This report discusses the Nutrition Title (Title IV) of the pending farm bills and elaborates on the most controversial issues and differences between Senate and House proposals. Policies that are not necessarily controversial but are complex are also included in this report.

This report discusses the Department of Defense (DOD) policy via the Defense Utilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) for disposing of government equipment and supplies considered surplus or deemed unnecessary to the agency's currently designated mission. The report focuses on DRMS background, as well as the most recent DRMS policy modifications.

This report looks at Kuwait's relationships with its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, and its own political system which has been in turmoil since 2006.

Report that summarizes major immigration reform provisions of S. 744, as passed by the Senate.

This report briefly explains the different approaches to housing finance reform proposed by the three bills, focusing on efforts to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reform FHA.

This report discusses the climate change science, that though often is portrayed as controversial there is a broad scientific agreement over many points. The report provides data on long-term temperature observations, estimate of human-related versus solar contributions to global temperature change over the 20th century, estimated top 20 emitting nations of greenhouse gases in 2010, and sea ice extent in Arctic (September) and Antarctica (April), 1979 to 2012

Report for the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries proposing new methods and ideas for displaying online exhibits.

This report discusses the statutory authorities of the National Contingency Plan (NCP), and relevant executive orders; outlines the federal emergency response framework of the NCP to coordinate federal, state, and local roles; and identifies the funding mechanisms to carry out a federal response to a discharge of oil or a release of a hazardous substance.

This report discusses Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Act, which was enacted by the 108th Congress as Section 1057 of the FY2004 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 108-136). It includes background of the SAFER Act, appropriations from FY2011-FY2013, reauthorization of the program in the House and Senate, and information about program implementation.

This report discusses the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear explosion and was in 1996 adopted by the U.N. General Assembly but rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997. This report discusses the Obama Administration's stated goal of pursuing U.S. ratification of the CTBT, although the Administration has mainly focused on securing Senate consent to ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). This report also discusses other nuclear weapons-related issues as well as the long history of nuclear testing.

This report discusses the federal government's role in the country's information technology (IT) research and development (R&D) activities. The government's support of IT R&D began because it had an important interest in creating computers and software that would be capable of addressing the problems and issues the government needed to solve and study.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies are to store federal records in three types of facilities:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Analysis of guaranteed loans to franchisees of a select franchise organization reviewed by GAO, approved from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2011, showed the Small Business Administration (SBA) approved a total of about $38.4 million for 170 loans made by 54 lenders. SBA's guaranteed portion on these loans was approximately $28.8 million. Of the total population of 170 loans, 74 loans defaulted, 55 of which (74 percent) originated from four lenders that had the highest loan volume and default rates on loans to the franchisees. SBA made guarantee payments of around $11 million on the defaulted loans to franchisees, including about $8.5 million in guarantee payments on the 55 defaulted loans from these four lenders. Of the 88 loans reviewed from the four lenders, 55 (63 percent) defaulted. In comparison, 19 of the 82 loans (23 percent) that originated at the other 50 lenders to the franchisees defaulted. As part of GAO's investigative work, GAO interviewed the owners of 22 franchisees of the franchise organization in GAO's review, of which 16 defaulted on their loans and 10 filed for bankruptcy protection. Interviewed franchisees noted difficulties …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Army has taken a number of steps to begin executing its network strategy and agile process, including establishing a baseline network architecture for Army communications. The Army's agile process involves seven phases and three decision points to allow officials to quickly evaluate emerging networking technologies to determine if they address capability gaps and can be deployed to the field. However, the network strategy is still evolving and the Army has not yet executed one full cycle of the agile process. The Army's strategy addresses some aspects of cost, technology maturity, security, and readiness, but as implementation is still under way, data for assessing progress are not available at this time. Nevertheless, the Army is beginning to spend billions of dollars netting together dozens of disparate systems to form a network that is intended to enhance warfighter effectiveness and survivability. Specifically, the Army has identified that over $3 billion will be needed each year on an indefinite basis for investments in networking capabilities, potentially making it one of the Army's most costly investments. To help determine that technologies meet prescribed levels of technical maturity, the Army …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "States and community colleges GAO visited have implemented several strategies to improve developmental education--which is remedial coursework in math, reading, or writing for students who are assessed not to be ready for college-level classes. Many initiatives involved shortening the amount of time for developmental education and better targeting material to an individual student's needs. For example, two community colleges have implemented fast track classes that enable students to take two classes in one semester instead of in two semesters. One developmental education program in Washington places students directly into college level classes that also teach developmental education as part of the class. Community colleges are also using tools such as test preparatory classes to help students prepare for placement tests that determine if they will need to take developmental education courses. According to community college officials GAO spoke with, these classes help familiarize students with prior coursework and, in some cases, help them place directly into college level courses. Additionally, most community colleges GAO visited have worked to align their curriculum with local high schools so that graduating seniors are ready for college. Little research has …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)--which is the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responsible for administering Medicare--has not taken needed steps, such as designating a business owner and establishing a business case for an information technology (IT) project, that would result in selecting and implementing a technical solution for removing Social Security numbers (SSN) from Medicare cards. However, the agency has collected information and data as part of its most recent study of SSN removal that could contribute to the identification and development of an IT solution. These include information relevant to examining alternative approaches, identifying costs and risks, and assessing the impact of different approaches on the agency's existing IT systems. For example, the agency identified two approaches for removing the SSN: (1) replacing it with a new identifier, referred to as the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier, and (2) masking the first five digits of the SSN for display on Medicare cards. CMS system and business owners also conducted high-level assessments of the types of changes that would need to be made to systems identified in the agency's IT …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to data provided by FAA and the General Services Administration (GSA), federally maintained facilities FAA occupies are generally in fair to good condition. FAA assesses the condition of staffed facilities in several ways, including direct inspections. However, the condition of approximately 75 percent of Air Traffic Organization's (ATO) terminal facilities is based on estimates derived from the approximately 25 percent of facilities that have been inspected over the last 6 years. Our analysis of FAA's statistical model for estimating the condition of uninspected terminal facilities found it to be imprecise; it uses one variable--age of the facility--to estimate the facility's condition. Adding other variables that are correlated with condition, such as facility replacement value and use, could potentially improve the estimate's accuracy. In addition, facility condition data in FAA's Real Estate Management System (REMS)--FAA's database for tracking its inventory of real property assets, including the size, replacement value, and condition of each asset--are not derived from sound data collection practices and did not match facility condition data from ATO or other FAA organizational components responsible for maintaining these facilities. Inaccuracies in REMS data undermine its …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since its establishment in 2009, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) has provided comments on proposed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations for 18 of 99 federal agencies that administer FOIA, as well as a number of Privacy Act system of records notices. While OGIS has suggested improvements to a number of those regulations and notices, it has not performed the reviews of regulations and notices in a proactive, comprehensive manner, and has not conducted any reviews of agencies' compliance with the law. In addition, since it was established 4 years ago, the office has not developed a methodology for conducting reviews of agencies' FOIA policies and procedures, or for compliance with FOIA requirements. OGIS is in the early stages of developing a methodology for conducting such reviews, but has not established a time frame for completion. Until OGIS establishes a methodology and time frame for proactively reviewing agencies' FOIA policies, procedures, and compliance, the office will not be positioned to effectively execute its responsibilities as required by the act."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2011, two agencies--the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (Justice) --separately administered 12 fragmented but minimally overlapping programs that directed funds toward elder justice, with low risk of duplication. Specifically, because more than one federal agency administers these programs, GAO found that these grant programs are fragmented. Further, GAO found that overlap across the 12 programs was minimal because the programs varied with respect to (1) funding mechanisms and recipients, (2) elder abuse victims targeted, (3) service providers, and (4) activities conducted. For example, a few of these programs provided formula grants to all states and most dispersed discretionary grants to a limited number of recipients. Programs that supported victims of elder abuse generally assisted all types of victims, but some also focused on certain subgroups, such as older women. Some programs that assisted service providers also targeted specific subgroups, such as judges and court personnel. In addition, elder justice programs supported a wide range of activities. For example, one HHS program provided public education to help identify and prevent elder abuse, while a Justice program trained law enforcement officers …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented two types of manual medical reviews (MMR)--reviews of preapproval requests and reviews of claims submitted without preapproval--for all outpatient therapy services that were above a $3,700 per-beneficiary threshold provided during the last 3 months of 2012. However, CMS did not issue complete guidance on how to process preapproval requests before the implementation of the MMR process in October 2012, and the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) that conducted the MMRs were unable to fully automate systems for tracking preapproval requests in the time allotted. CMS required the MACs to manually review preapproval requests within 10 business days of receipt of all supporting documentation to determine whether the services were medically necessary, and to automatically approve any requests they were unable to review within that time frame. CMS officials told GAO that the purpose of the preapproval process was to protect beneficiaries from being liable for payment for nonaffirmed services by giving the provider and beneficiary guidance as to whether Medicare would pay for the requested services. If a provider delivered services without submitting a preapproval request, the MACs …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not conducted a recent evaluation of demand for Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) toxicity assessments with input from users inside and outside EPA. Specifically, EPA issued a needs assessment report in 2003, which estimated that 50 new or updated IRIS toxicity assessments were needed each year to meet users' needs. However, GAO did not find sufficient support for the estimate. In addition, IRIS Program officials recognize that the 2003 estimate does not reflect current conditions, but the agency does not plan to perform another evaluation of demand. Without a clear understanding of current demand for IRIS toxicity assessments, EPA cannot adequately measure the program's performance; effectively determine the number of IRIS toxicity assessments required to meet the needs of IRIS users; or know the extent of unmet demand."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "About 8,400 individuals adjudicated as eligible for a security clearance from April 2006 to December 2011 owed approximately $85 million in unpaid federal taxes, as of June 2012. This represents about 3.4 percent of the civilian executive-branch employees and contractors who were favorably adjudicated during that period. GAO found that about 4,700 of the approximately 8,400 individuals were federal employees while the remainder was largely federal contractors. Additionally, about 4,200 of these individuals had a repayment plan with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to pay back their debt. For this review, GAO used clearance data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Central Verification System (CVS) database. The CVS database does not maintain information on the denial of security clearances on the basis of an individual's nonpayment of federal taxes. Thus, GAO was not able to determine the number of individuals who were denied security clearances for this reason."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified multiple data sources that could be used to develop measures to allocate Medicaid funding to states more equitably than the current funding formula--known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP)--which is based solely on per capita income (PCI). To be equitable from the perspective of beneficiaries and allow states to provide a comparable level of services to each person in need, a funding allocation mechanism should take into account the demand for services in each state and geographic cost differences among states. To be equitable from the perspective of taxpayers, an allocation mechanism should ensure that taxpayers in poorer states are not more heavily burdened than those in wealthier ones, by taking into account state resources. To illustrate, GAO identified at least one federal data source that could be used to develop measures of each of these aspects, in order to allocate Medicaid funding more equitably."