base operations support. However, DOD contract management has been on our high-risk list since 1992, and our recent work continues to identify weaknesses in DOD's management and oversight of services contracts. In particular, we have reported on the need for reliable data on how service acquisition dollars are spent to make informed contract management decisions and achieve positive acquisition outcomes. Congress has enacted legislation in recent years to increase the availability of information on services acquisitions to improve DOD's ability to manage these purchases. As part of those efforts, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 amended 10 U.S.C. 2330a to require DOD to submit an annual inventory of the activities performed pursuant to contracts for services for or on behalf of DOD during the preceding fiscal year. These inventories are to contain a number of different elements for the service contracts listed, …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Nonprofit organizations, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), play an important role in providing a wide range of public services. To provide these services, these organizations rely on funding through federal grants and contracts, among other sources. Just as it is important for federal agencies to be held accountable for the efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars, it is also important for these nonprofit organizations to be held accountable for their use of federal funds. ACORN was established in 1970 as a grassroots organization to advocate for low-income families. By 2009, ACORN reportedly had 500,000 members and had expanded into a national network of organizations involved in the development of affordable housing, foreclosure counseling, voter registration, and political mobilization, among other things. ACORN organizations relied on membership dues and on federal and private foundation funding to support various activities. Voter registration fraud allegations in a number of states and widely distributed videotapes depicting what appeared to be inappropriate behavior by employees of several local ACORN chapters spurred calls to identify federal funding provided to ACORN and ACORN-related organizations and for legislation to …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Terrorist attacks on mass transit and commuter rail facilities in Moscow, Madrid, London, and Mumbai, and the significant loss of life and disruption they caused, have highlighted the vulnerability of transportation facilities to terrorism and the need for greater focus on securing these facilities, including intermodal transportation terminals. Such intermodal transportation terminals--locations where multiple modes or types of passengers or cargo transportation connect an merge--are potentially high value targets for terrorists because the large number of passengers or volume of cargo can lead to significant loss of human life and economic disruption. For example, New York City's Pennsylvania ("Penn") Station, the nation's busiest rail station, functions as an intermodal hub for Amtrak, two ma commuter rail lines (New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road), as well as six city subway routes. According to Amtrak, an average of 500,000 passengers the station daily. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has primary responsibility for homeland security, including transportation security, under the Homeland Security Act. Within DHS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has primary responsibility for securing the aviation and surface transportation sectors. The Department of Transportation (DOT) supports …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) leads detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States in support of law enforcement agencies. Additionally, DOD's counternarcotics activities include sharing information with U.S. and foreign agencies, as well as helping foreign countries build their counternarcotics capacity. In support of these activities, Congress provided just over $6.1 billion to DOD's Counternarcotics Central Transfer Account from fiscal year 2005 through 2010. In November 2005, GAO recommended that DOD, in conjunction with other agencies performing counternarcotics activities, develop and coordinate counternarcotics performance measures. GAO has found that measuring performance allows organizations to track the progress they are making toward their goals and provides managers a basis for making key decisions to improve programs and results. In May 2007, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) released a circular that required agencies, including DOD, to submit a report on their performance-related information for counternarcotics activities, including how the agency's performance measures are used in the management of the program. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. No. 111-84, 1016) mandated that GAO report on …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter is our response to a congressional request concerning carbon trading in the United States and various design and implementation issues to be considered in discussions about a possible national carbon trading program. Industrial activities in the United States emit significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases each year, substantially affecting the earth's climate, according to the National Academy of Sciences. In an effort to reduce these emissions, some have suggested capping emissions and allowing them to be traded in secondary markets just as other commodities are traded. We briefed congressional committee staff on the results of our work on July 23, 2010. Specifically, we provided information on (1) carbon-related products currently traded in the United States and the extent of trading; (2) risks and challenges posed by these products; (3) the extent to which and how these products are regulated; and (4) issues that market observers identified for policymaker consideration as part of creating a national cap-and-trade carbon market."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Combating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery is one of the greatest challenges the United States faces. Traditionally, the use of WMD--which include chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons--has been constrained by the logic of deterrence and of diplomacy, but these constraints may be of less utility in preventing the use of WMD by rogue states or terrorist groups. The Department of Defense (DOD) assigns top priority to dissuading, deterring, and defeating those who seek to harm the United States directly, especially extremist enemies with WMD. In 1994, Congress established an interagency committee, now known as the Counterproliferation Program Review Committee (CPRC), with a variety of duties related to coordinating the activities and programs of federal agencies that address improvements in the U.S. government's efforts to combat WMD. The Secretary of Defense, as chairman of the CPRC, is required to report its findings biennially. The Departments of Energy, State, and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are also members of the CPRC, and must provide it with access to information on all pertinent programs, projects, and activities. The Assistant …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations around the world have highlighted the need for U.S. forces to train as they intend to fight. Military training ranges provide the primary means to accomplish this goal. The Department of Defense's (DOD) training ranges vary in size from a few acres, for small arms training, to over a million acres for large maneuver exercises and weapons testing, and include broad open ocean areas for offshore training and testing. New advances in military technology to combat emerging threats in ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations around the world generate the need to continually update and maintain DOD's training ranges. Senior DOD and military service officials have reported for some time that they face increasing difficulties in carrying out realistic training at military installations due to outside influences. DOD has defined a number of factors--including air pollution, noise pollution, endangered species, critical habitats and other protected resources, and urban growth around installations--that it says encroach upon its training ranges and capabilities. Because the military faces obstacles in acquiring new training lands, the preservation and sustainment of its current lands …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits a summary of an oral briefing we gave to Congress on August 30, 2010 and subsequent agency comments. We gave this briefing in response to the Conference Report accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R. Rep. No. 111-366, at 662 (2009) (Conf. Rep.)), which directed us to evaluate the methods the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) uses to project the federal detainee population and the per diem rates OFDT pays for detention services, as well as other factors that are translated into OFDT's annual budget request. In conducting this work, we analyzed OFDT's documentation of its detainee population and cost estimation model, compared OFDT's projections in the President's budget submission with actual values of detainee population and costs, and interviewed OFDT and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to (1) assess how OFDT develops its detainee population and cost estimates; (2) determine the extent to which OFDT follows best practices for developing high-quality cost estimates; and (3) determine the reasons why OFDT required funds in addition to its annual appropriation in fiscal years 2005, 2008, and 2009."

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Securing the nation's borders from illegal entry of aliens and contraband, including terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, continues to be a major challenge. In November 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the launch of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI)--a multiyear, multibillion dollar program aimed at securing U.S. borders and reducing illegal immigration. Within DHS, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provides agents and officers to support SBI. As requested, this statement summarizes (1) the findings and recommendations of GAO's reports on SBI's technology, known as SBInet (including such things as cameras and radars), and DHS's recent actions on SBInet; and (2) the findings and recommendations of GAO's reports on tactical infrastructure, such as fencing, and the extent to which CBP has deployed tactical infrastructure and assessed its operational impact. This statement is based on products issued from 2007 through 2010, with selected updates as of April 2010. To conduct these updates, GAO reviewed program schedules, status reports and funding and interviewed DHS officials."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In June 2010, we issued our report on the results of our audit of the financial statements of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) and the FSLIC Resolution Fund (FRF) as of, and for the years ending December 31, 2009, and 2008, and on the effectiveness of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2009. We also reported our conclusions on FDIC's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations. During our 2009 financial audit, we identified several control deficiencies over FDIC's process for deriving and reporting estimates of losses to the DIF from financial institution resolution transactions involving loss-sharing agreements. These deficiencies led to misstatements in the draft DIF financial statements, which were ultimately corrected through adjustments to achieve fair presentation in the final financial statements. Although the net adjustments were not material to the DIF's financial statements, the nature of the control deficiencies we identified were such that a reasonable possibility existed that a material misstatement of the DIF's financial statements would not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis. Thus, these control deficiencies collectively represented …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Political appointees in the federal government sometimes seek appointments to career competitive and other positions which, unlike political appointments, do not terminate at the end of an administration. Conversions of political appointees to career positions must conform to merit system principles requiring that selection be determined solely on the basis of merit after fair and open competition. Sometimes, however, circumstances surrounding conversions can raise questions as to whether the individuals received political favoritism or an unfair advantage in the merit system selection process, even the appearance of which could adversely compromise the integrity of the system. As requested, we are providing you with information on the number of conversions of political appointees to career positions as reported to us by 42 executive branch departments and agencies from May 1, 2005, through May 30, 2009. The types of positions this letter covers and a definition of each, along with the criteria we used to select the 42 departments and agencies, are listed in the scope and methodology section."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "National estimates indicate that approximately 1.5 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted or raped by intimate partners in the United States annually. Congress, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, required the Department of Defense (DOD) to (1) establish a central database of information on domestic violence incidents involving members of the armed forces and (2) establish the Department of Defense Task Force on Domestic Violence. The law charged the task force with establishing a strategic plan that would allow DOD to more effectively address domestic violence matters within the military. In fiscal years 2001, 2002, and 2003, the task force issued three reports containing almost 200 recommendations to improve the safety of victims, accountability of offenders, coordination among support-service providers, and recording of data on cases of domestic violence. To coordinate implementation of these recommendations, in January 2003, DOD established a Family Violence Policy Office to ensure that DOD and the services took appropriate actions in this area. This office was located in the Military Community and Family Policy Office, which is in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The matching of airline passenger information against terrorist watchlist records (watchlist matching) is a frontline defense against acts of terrorism that target the nation's civil aviation system. In general, passengers identified as matches to the No-Fly list are prohibited from boarding commercial flights, while those matched to the Selectee list are required to undergo additional screening. Historically, airline passenger prescreening against watchlist records has been performed by commercial air carriers. As required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has developed an advanced passenger prescreening program--known as Secure Flight--to assume from air carriers the function of matching passenger information against terrorist watchlist records. Since fiscal year 2004, TSA has received $358 million in appropriated funds for the development and implementation of Secure Flight, according to program officials. Also, since fiscal year 2004, GAO has been mandated to assess the development and implementation of the Secure Flight program. We have reported on numerous challenges the program has faced, including those related to protecting passenger privacy, completing performance testing, fully defining and testing security requirements, and establishing …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) through fiscal year 2010, approximately $475 million in federal funds was made available for screening, monitoring, or treating responders for illnesses and conditions--such as asthma and depression--related to the WTC disaster. Within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) awards funds to and oversees the programs that provide screening, monitoring, and treatment services for responders to the WTC attack. The two largest programs, which we refer to here as the WTC health programs, are the New York City Fire Department's (FDNY) WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program, and the New York/New Jersey (NY/NJ) WTC Consortium. These programs began as screening and monitoring programs, tracking the health status of responders related to the WTC disaster. In December 2005, the Congress first appropriated funds that were specifically available for treatment programs for certain responders with health conditions related to the WTC disaster, and in fall 2006, NIOSH began awarding funds for outpatient and inpatient treatment. According to NIOSH, as of June 30, …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From September 2001 through January 2010, Congress provided about $1.023 trillion in supplemental and annual appropriations in response to Department of Defense (DOD) requests for funding to support overseas contingency operations (OCO). In March 2010, DOD reported obligations of about $825 billion attributed to OCO for the period September 2001 through January 2010. DOD uses available cost-related information, along with other financial information, to evaluate OCO trends, formulate OCO funding requests, and monitor the costs of overseas operations. In addition, Congress considers this information in its deliberations on DOD requests for additional OCO funding. Our prior reviews have found the financial information in DOD's monthly OCO reports to be of questionable reliability. For example, we identified problems in DOD's processes for recording and reporting obligations, such as not including all OCO costs and the lack of a systematic process for ensuring that data are correctly entered into those systems. Consequently, we concluded DOD's reported OCO costs should be considered approximations. Based on our prior work, we made a number of recommendations to improve the reliability of OCO reported costs, with which DOD generally concurred. Consistent with our recommendations, …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the terms of its 1976 Covenant with the United States, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) administered its own immigration systems from 1978 to 2009. The 2008 Consolidated Natural Resources Act called for the establishment of a transition program, to phase in U.S. immigration law in the CNMI and to phase out the CNMI's current program for non-U.S. citizen (noncitizen) foreign workers; implementation of the transition program began on November 28, 2009. The act requires, among other things, that the CNMI government provide the Secretary of Homeland Security all Commonwealth immigration records, or other information that the Secretary deems necessary, to assist in the implementation of the transition program. The CNMI government has tracked the immigration status of foreign residents with two databases, the Labor and Immigration Identification and Documentation System and the Labor Information Data System. A third database, the Border Management System, tracks visitor arrivals and departures. We were asked to describe (1) the history and key attributes of the three databases and (2) the status of these databases during the transition to federal control of CNMI immigration. To address these objectives, GAO …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program began in 1996 with an acquisition strategy that called for a competitive engine acquisition program. The program planned to first develop and procure the F135 primary engine and, with a few years lag time, develop the F136 second (or alternate) engine to compete with the F135 engine for future procurements and life-cycle support activities. The Department of Defense (DOD) requested funding for both engines annually as the JSF program progressed until the fiscal year 2007 budget submission, at which point the DOD stopped requesting funding for the F136 alternate engine. Defense officials believe that the operational risks of relying on a single engine supplier are low and do not justify the extra costs to maintain a second engine source. DOD further states that there is no guarantee that having an engine competition will create enough long-term savings to outweigh the up-front costs and now intends to acquire only the F135 primary engine. However, Congress has continued to fund the alternate engine development program annually through fiscal year 2010. According to the Secretary of Defense, DOD would need an additional $2.9 billion in …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has imposed multiple sanctions against Iran to deter it from developing its nuclear program, supporting terrorism, and abusing human rights. On July 1, 2010, the President signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010. CISADA amends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 (ISA) to require the President to impose three or more of a possible nine sanctions against persons who knowingly sell or provide Iran with refined petroleum products that, during a 12-month period, (1) have a fair market value of $1 million or more or (2) have an aggregate fair market value of $5 million or more. These new provisions regarding the sale or provision of refined petroleum products to Iran apply only to the sale or provision of refined petroleum products made on or after July 1, 2010. Under ISA, one of the sanctions that the President can apply is to bar foreign firms State administers ISA sanctions. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), Iran currently does not have sufficient refining capacity to meet its domestic demand for gasoline. Iran imported approximately 130,000 barrels of gasoline …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since October 1994, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) has had statutory authority to provide loans, guarantees, and insurance to help finance U.S. exports of defense articles and services, provided that it determines these items are nonlethal and meant primarily for civilian use (dual-use). These exports, referred to as "dual-use" exports, include such items as vehicles that are used by the military primarily for civilian or humanitarian purposes. Legislation providing this authority requires us to report annually on the end uses of the dual-use exports financed by Ex-Im during the second preceding fiscal year. This report covers Ex-Im financing for dual-use exports in fiscal years 2007 through 2009."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Justice (DOJ) has reported that crime rates experienced by American Indians are two and a half times higher than those experienced by the general population in the United States. Specifically, from 1992 to 2001 American Indians experienced violent crimes at a rate of 101 violent crimes per 1,000 person annually, compared to the national rate of 41 per 1,000 persons. The federal government plays a major role in prosecuting crimes committed in Indian country. For example, unless a federal statute has granted the state jurisdiction, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes against Indians in Indian country, while the federal government and tribal governments both have jurisdiction to prosecute Indian offenders who commit crimes in Indian country. Federal prosecution, however, carries with it the possibility of greater terms of imprisonment, as tribal courts are statutorily limited to a maximum of 3 years imprisonment per offense, regardless of the severity of the offense, for example, a homicide. Because of such jurisdictional and sentencing limitations, tribal communities rely on the federal government to investigate and prosecute a variety of crimes in Indian …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "With poverty rates and unemployment on the rise, the federal system of income, employment, and family supports has become increasingly important to a growing number of Americans. Due to their higher rates of poverty, certain minority groups are more likely than their nonminority counterparts to be represented in these programs and ancillary programs that serve low-income workers and families. The health of these programs is, therefore, especially important to these groups. In addition, because African-American children are more likely than other children to be raised in single-parent households, child support enforcement and programs that promote greater paternal involvement are particularly relevant for African-American families. Due to interest in the support provided to low-income individuals, and African-Americans in particular, Congress asked us to summarize GAO reports on programs and policies supporting low-income workers and families through (1) income supports, (2) worker training, (3) programs involving fathers, and (4) care and protection of children."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits the briefing in response to a congressional request on May 4, 2009, that we review the EFV program. We provided congressional staff a draft copy of this briefing in meeting with them on June 9, 2010. We provided the same draft to the Department of Defense (DOD) for comments. A summary of DOD's comments with our evaluation are also attached, as well as a reprinted copy of DOD's written comments."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO testified before a Congressional subcommittee on April 28, 2010, to discuss current issues related to military compensation. This letter responds questions for the record from the hearing. (1) Is the ECI an appropriate index to use to adjust military basic pay rates annually? If not, is there a benchmark that is more appropriate? (2) Please explain what the impact on the Defense budget would be if Congress directed an increase in the pay raise by one percent, or half a percent without offsets. (3) Is there a better metric than the ECI to gauge what an annual pay raise should be? (4) Does the current pay table need adjustment? (5) What do you think the effect of reducing the requirement for entitlement to retired pay below 20 years would be on the ability to retain the personnel we need in leadership positions in the Armed Forces? (6) Last year, the Navy Exchange Service Command generated more than $45 million in dividends. These figures seem to indicate that commissary and exchange benefits are not especially costly to DOD and that service members place a high value on these …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Biomonitoring, which measures chemicals in people's tissues or body fluids, has shown that the U.S. population is widely exposed to chemicals used in everyday products. Some of these have the potential to cause cancer or birth defects. Moreover, children may be more vulnerable to harm from these chemicals than adults. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is authorized under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to control chemicals that pose unreasonable health risks. One crucial tool in this process is chemical risk assessment, which involves determining the extent to which populations will be exposed to a chemical and assessing how this exposure affects human health This testimony, based on GAO's prior work, reviews the (1) extent to which EPA incorporates information from biomonitoring studies into its assessments of chemicals, (2) steps that EPA has taken to improve the usefulness of biomonitoring data, and (3) extent to which EPA has the authority under TSCA to require chemical companies to develop and submit biomonitoring data to EPA."