Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "DOD's rationale for waiving WSARA's competitive prototyping requirement for CRH addresses one of the two bases provided in the statute; namely that the cost of producing competitive prototypes exceeds the expected life-cycle benefits (in constant dollars) of producing the prototypes. The CRH program's acquisition strategy, which anticipates integrating an existing, in-production and flight-proven aircraft with technologically mature subsystems, is consistent with this rationale. The Air Force believes that any technology risk reduction associated with, or potentially benefitting, the CRH program has already occurred during the efforts to develop these in-production aircraft. This includes any risk reduction that could be achieved through competitive prototyping. In granting the waiver, DOD also found reasonable the Air Force's conclusion that the estimated $725 million cost of conducting competitive prototyping exceeded the maximum expected life-cycle benefits of $12 million. However, the Air Force only evaluated one potential approach to implementing competitive prototyping, which involved funding two contractors for much of the program's system development. This resulted in a high cost estimate for competitive prototyping that is more than 10 times greater than the target unit cost of the helicopter. DOD's policy on economic …

Testimony 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 "The Department of Defense (DOD) developed and used a quantitative model known as the Cost of Base Realignment Actions (COBRA), which GAO has found to be a reasonable estimator for comparing potential costs and savings among candidate alternatives, to estimate the costs and savings associated with Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 recommendations. However, DOD’s process for providing the BRAC Commission with cost and savings estimates was hindered in many cases by underestimating recommendation specific requirements that were entered into the COBRA model. For example, military construction costs for BRAC 2005 increased from $13.2 billion estimated by the BRAC Commission in 2005 to $24.5 billion after implementation ended in 2011. Most of this 86 percent increase was caused by requirements that were added or identified after implementation began. While GAO recognizes that some military construction requirements were added after DOD submitted its initial cost estimates to the BRAC Commission, GAO found that other cost estimates increased because requirements were initially understated or not identified as inputs into COBRA. DOD also did not fully anticipate information technology requirements for many recommendations. For example, the initial information technology …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified 20 technology transition programs--managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the military departments--that provide structured mechanisms and funding to facilitate technology transition. All of the programs GAO reviewed are consistent in providing opportunities to transition technologies from the science and technology (S&T) environment to a user, such as a weapon system acquisition program or the warfighter in the field. To help speed the delivery of technologies to users, most transition programs target fairly mature technologies, which are suitable for final stages of development and demonstration. Collectively, the programs GAO reviewed obligated about $7.9 billion in Department of Defense (DOD) research, development, test, and evaluation funding for fiscal years 2010 through 2012 to support technology transition."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The current rollover process favors distributions to individual retirement accounts (IRA). Waiting periods to roll into a new employer plan, complex verification procedures to ensure savings are tax-qualified, wide divergences in plans' paperwork, and inefficient practices for processing rollovers make IRA rollovers an easier and faster choice, especially given that IRA providers often offer assistance to plan participants when they roll their savings into an IRA. The Department of Labor (Labor) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provide oversight and guidance for this process generally and can take steps to make plan-to-plan rollovers more efficient, such as reducing the waiting period to roll over into a 401(k) plan and improving the asset verification process. Such actions could help make staying in the 401(k) plan environment a more viable option, allowing participants to make distribution decisions based on their financial circumstances rather than on convenience."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Among other things, GAO's past work discusses FHA's financial condition and steps the agency has taken to improve its financial condition. As housing prices began to decline at the end of 2006 and conventional mortgage lenders tightened their underwriting standards, more homebuyers began taking advantage of FHA-insured loans, which tend to have less strict underwriting standards and require lower down payments, as compared with conventional loans. As a result, FHA's share of the market increased. In 2006, FHA insured approximately 4.5 percent of purchase mortgages. At its peak in 2009, it insured 32.6 percent of purchase mortgages. In 2011, its share of purchase mortgages fell to 26.5 percent."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, while USDA's organization and management structure for its food assistance procurement might suggest overlap, GAO found no duplication of Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) efforts. For example, AMS and FSA follow similar contracting rules and regulations; however, AMS and FSA have different procurement processes and funding authorities and purchase different commodities."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The 14 agencies GAO reviewed have vehicle repair processes that generally allow field office staff, such as the vehicle operator or local fleet manager, to make vehicle maintenance and repair decisions. These processes neither mandate nor prohibit the use of remanufactured parts. The agencies we reviewed generally do not keep data on the extent to which remanufactured parts are used. Agency officials from the 14 agencies in our review said that they use remanufactured parts when warranted, and we observed the presence of remanufactured parts in the stock rooms during our visits to repair facilities. Deciding when to use remanufactured parts, according to agency officials and related guidance, depends on a number of factors including the cost, availability, and reliability of the part. According to agency officials, these factors are considered on a case-by-case basis for each repair to yield the best value for the federal government."

"This report estimates the value of each exemption, exclusion, discount, deduction, special accounting method, credit, refund, and special appraisal available under Texas' sales, franchise, gasoline, and motor vehicle sale taxes, as well as under the property tax levied by Texas school districts." (A Message From The Comptroller)

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This report sets out specific instances in which the Fund can be accessed and illustrates the procedural mechanisms for obtaining payment under certain statutory causes of action. In addition, this report will briefly highlight several recently proposed changes to the Judgment Fund’s administration. In the 113th Congress, the Judgment Fund Transparency Act of 2013 (H.R. 317) would require the Secretary of the Treasury to post on a public website the claimant, agency, fact summary, and payment amount for each claim paid out of the Fund.

This report summarizes the analytical data reported by the F/H and Savannah River National Laboratories for the 2012 cross-check analysis for high level waste supernatant liquid samples from SRS Tanks 30 and 37. The intent of this Tank 30 and 37 sample analyses was to perform cross-checks against routine F/H Laboratory analyses (corrosion and evaporator feed qualification programs) using samples collected at the same time from both tanks as well as split samples from the tanks.

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Progress is reported in these areas: Regulation of anaerobic respiration by cAMP receptor protein and role of adenylate cyclases; Identification of an octaheme c cytochrome as the terminal sulfite reductase in S. oneidensis MR-1; Identification and analysis of components of the electron transport chains that lead to reduction of thiosulfate, tetrathionate, and elemental sulfur in MR-1; Involvement of pili and flagella in metal reduction by S. oneidensis MR-1; and work suggesting that HemN1 is the major enzyme that is involved in heme biosynthesis under anaerobic conditions.

This report recaps the "Science Drivers and Technical Challenges for Advanced Magnetic Resonance" workshop, held in late 2011. This exploratory workshop's goal was to discuss and address challenges for the next generation of magnetic resonance experimentation. During the workshop, participants from throughout the world outlined the science drivers and instrumentation demands for high-field dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) and associated magnetic resonance techniques, discussed barriers to their advancement, and deliberated the path forward for significant and impactful advances in the field.

A brief listing of major arms sales and grants made to Pakistan since 2001.

This report analyzes how the United States makes policy towards the multilateral development banks (MDBs) and identifies ways by which Congress can shape U.S. policy and influence the activities of the banks themselves.

This report provides information describing the federal civil remedies and criminal penalties that may be available as a consequence of violations of the federal intellectual property laws: the Copyright Act of 1976, the Patent Act of 1952, and the Trademark Act of 1946 (conventionally known as the Lanham Act).

This report examines U.S. oil and natural gas production data for federal and non-federal areas with an emphasis on the past six years of production.

This report briefly outlines the background of ethics enforcement in the House of Representatives, including the creation of both the Select Committee on Ethics and the Committee on Ethics. The report also focuses on various jurisdictional and procedural changes that the House Committee on Ethics has experienced since 1967, and discusses the committee's current jurisdiction and procedures.

The scrape-off layer plasma at the tokamak region is characterized by open field lines and often contains large variations in plasma properties along these field-lines. Proper characterization of local plasma conditions is critical to assessing plasma-material interaction processes occuring at the target. Langmuir probes are frequently employed in tokamak divertors but are challenging to interpretation. A kinetic interpretation for Langmuir probes in NSTX has yielded non-Maxwellian electron distributions in the divertor characterized by cool bulk populations and energetic tail populations with temperatures of 2-4 times the bulk. Spectroscopic analysis and modeling confirms the bulk plasma temperature and density which can only be obtained with the kinetic interpretation

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