BRAC Early Bird 6 October 2005

Base Input - Naval Post Graduate School - Naval Research Lab, Monterey, CA.

Disregard Restriction of Header and Footer: DON-0037, DON-0037B, and DON-0037C - Scenarios (Not Candidate Recommendations). Contains C5, C6, C7, and C8 data.

Disregard Restriction of Header and Footer: DON-0036C - Scenario (Not Candidate Recommendation). Contains C5, C6, C7, and C8 data.

Disregard Restriction of Header and Footer: DON-0040 - Scenario (Not Candidate Recommendation). Contains C5, and C7 data.

Disregard Restriction of Header and Footer: DON-0042 - Scenario (Not Candidate Recommendation). Contains C5 data.

Disregard Restriction of Header and Footer: DON-0044 - Scenario (Not Candidate Recommendation). Contains C5, C6, C7, and C8 data.

St. Tammany Parish Council Resolutions R05-18 and C-1442 pertaining to DISA in Slidell, LA.

BRAC 2005 Intelligence Joint Cross-Service Group Meeting Minutes of October 6, 2004. The document is redacted and includes the IJCSG Principals Meeting brief (PowerPoint slides).

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether certain posted agenda items satisfy the notice requirements of the Open Meetings Act, chapter 551, Government Code (RQ-0696-GA)

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Higher Education Act of 1965 gives special recognition to some postsecondary schools--called Minority Serving Institutions--that serve a high percentage of minority students. These and other schools face stiff challenges in keeping pace with technology. One rapidly growing area, distance education, has commanded particular attention and an estimated 1.5 million students have enrolled in at least one distance education course. In light of this, GAO was asked to provide information on: (1) the use of distance education by Minority Serving Institutions; (2) the challenges Minority Serving Institutions face in obtaining and using technology; (3) GAO's preliminary finding on the role that accrediting agencies play in ensuring the quality of distance education; and (4) GAO's preliminary findings on whether statutory requirements limit federal aid to students involved in distance education. GAO is currently finalizing the results of its work on (1) the role of accrediting agencies in reviewing distance education programs and (2) federal student financial aid issues related to distance education."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1990 the Department of Defense's (DOD) supply chain management processes have been on GAO's list of high-risk areas needing urgent attention and fundamental transformation to ensure that they function in the most economical, efficient, and effective manner possible. Recently in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), DOD developed a plan to address some of the systemic weaknesses as a first step toward removing supply chain management from the list. DOD's plan focuses on three areas for improvement: accuracy of supply requirements forecasts, distribution of material, and asset visibility. GAO was asked to provide its views on (1) the importance of supply chain management in DOD, (2) why GAO listed it as a high-risk area, (3) GAO's assessment of DOD's plan to improve supply chain processes, and (4) GAO's plans to follow up on DOD's efforts. This testimony contains GAO's views on what remains to be done to improve DOD's supply chain management and bring about lasting solutions. Continued efforts to complete and implement DOD's plan as well as continued oversight by Congress are essential."

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Acquisition of products and services from contractors consumes about a quarter of discretionary spending governmentwide and is a key function in many federal agencies. In fiscal year 2005 alone, federal government contracting involved over $388 billion. The work of the government is increasingly being performed by contractors, including in emergency and large-scale logistics operations such as hurricane response and recovery and the war in Iraq. Many agencies rely extensively on contractors to carry out their basic missions. The magnitude of the government's spending and dependence on contractors make it imperative that this function be performed as efficiently and effectively as possible. Yet, acquisition issues are heavily represented on GAO's list of government high-risk areas. In the 21st century, the government needs to reexamine and evaluate its strategic and tactical approaches to acquisition. To identify and discuss the key issues confronting the federal acquisition community, the Comptroller General hosted a forum in July 2006 that brought together acquisition experts from inside and outside the government. Participants shared their insights on challenges and opportunities for improving federal acquisition in an environment of increasing reliance on contractors and severe …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government is interested in the use of smart cards--credit card-like devices that use integrated circuit chips to store and process data--for improving the security of its many physical and information assets. Besides providing better authentication of the identities of people accessing buildings and computer systems, smart cards offer a number of other potential benefits and uses, such as creating electronic passenger lists for deploying military personnel and tracking immunization and other medical records. Over the past 2 years, GAO has studied and reported on the uses of smart cards across the federal government. Congress requested that GAO testify on federal agencies' efforts in adopting smart card technology--based on the results of this prior work--and on the specific actions that the Department of Veterans Affairs is taking to implement smart card technology."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The 1988 Exon-Florio amendment to the Defense Production Act authorizes the President to suspend or prohibit foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies that may harm national security, an action the President has taken only once. Implementing Exon-Florio can pose a significant challenge because of the need to weigh security concerns against U.S. open investment policy--which requires equal treatment of foreign and domestic investors. Exon-Florio's investigative authority was delegated to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Committee)--an interagency committee established in 1975 to monitor and coordinate U.S. policy on foreign investments. In September 2002, GAO reported on weaknesses in the Committee's implementation of Exon-Florio. This review further examined the Committee's implementation of Exon-Florio."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In January 2003, GAO designated federal real property a high-risk area and issued an update on this area in January 2005. GAO identified the government's reliance on costly leased space as one of the major reasons for the high-risk designation. Other reasons included excess and deteriorated property, unreliable real property data, and the challenges associated with protecting these assets from terrorism. This testimony discusses GAO's designation of federal real property as a high-risk area and focuses specifically on the government's reliance on costly leased space."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies rely on a multisector workforce composed of federal employees and contractor personnel to perform services as they carry out their missions. Determining whether to obtain services through insourcing with current or new federal employees, outsourcing with private sector contractors, or cosourcing with a combination of the two is an important economic and strategic decision critical to the federal government's effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars. The executive branch has encouraged federal agencies since the mid-1950s to obtain commercially available services from the private sector when outsourcing is cost-effective. In the last 5 fiscal years, civilian agencies have on average annually obligated about $100 billion to obtain a range of services from contractors. However, in March 2009, the President issued a memorandum on government contracting that, among other matters, expressed concern about the federal workforce as to whether agencies have become overreliant on contractors and have appropriately outsourced services. In particular, the President noted that the line between inherently governmental functions--those that must be performed by federal employees--and commercial activities that may be contracted for has been blurred. In the memorandum, the President directed the Office …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) enforces the rights of federal employees and applicants for federal employment under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994. USERRA provides for the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees who leave their employment to perform military service. USERRA also prohibits discrimination against persons because of their military service. In light of the significant number of National Guard members and reservists serving in the war in Iraq and in other conflicts who will be demobilized and returning to the federal workforce in the coming months, the Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, asked us to review issues surrounding enforcement of the act in the federal sector, particularly by OSC. Under USERRA, a federal employee or applicant who believes that his or her USERRA rights have been violated may file a claim with the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), which investigates and attempts to resolve the claim. If VETS cannot resolve the claim, the individual may request that it be referred to OSC. In addition to …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report supplements our previous report responding to a Congressional request for current information on the representation of minorities and women at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). USPS's program to attract and award contracts to small, minority, and women-owned businesses is referred to as supplier diversity. In recent years, the USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) has questioned the reliability of data related to the Supplier Diversity Program, such as the dollar value of contracts awarded to small, minority, and women-owned businesses. In a September 2001 report, the OIG made nine recommendations that it said would improve the reliability of this data. Our objective was to determine the status of USPS efforts to address the recommendations contained in the OIG report. To address our objective, we obtained, reviewed, and analyzed documentation from USPS and interviewed USPS and OIG officials concerning the status of these recommendations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a Congressional request for information on trends in prices for prescription drugs frequently used by Medicare beneficiaries and other individual with health insurance. We obtained data from two state pharmaceutical assistance programs for the elderly on the usual and customary prices reported by retail pharmacies for selected drugs. The usual and customary price is the undiscounted price individuals without drug coverage would pay. We tracked monthly price trends from January 2000 through June 2004 for a total of 99 drugs, which include 77 drugs frequently used by certain Medicare enrollees and 79 drugs frequently used by certain non-Medicare enrollees. We also compared the price trends during this period separately for the 52 brand drugs and 47 generic drugs."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS), beneficiaries can be responsible for paying 50 percent or more of the total payment for outpatient services they receive in hospitals. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) introduced a mechanism to gradually decrease beneficiary cost sharing to 20 percent of the payment rate for each hospital outpatient service. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule that implemented, effective with the 2002 payment rates, a methodology for calculating copayment amounts that was designed to ensure that even as certain changes affect the payment rates for hospital outpatient services over time, beneficiary coinsurance for services would eventually be 20 percent of the total payment rate for each service. Under this 2002 methodology, the copayment amount for each outpatient payment group of services, called an ambulatory payment classification (APC) group, could not increase from year to year, and the beneficiary coinsurance percentage would remain the same or decrease, eventually reaching 20 percent for each APC. When CMS published the final rule updating the OPPS payment rates for 2003, the agency stated that it used the methodology …

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Allen-Fowler House, in Bastrop, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, floor plans, maps, and photographs.

Interview with Ruth Simons (Kerr) Ray, the great-great granddaughter of James Kerr, from Canyon Lake, Texas. Mrs. Ray discusses her ancestor's life and his history in the Hill Country, as well as the Historical Marker Dedication Ceremony at the Kerr County Courthouse.

Phase change heat transfer is notorious for increasing the irreversibility of, and therefore decreasing the efficiency of, geothermal power plants. Its significant contribution to the overall irreversibility of the plant makes it the most important source of inefficiency in the process. Recent studies here have shown the promotion of drop wise condensation in the lab by means of increasing the surface energy density of a tube with nanotechnology. The use of nanotechnology has allowed the creation of surface treatments which discourage water from wetting a tube surface during a static test. These surface treatments are unique in that they create high- contact angles on the condensing tube surfaces to promote drop wise condensation.