Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Women's Business Center Program, focusing on: (1) a description of the women's business centers, including their funding status, their experiences in raising matching funds, the types of services offered in a women's business center's first and last year of grant funding, and the differences between parent and satellite centers; (2) the extent to which SBA's award criteria predict long-term success or failure of women's business centers; and (3) the Office of Women's Business Ownership's compliance with legislative reporting requirements and the inherent difficulties with obtaining the required data from the women's business centers."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on three former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees who made allegations against EPA and then resigned, focusing on: (1) why the individuals had left; and (2) their current employment status."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO described how the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) and its contractors monitor third-party billing companies' involvement in the submission of claims to Medicare."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO commented on the "Proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Procedures and Guidance on Implementing the Government Paperwork Elimination Act.""

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the weaknesses in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) controls over seized drugs that are used in reverse undercover operations (RUO) by the Miami Field Office."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the experience of six nations--Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom--with budget surpluses, focusing on: (1) how they achieved budget surpluses and what their fiscal policies were during periods of surplus; (2) how they addressed long-term budgetary pressures; (3) how they adapted their budget process during a period of surplus; and (4) the lessons these nations learned from their experiences with budget surpluses that might be applicable to the United States."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO updated its previous reports on agencies' use of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions to publish final rule notices, focusing on: (1) how many agencies had no Agenda entries that were characterized as Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980, section 610 reviews, whether agencies are interpreting the review requirements consistently, and why certain agencies that appeared subject to the requirements had no entries; (2) how many of the section 610 review entries in these Agendas appeared to meet the notification requirements in subsection 610(c); (3) if the section 610 review entries did not appear to meet the statutory requirements, why certain agencies' entries were characterized as section 610 reviews; and (4) whether any federal agencies had revised their section 610 review plans."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the extent and seriousness of forest-health-related problems in national forests in the interior West; (2) the status of efforts by the Forest Service to address the most serious of these problems; and (3) barriers to successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming them."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO commented on the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) plans for operating the Medicare Integrity Program (MIP), focusing on whether: (1) the law authorizing the MIP permits HCFA to assign responsibility for local Medicare coverage policy to the payment safeguard contractors (PSC) who will run the MIP under contract to HCFA; and (2) HCFA's proposed MIP regulations would provide an adequate legal basis for HCFA to conduct local policy-making through PSCs. GAO noted that HCFA reasonably interpreted the law to mean that its PSCs could set local Medicare coverage policy. GAO also noted that the proposed MIP regulations provide an adequate basis for HCFA's action."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed states' efforts to reduce participation in the Food Stamp Program, focusing on: (1) the reasons for the recent drop in food stamp participation; and (2) any problems that households with eligible children have experienced in obtaining food stamps."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on payroll taxes owed to the federal government and the associated trust fund recovery penalties assessed individuals responsible for the nonpayment of these taxes, focusing on the: (1) extent to which payroll taxes are not remitted to the federal government; (2) magnitude of the trust fund recovery penalties assessed against individuals of organizations that withheld federal payroll taxes from employees' salaries but did not forward them; (3) extent to which individuals who have not remitted payroll taxes are responsible for not paying these taxes at multiple businesses; (4) extent to which businesses and individuals who failed to pay payroll taxes are also receiving federal benefits or other federal payments; and (5) factors that affect the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) ability to enforce compliance or pursue collections in this area."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published a functional requirements document for seized property and forfeited assets systems that will provide the capability for financial managers and others to control and account for seized property and forfeited assets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the analyses underlying the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) proposed rule on the food supplements, ephedrine alkaloids, focusing on: (1) the scientific basis for FDA's proposed rule; and (2) FDA's adherence to the regulatory analysis requirements for federal rulemaking."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO described the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) abatement process, focusing on IRS': (1) process for making abatements from initiation through final review in selected IRS locations; and (2) efforts to improve the abatement process."

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO published a summary of recommendations made by the Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Board Review Panel regarding the CAS Board and the CAS system. The panel believes that reforms are needed to encourage the participation of new commercial companies in government procurement and to reduce the burden of government unique accounting requirements on smaller companies. The panel believes that: (1) there should be changes to CAS' location, membership, and staffing; (2) there should be changes in CAS applicability thresholds; (3) Congress should provide contracting agencies with responsibility for contract administration related to CAS; and (4) an overall review of the CAS and its attendant requirements is warranted to judge whether the standards should be streamlined."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Attorney General's strategy for enforcing workplace immigration laws, focusing on: (1) the effectiveness of the employment verification process in preventing employers from hiring unauthorized aliens; (2) the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) efforts to improve the employment verification process; (3) the level of effort INS and the Department of Labor (DOL) devoted to worksite enforcement activities and the results of these activities; and (4) changes being made to INS' worksite enforcement program."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO discussed the results of its work on payroll taxes owed to the federal government and the associated trust fund recovery penalties (TFRP) assessed against individuals responsible for the nonpayment of these taxes."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to reform how it does business, focusing on the: (1) actions taken by DOD to provide program direction and momentum to the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI) effort; (2) additional steps that could be taken to facilitate a more comprehensive reform effort; (3) impact of the current initiatives on DOD's budget process; (4) progress generally being made in implementing the initiatives; and (5) status of the competitive sourcing initiative."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to solve the year 2000 computer systems problem."