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This report discusses the background and issues for congressional oversight of ARRA Broadband Awards.

This report discusses the extension of the 2008 Farm Bill for 2013, and provides background information on extension and expiration of this bill.

This report briefly discusses the options for federal support and assistance for areas affected by wildfire disasters, including the period during wildfires, in the aftermath, and subsequently for preventing a recurrence.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The eight federal agencies GAO reviewed generally developed, but inconsistently implemented, policies and procedures for responding to a data breach involving personally identifiable information (PII) that addressed key practices specified by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The agencies reviewed generally addressed key management and operational practices in their policies and procedures, although three agencies had not fully addressed all key practices. For example, the Department of the Army (Army) had not specified the parameters for offering assistance to affected individuals. In addition, the implementation of key operational practices was inconsistent across the agencies. The Army, VA, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had not documented how risk levels had been determined and the Army had not offered credit monitoring consistently. Further, none of the agencies we reviewed consistently documented the evaluation of incidents and resulting lessons learned. Incomplete guidance from OMB contributed to this inconsistent implementation. As a result, these agencies may not be taking corrective actions consistently to limit the risk to individuals from PII-related data breach incidents."

This report discusses the Presidential campaign funding and provides a brief policy overview and raises potential issues for congressional consideration.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) rail-safety oversight framework relies on inspections to ensure railroads comply with federal safety regulations. FRA inspects railroad infrastructure and operations, identifies safety defects, and may, if warranted, cite the railroads for violations of federal safety regulations. The agency estimates that its inspectors have the ability to annually inspect less than 1 percent of the railroad activities covered in regulation. As a result, railroads have the primary responsibility for safety of the railroad system. To formulate regulations, FRA instituted the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, a forum for FRA, the railroads, rail labor organizations, and other stakeholders to arrive at a consensus on proposed rules. Thirty states partner with FRA in providing FRA-certified railroad safety inspectors who are also authorized to enforce federal safety regulations. Finally, many railroads have additional safety programs, rules, and technologies to ensure safety beyond the required federal standards."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Departments of the Army, Homeland Security, the Interior, and Veterans Affairs used reverse auctions to acquire predominantly commercial items and services--primarily for information technology products and medical equipment and supplies--although the mix of products and services varied among agencies. Most--but not all--of the auctions resulted in contracts with relatively small dollar value awards--typically $150,000 or less--and a high rate of awards to small businesses. The four agencies steadily increased their use of reverse auctions from fiscal years 2008 through 2012, with about $828 million in contract awards in 2012 alone. GAO was not able to analyze data from a fifth agency, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), because it collected only summary level information during fiscal year 2012. DLA guidance states that the reverse auction pricing tool should be used for all competitive purchases over $150,000."

This report is a reverse chronological listing of U.S. Supreme Court decisions addressing claims that a government entity has "taken" private property, as that term is used in the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

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This report summarizes the research activities in the Florida State University for quantifying parametric and model uncertainty in groundwater reactive transport modeling. Mathematical and computational research was conducted to investigate the following five questions: (1) How does uncertainty behave and affect groundwater reactive transport models? (2) What cause the uncertainty in groundwater reactive transport modeling? (3) How to quantify parametric uncertainty of groundwater reactive transport modeling? (4) How to quantify model uncertainty of groundwater reactive transport modeling? and (5) How to reduce predictive uncertainty by collecting data of maximum value of information or data-worth? The questions were addressed using Interdisciplinary methods, including computational statistics, Bayesian uncertainty analysis, and groundwater modeling. Both synthetic and real-world data were used to evaluate and demonstrate the developed methods. The research results revealed special challenges to uncertainty quantification for groundwater reactive transport models. For example, competitive reactions and substitution effects of reactions also cause parametric uncertainty. Model uncertainty is more important than parametric uncertainty, and model averaging methods are a vital tool to improve model predictions. Bayesian methods are more accurate than regression methods for uncertainty quantification. However, when Bayesian uncertainty analysis is computationally impractical, uncertainty analysis using regression methods still provides insights into uncertainty …

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This report discusses the statutory prohibitions that may be implicated, including the Espionage Act; the extraterritorial application of such statutes; and the First Amendment implications related to such prosecutions against domestic or foreign media organizations and associated individuals.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has considered several courses of action for the placement of the headquarters for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) but decided in early 2013 to keep it in Germany. When AFRICOM was created in 2007, DOD temporarily located its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, with the intent of selecting a permanent location at a later date. DOD's initial goal was to locate the headquarters in Africa, but this was later abandoned in part because of significant projected costs and sensitivities on the part of African countries. Subsequently, in 2008, DOD conducted an analysis that found that several locations in Europe and the United States would be operationally feasible and less expensive than keeping the headquarters in Stuttgart. A final decision, however, was deferred until 2012, when the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office completed its analysis. Subsequent to this analysis, in January 2013, the Secretary of Defense decided to keep AFRICOM's headquarters in Stuttgart. In announcing the decision, the Secretary noted that keeping AFRICOM in Germany would cost more than moving it to the United States but the commander had judged it would be …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has invested more than $63 million in 88 projects in fiscal years 2005 through 2010 to demonstrate new technology or methods addressing equipment-related corrosion. DOD's Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight (Corrosion Office) has collected a majority of required final and follow-on reports on the results of equipment-related corrosion projects and is taking steps to obtain outstanding reports. As of May 2013, GAO found project managers had submitted final reports for 55 of the 88 projects (about 63 percent) funded in fiscal years 2005 through 2010 and submitted follow-on reports for 27 of the 41 projects (about 66 percent) funded from 2005 through 2007."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified a number of proposed options for adjusting product terms and conditions to help improve the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) long-term viability. FHA has raised the premiums that it charges borrowers several times in recent years and has taken steps to tighten its underwriting standards--for example, by setting a minimum required credit score. Some mortgage market observers have argued that further changes such as revising underwriting standards to focus on borrowers' residual income, requiring higher down payments, or reducing seller concessions (that is, funds sellers provide to buyers to help pay for closing costs) could help FHA better manage credit risk. However, such changes would entail trade-offs. For instance, some said that raising down-payment requirements would improve loan performance, but others said that this move would delay homeownership for many borrowers. Similarly, raising premiums could potentially increase revenue, but this potential would be constrained if it caused volume to decline. Further, low-risk borrowers with fewer down-payment constraints could choose less costly loans from other sources, leaving FHA with more high-risk borrowers. These changes could have a direct effect on the availability of credit for borrowers."

This report discusses the federal mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, that limits the discretion of a sentencing court to impose a sentence that does not include a term of imprisonment or the death penalty. The United States Sentencing Commission's Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System (2011) recommends consideration of amendments to several of the statutes under which federal mandatory minimum sentences are most often imposed.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Reserving practices and capital requirements for the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (Fund) of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) differ in key respects from those for private mortgage insurers (PMI). These differences stem from the distinct environments in which FHA and PMIs operate, including the particular accounting principles and statutory provisions that they must follow. For example, statutory accounting principles (developed to meet the needs of insurance regulators in assessing financial condition) require PMIs to establish several reserve components, including a reserve for estimated losses expected in the near term on loans that are delinquent (loss reserve). In contrast, generally accepted accounting principles for federal entities (developed to align financial statement reporting with federal budget requirements) require FHA to reserve for the present value of estimated losses for all outstanding loans net of anticipated revenues (liability for loan guarantees). For both FHA and PMIs, capital requirements are expressed as comparisons of risk to capital, but the calculations measure risk and capital differently. Like FHA, PMIs have struggled to meet their capital requirements in recent years."

During course of this project, we have worked in several areas relevant to low-dose ionizing radiation. Using gene expression to measure biological response, we have examined the response of human skin exposed in-vivo to radation, human skin exposed ex-vivo to radiation, and a human-skin model exposed to radiation. We have learned a great deal about the biological response of human skin to low-dose ionizing radiation.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has completed the design of its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series and made progress in building flight and ground components. While the program reports that it is on track to stay within its $10.9 billion life cycle cost estimate, it has not reported key information on reserve funds to senior management. Also, the program has delayed interim milestones, is experiencing technical issues, and continues to demonstrate weaknesses in the development of component schedules. These factors have the potential to affect the expected October 2015 launch date of the first GOES-R satellite, and program officials now acknowledge that the launch date may be delayed by 6 months. A launch delay would increase the time that NOAA is without an on-orbit backup satellite. It would also increase the potential for a gap in GOES satellite coverage should one of the two operational satellites (GOES-14 or -15) fail prematurely - a scenario given a 36 percent likelihood of occurring by an independent review team."