A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "American Samoa, a U.S. territory, relies on federal funding to support government operations and deliver critical services. The Secretary of the Interior has administrative responsibility for coordinating federal policy in the territory. Under the Single Audit Act of 1996, American Samoa is required to perform a yearly single audit of federal grants and other awards to ensure accountability. To better understand the role of federal funds in American Samoa, GAO (1) examined the uses of 12 key grants in fiscal years 1999-2003, (2) identified local conditions that affected the grants, and (3) assessed accountability for the grants."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress recognizes that the DOD needs some flexibility to adjust research and development program levels. A key mechanism--below threshold reprogramming (BTR)--enables DOD to adjust program funding levels without seeking prior congressional approval as long as a certain dollar amount or percentage threshold is not exceeded. In response to a mandate by the appropriations committees, this report addresses (1) the quality of the information available about DOD's use of BTRs and withheld funds in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 and (2) the amount and volume of BTRs and temporarily withheld funds for those years. The report also addresses recent congressional direction on providing information on funding adjustments. DOD disagreed that its recent reports to Congress provide BTR information of limited quality but noted that the issues GAO raised in this regard can be addressed and that DOD was open to suggestions and will gladly work with committee staff to satisfy their needs. DOD also offered suggestions to clarify language on certain issues and to put its use of BTRs more in context. DOD's willingness to work with Congress is a constructive response that can lead to reporting …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Its mortality can be reduced through early detection and treatment. Four key tests are used to detect the cancer--fecal occult blood test (FOBT), flexible sigmoidoscopy, double-contrast barium enema (DCBE), and colonoscopy. Private health insurance plans generally cover these tests to diagnose cancer; however, the extent to which plans cover the tests for screening purposes--where no symptoms are evident--is less clear. Congress is considering legislation that would require coverage of the tests for screening purposes among all private health insurance plans. GAO was asked to (1) identify the state laws that require private health insurance coverage of these screening tests; and (2) determine the extent to which the tests are covered among small employer, individual, large employer, and federal employee health plans. GAO summarized state laws that require coverage of the tests. GAO examined test coverage among a sample of the largest 19 small employer and 14 individual plans in 10 states without laws requiring the coverage, and among 35 large employer plans nationally. The findings cannot be generalized beyond these plans. GAO …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1967, the Congress created the National Park Foundation (Foundation)--a nonprofit organization with the sole purpose of providing private support to the National Park Service (Park Service). However, some Park Service officials have raised concerns that the Foundation's support is not meeting parks' priority needs. In this context, congressional requesters asked GAO to review the activities of the Foundation by determining the (1) Foundation's roles and responsibilities for raising funds to support the Park Service, (2) amount and kinds of donations the Foundation has raised between fiscal years 1999 and 2003, and (3) extent to which the contributions obtained by the Foundation assisted the Park Service in addressing park priorities."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The nation's roads, highways, and bridges are essential to mobility but can have negative effects on plants, animals, and the habitats that support them (collectively called ecosystems in this report). Federally funded transportation projects progress through three planning phases: long range (20 or more years), short range (3 to 5 years), and early project development, (collectively defined as planning in this report) before undergoing environmental review (which includes assessing air and water quality, ecosystems, and other impacts) required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Federal law requires planners to consider protecting and enhancing the environment in the first two phases, but does not specify how and does not require such consideration in the third phase. GAO reported on (1) the extent to which transportation planners consider ecosystem conservation in planning, (2) the effects of such consideration, and (3) the factors that encourage or discourage such consideration. GAO contacted 36 planning agencies (24 states and 12 of approximately 380 metropolitan planning organizations), as well as officials in 22 resource agencies that maintain ecological data and administer environmental laws. The Department of Transportation and U.S. Army Corps of …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Business Systems Modernization (BSM) program is a multibillion-dollar, high-risk, highly complex effort that involves the development and delivery of a number of modernized information systems that are intended to replace the agency's aging business and tax processing systems. BSM funds are not available until IRS submits an expenditure plan that meets various conditions to congressional appropriations committees for approval. In January and July 2004, the Department of the Treasury submitted IRS's initial and revised fiscal year 2004 plans, respectively. As required by law, GAO reviewed the plans to (1) determine whether the plans satisfied the conditions specified in the law, (2) determine what progress IRS had made in implementing our prior recommendations, and (3) provide any other observations about the plans and IRS's BSM program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Recent cost increases in renovation projects to general and flag officer quarters raised questions about the services' management of the programs. GAO was asked to determine (1) how actual costs of renovation projects for general and flag officer housing compare to service budget estimates provided to Congress and (2) the primary reasons for any increases and the services' procedures to control cost increases. Additionally, GAO is presenting observations about the services' accountability over gifts provided to help renovate some general and flag officer quarters and the extent to which Department of Defense (DOD) guidance provides visibility and control over costs associated with renovation projects for privatized general and flag officer quarters."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS), hospitals receive a temporary additional payment for certain new drugs and devices while data on their costs are collected. In 2003, these payments expired for the first time for many drugs and devices. To incorporate these items into OPPS, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) used its rate-setting methodology that calculates costs from charges reported on claims by hospitals. At that time, some drug and device industry representatives noted that payment rates for many of these items decreased and were concerned that hospitals may limit beneficiary access to these items if they could not recover their costs. GAO was asked to examine whether the OPPS rate-setting methodology results in payment rates that uniformly reflect hospitals' costs for providing drugs and devices, and other outpatient services, and if it does not, to identify specific factors of the methodology that are problematic."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 provided eligible taxpayers up to $400 in advance Child Tax Credit (ACTC) payments. GAO was asked for information on (1) the number, dollar amount, and timeliness of the ACTC payments, (2) the impact on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS') toll-free telephone service, (3) the cost to IRS and the Financial Management Service (FMS) for implementing the advance payment effort, including the impact of these costs on other IRS programs, and (4) the extent to which IRS identified and used evaluations from the 2001 advance refund effort to implement the ACTC payment effort and whether an evaluation of the ACTC payment effort is planned."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because future threats the nation may face are uncertain, and with many competing demands on its resources, the Department of Defense (DOD) has begun to transform its military capabilities, which will involve not only the acquisition of new weapon systems but also how the armed forces think, train, and fight. In 2003, DOD estimated $263 billion would be allocated from fiscal year 2004 through 2009 for transformation efforts. In this report GAO (1) describes DOD's strategy to transform joint military capabilities; (2) assesses the extent to which DOD has established clear leadership, accountability, and a mechanism to integrate transformation efforts; and (3) assesses the extent to which DOD's framework incorporates results-oriented management tools to guide transformation efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Data from the decennial census are used to apportion and redistrict seats in the House of Representatives, distribute billions of dollars of federal funds, and guide the planning and investment decisions of the public and private sectors. Given the importance of these data, it is essential that they meet high quality standards before they are distributed to the public. After questions arose about the quality of certain data from the 2000 Census, the requesters asked GAO to review U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) standards on the quality of data disseminated to the public."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress created the Russian Leadership Program in 1999 as a pilot project to promote mutual understanding by exposing emerging Russian leaders to the American economic system and democratic institutions. In 2003, Congress renamed the program the Open World Leadership Center, expanded its scope, and extended eligibility to a number of other countries. Because Open World had not been independently evaluated, GAO was asked to review (1) the program's progress toward achieving its overall purpose and (2) whether it has appropriate financial management and accountability mechanisms in place."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare spending for power wheelchairs--one of the program's most expensive items of durable medical equipment (DME)--rose more than fourfold from 1999 through 2003, while overall Medicare spending rose by about 11 percent for the same period, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This spending growth has raised concerns that some of the payments may have been improper. In May 2003, the Department of Justice indicted several power wheelchair suppliers in Texas alleged to have fraudulently billed Medicare. GAO was asked to examine the early and more recent steps taken by CMS and its contractors to respond to improper payments for power wheelchairs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A key information systems challenge in homeland security is ensuring that essential information is shared in a timely and secure manner among disparate parties in federal, state, and local governments, and in the private sectors. This requires communications networks that provide information-sharing capabilities between the various levels of government--federal, state, and local. GAO's objective was to identify and describe, through agency reporting, major networks and examples of applications that the agencies considered important in supporting their homeland security functions. (For purposes of this review, GAO defined networks as "the data communication links that enable computer systems to communicate with each other.") GAO corroborated agency-provided information about networks used by multiple agencies. While agencies verified the accuracy of the data about their networks, GAO cannot ensure that agencies provided data on all applicable networks. In commenting on a draft of this report, seven of the nine agencies generally concurred with the facts contained in this report. Technical comments were incorporated as appropriate. Two agencies declined to comment."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) process for ensuring that air traffic control (ATC) systems will operate safely in the national airspace system is an integral part of the agency's multibillion-dollar ATC modernization and safety effort. GAO was asked to review (1) FAA's process for approving ATC systems for safe use in the national airspace system; (2) challenges FAA has faced approving ATC systems and how these challenges affected the cost, schedule, and performance estimates of the systems; and (3) actions FAA has taken to improve its process for approving ATC systems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force depot maintenance activity group in-house operations generate about $5 billion in annual revenue principally by repairing aircraft, missiles, engines, and other assets. In doing so, the group operates under the working capital fund concept, where customers are to be charged the anticipated costs of providing goods and services to them. The group's average price for in-house work almost doubled between fiscal years 2000 and 2004 from $119.99 per hour to $237.84 per hour. GAO was asked to determine (1) what factors were primarily responsible for the price increase, (2) if the prices charged recovered the reported actual costs of performing the work, and (3) if the Air Force has taken effective steps to improve efficiency and control the activity group's costs."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Postal Service is on the cusp of a major transformation to improve its fiscal outlook. One part of this transformation involves procurement. The Postal Service is homing in on supply chain management, a process that has helped successful private-sector companies leverage their buying power and identify more efficient ways to procure goods and services. To assist congressional efforts to enact fundamental postal reform, GAO was asked to determine (1) the extent to which the Postal Service has been successful in implementing and realizing savings from its supply chain management initiatives and (2) whether these initiatives have had an effect on small businesses."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The current generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been under development for defense applications since the 1980s. UAVs were used in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003 to observe, track, target, and strike enemy forces. These successes have heightened interest in UAVs within the Department of Defense (DOD) and the services. GAO was asked to (1) determine how much funding DOD requested, was appropriated, and was obligated for major UAV development efforts during fiscal years 1999-2003 and (2) assess whether DOD's approach to planning for UAVs provides reasonable assurance that its investment in UAVs will facilitate their integration into the force structure."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Starting in the mid-1990s, the U.S. petroleum industry experienced a wave of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures, several of them between large oil companies that had previously competed with each other. For example, Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, acquired Mobil, the second largest, thus forming ExxonMobil. GAO was asked to examine the effects of the mergers on the U.S. petroleum industry since the 1990s. For this period, GAO examined (1) mergers in the U.S. petroleum industry and why they occurred, (2) the extent to which market concentration (the distribution of market shares among competing firms) and other aspects of market structure in the U.S. petroleum industry have changed as a result of mergers, (3) major changes that have occurred in U.S. gasoline marketing, and (4) how mergers and market concentration in the U.S. petroleum industry have affected U.S. gasoline prices at the wholesale level. Commenting on a draft of GAO's report, FTC asserted that the models were flawed and the analyses unreliable. GAO used state-of-the-art econometric models to examine the effects of mergers and market concentration on wholesale gasoline prices. The models used in GAO's …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Environmental indicator sets assemble quantitative measures of conditions and trends (known as indicators) to assess the state of the environment and natural resources and to gauge progress toward specific goals. Such sets are now being developed to bridge the gap between needed and available information and to prioritize further data collection. The widespread development and use of environmental indicator sets has led federal and nonfederal entities to consider the benefits such sets provide when measuring performance and improving oversight of environmental programs. In this context, GAO was asked to identify (1) the purposes for which federal and nonfederal organizations are developing and using environmental indicator sets, and how they are being used; and (2) the major challenges facing the development and use of environmental indicator sets."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In March 2002, the most serious safety issue confronting the nation's commercial nuclear power industry since Three Mile Island in 1979 was identified at the Davis- Besse plant in Ohio. After the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) allowed Davis-Besse to delay shutting down to inspect its reactor vessel for cracked tubing, the plant found that leakage from these tubes had caused extensive corrosion on the vessel head--a vital barrier preventing a radioactive release. GAO determined (1) why NRC did not identify and prevent the corrosion, (2) whether the process NRC used in deciding to delay the shutdown was credible, and (3) whether NRC is taking sufficient action in the wake of the incident to prevent similar problems from developing at other plants."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As the demand for and the cost of prescription drugs rise, many consumers have turned to the Internet to purchase drugs. However, the global nature of the Internet can hinder state and federal efforts to identify and regulate Internet pharmacies to help assure the safety and efficacy of products sold. Recent reports of unapproved and counterfeit drugs sold over the Internet have raised further concerns. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which certain drugs can be purchased over the Internet without a prescription; (2) whether the drugs are handled properly, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and authentic; and (3) the extent to which Internet pharmacies are reliable in their business practices. GAO attempted to purchase up to 10 samples of 13 different drugs, each from a different pharmacy Web site, including sites in the United States, Canada, and other foreign countries. GAO determined whether the samples contained a pharmacy label with patient instructions for use and warnings on the labels or the packaging and forwarded the samples to their manufacturers to determine whether they were approved by FDA and authentic. …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990, as amended, required the Department of Defense (DOD) to address several base realignment and closure (BRAC) issues in 2004 for the 2005 BRAC round to proceed. The requirements included reporting on a 20-year force structure plan, an inventory of military installations, and separately adopting selection criteria for the upcoming round. The legislation also required DOD to certify whether an additional BRAC round was needed, and, if so, that annual net savings would be realized not later than fiscal year 2011. If the certifications were provided, GAO was required to evaluate DOD's submissions and report to Congress. DOD reported on March 23, 2004, and provided the certifications. In this report GAO evaluates (1) DOD's responsiveness to legislative requirements; (2) the force structure plan, infrastructure inventory, and selection criteria; (3) other key issues included in DOD's report; and (4) DOD's certification regarding the need for an additional BRAC round."

An efficient inversion algorithm has been developed forthree-dimensional (3D) interpretations for single-hole electromagnetic(EM) logging data based on a modified extended Born approximation (MEBA)scheme. The single-hole data was collected at an oil field undergoing CO2injection in southern California using a tool, Geo-BILT, developed byElectromagnetic Instruments, Inc (EMI). The tool is equipped with amulti-component source, and an array of multi-component receivers atdifferent separations. The inversion result provides a reasonableelectrical conductivity image to a distance of 10 m from the well, andillustrates several zones with lateral conductivity variations that couldnot be resolved with traditional induction logging tools. The computercost of the inversion processes can be further reduced using a trivialmulti-grid methodology.