A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has trained thousands of personnel on the use of biometrics since 2004, but biometrics training for leaders does not provide detailed instructions on how to effectively use and manage biometrics collection tools. The Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military services, and U.S. Central Command each has emphasized in key documents the importance of training. Additionally, the Army, Marine Corps, and U.S. Special Operations Command have trained personnel prior to deployment to Afghanistan in addition to offering training resources in Afghanistan. DOD’s draft instruction for biometrics emphasizes the importance of training leaders in the effective employment of biometrics collection, but existing training does not instruct military leaders on (1) the effective use of biometrics, (2) selecting the appropriate personnel for biometrics collection training, and (3) tracking personnel who have been trained in biometrics collection to effectively staff biometrics operations. Absent this training, military personnel are limited in their ability to collect high-quality biometrics data to better confirm the identity of enemy combatants."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As pass-through grant funds flow to subrecipients, they are subject to government-wide and program-specific policies, two of which are particularly relevant to disbursement issues for states as they pass funds on to subrecipients. Pass-through grants are typically first awarded to states, local governments, or other entities and then further awarded to subrecipients. The Cash Management Improvement Act governs the exchange of funds between the federal government and the states and is applicable to timeliness in the grant disbursement process. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Circular No. A-133, Audits of States, Local Governments, and Non-Profit Organizations, provides general guidance on the roles and responsibilities of the federal awarding agencies and primary recipients of government funds regarding audit requirements of grantees. Specific program policies can provide additional requirements for individual grant programs related to disbursement of funds. For example, as with the programs we reviewed, authorizing legislation may contain statutory limits on the amount of funds that states and local governments can withhold from the grant awards for their own administrative expenses. To ensure states comply with federal requirements and agency regulations for disbursing …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) discontinued enrollment in the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) in early 2011 and stopped most program reimbursements the following year to keep spending within the $5 billion ERRP appropriation. Specifically, anticipating exhaustion of funds, CCIIO stopped ERRP enrollment in May 2011. According to CCIIO officials, CCIIO suspended making reimbursements to plan sponsors in September 2012, as reimbursements had reached the $4.7 billion cap established for paying claims under the original appropriation, and the remainder was reserved for administrative expenses. When the cap was reached, significant demand for the program remained with 5,699 ERRP reimbursement requests left outstanding that accounted for about $2.5 billion in unpaid claims. CCIIO officials told GAO that they planned to pay some of the outstanding reimbursement requests by redistributing any overpayments recovered from plan sponsors--when, for example a plan receives a rebate that lowers the total cost of a prior claim--as well as money recovered from program audits. As of January 2013, officials told GAO that CCIIO had recovered a total of $54 million and redistributed $20.7 million of this amount."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Governmentwide data on the number and type of most National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses are not readily available, as data collection efforts vary by agency. NEPA generally requires federal agencies to evaluate the potential environmental effects of actions they propose to carry out, fund, or approve (e.g., by permit) by preparing analyses of different comprehensiveness depending on the significance of a proposed project's effects on the environment—from the most detailed Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) to the less comprehensive Environmental Assessments (EA) and Categorical Exclusions (CE). Agencies do not routinely track the number of EAs or CEs, but the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)—the entity within the Executive Office of the President that oversees NEPA implementation—estimates that about 95 percent of NEPA analyses are CEs, less than 5 percent are EAs, and less than 1 percent are EISs. Projects requiring an EIS are a small portion of all projects but are likely to be high-profile, complex, and expensive. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains governmentwide information on EISs. A 2011 Congressional Research Service report noted that determining the total number of federal actions subject to NEPA …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government manages about 650 million acres, or 29 percent, of the 2.27 billion acres of U.S. land. Four land management agencies--the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the National Park Service (NPS) in the Department of the Interior (Interior) and the Forest Service, in the Department of Agriculture--manage about 95 percent of these federal acres. Interior's Bureau of Reclamation (BoR) manages another 1 percent of these acres and focuses on water projects. The five agencies collect certain data to help manage these federal lands. GAO was asked to review whether the five agencies collect certain federal land and resource data (referred to as data elements), how these data elements are stored, and their potential reliability. GAO included over 100 data elements at each agency in its analysis that can be categorized as information on (1) federal land and the resources the five agencies manage, (2) revenues generated from selected activities on these lands, and (3) federal land subject to selected land use designations. GAO assessed the potential reliability of data elements collected by the agencies generally for fiscal years …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have faced rapidly changing threats to mission failure or loss of life, highlighting the Department of Defense's (DOD) need to develop and field new capabilities more quickly than its usual acquisition procedures allow. Since 2006, Congress has provided nearly $16 billion to counter improvised explosive devices alone. GAO and others have reported funding, organizational, acquisition, and oversight issues involving DOD's processes for meeting warfighters' urgent needs. The Senate Armed Services Committee asked GAO to determine 1) the extent to which DOD has a means to assess the effectiveness of its urgent needs processes, and 2) what challenges, if any, have affected the overall responsiveness of DOD's urgent needs processes. To conduct this review GAO looked at three urgent needs processes--joint, Army, and the Marine Corps processes--visited forces overseas that submit urgent needs requests and receive solutions, and conducted 23 case studies."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) program relies on state trust funds to hold enough reserves to meet benefit needs during economic downturns. The sufficiency of such "forward funding" has been a policy concern for decades, particularly during the recent recession, which has caused very high unemployment rates. While the economy added jobs in March 2010, unemployment remains very high and has continued to rise in most states, suggesting that state UI programs will continue to face serious financial challenges for at least the near future. This report (1) describes the current condition of state UI trust funds, (2) highlights policies or practices that have contributed to their conditions, and (3) identifies options for improving UI forward funding in the future. To address these questions, GAO analyzed statistics from the Department of Labor, reviewed applicable laws and regulations, interviewed state UI representatives and UI experts, and synthesized GAO's and others' findings to present policy options."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For tax year 2007, nonresident alien individuals filed about 634,000 Forms 1040NR, the U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return. IRS has not developed estimates for the extent of nonresident alien tax noncompliance because it often lacks information to distinguish between nonresident aliens and other filers, and examinations can be costly and difficult since many nonresident aliens would depart the country before IRS could examine their returns. IRS's outreach and education efforts have focused on presenting information on nonresident tax issues to a variety of audiences and making information available on its Web site and in its publications. Nevertheless, some nonresidents, their employers, and paid preparers may not be aware of nonresident alien tax rules, according to representatives of groups that work with employers and nonresidents to assist them in fulfilling their tax obligations. Other filing challenges exist. For example, individuals filing Forms 1040NR cannot file electronically. Also, nonresidents in the U.S. for less than 90 days who earn over $3,000 in compensation for services paid for by a foreign employer will likely have to file Form 1040NR, even if they owe no tax. The $3,000 exemption …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) made a number of changes to improve the utility of the fiscal year 2010 inventory, such as centrally preparing contract data to provide greater consistency among DOD components and increasing the level of detail on the services provided. DOD, however, continued to rely primarily on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) for the inventory for most defense components other than the Army. As such, DOD acknowledged a number of factors that limited the utility, accuracy, and completeness of the inventory data. For example, FPDS-NG does not identify more than one type of service purchased for each contract action, provide the number of contractor full-time equivalent personnel, or identify the requiring activity. As before, the Army used its Contractor Manpower Reporting Application to compile its fiscal year 2010 inventory. This system collects data reported by contractors on services performed at the contract line item level, including information on labor hours and the function and mission performed. DOD officials noted that the Army’s current process complies with legislative requirements. In January 2011, GAO recommended that DOD develop a plan with time frames …

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Assistance provided by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) to American International Group, Inc. (AIG)--a holding company that, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in a broad range of insurance and insurance-related activities in the United States and abroad--represents one of the federal government's largest investments in a private sector institution since the financial crisis began in 2008. Treasury and the Federal Reserve provided assistance to AIG in September 2008 that was restructured in November 2008 and March 2009. As part of GAO's statutorily mandated oversight of TARP, this report updates the risk and repayment indicators GAO originally reported in September 2009 (GAO-09-975). Specifically in this report, GAO discusses (1) trends in AIG's financial condition, (2) trends in the unwinding of AIG Financial Products (AIGFP), (3) the financial condition of AIG's insurance companies, and (4) the status of AIG's repayment of its federal assistance. To update the indicators, GAO primarily used data as of December 31, 2009, and more current publicly available information; reviewed rating agencies' reports; identified …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To accomplish its mission of protecting about 9,000 federal facilities, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) currently has a budget of about $1 billion, about 1,225 full-time employees, and about 15,000 contract security guards. FPS obligated $659 million for guard services in fiscal year 2009. This report assesses the challenges FPS faces in managing its guard contractors, overseeing guards deployed at federal facilities, and the actions, if any, FPS has taken to address these challenges. To address these objectives, GAO conducted site visits at 6 of FPS's 11 regions; interviewed FPS officials, guards, and contractors; and analyzed FPS's contract files. GAO also conducted covert testing at 10 judgmentally selected level IV facilities in four cities. A level IV facility has over 450 employees and a high volume of public contact."

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Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To successfully manage AIA implementation, USPTO must consider a number of trade-offs as it sets and uses its over 340 fees, as well as maintain an effective fee review process. USPTO officials have stated that the agency’s limited fee-setting authority prior to the AIA and uncertainty about the extent to which its collections would be available contributed to a number of the agency’s operational challenges, such as the current backlog of over 640,000 patent applications and patent application processing time of over 30 months. They said fees that generated over 80 percent of USPTO’s revenues were set in statute, limiting the agency’s ability to ensure that total collections kept pace with total costs as its workload has grown. USPTO can only use its fee collections to the extent that Congress makes them available. In the past, Congress has in some years made available less than the total amount collected; there has been significant debate about the status and use of these fees collected in excess of amounts appropriated."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Treasury (Treasury) continues to make progress in winding down the Capital Purchase Program (CPP). As of January 31, 2014, Treasury's data showed that 624 of the original 707 institutions, or about 88 percent, had exited CPP. Treasury had received about $225 billion from its CPP investments, exceeding the approximately $205 billion it had disbursed. Most institutions exited by repurchasing their preferred shares in full or by refinancing their investments through other federal programs. Treasury also continues to sell its investments in the institutions through auctions; a strategy first implemented in March 2012 to expedite the exit of a number of CPP participants. As of January 31, 2014, Treasury has sold all or part of its CPP investment in 162 institutions through auctions, receiving a total of about 80 percent of the principal amount. A relatively small number of the remaining 83 institutions accounted for most of the outstanding investments. Specifically, 10 institutions accounted for $1.5 billion or about 73 percent of the $2.1 billion in outstanding investments. Treasury estimated a lifetime gain of $16.1 billion for CPP as of November 30, 2013."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over time, Congress has modified how Medicare reimburses certain hospitals under the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS), which pays hospitals a flat fee per stay, set in advance, with different amounts for each type of condition. GAO identified numerous statutory provisions that individually increased Medicare payments to a subset of hospitals."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The F-22A and legacy modernization programs GAO reviewed were rooted in different development strategies. The F-22A began as a single-step program and did not anticipate the need for future modernization, while the legacy programs each began with the expectation that their aircraft would be incrementally upgraded over time. F-22A modernization began in reaction to a major shift in the aircraft’s basic mission, which required the development of new capabilities that had not been planned for as part of the initial development program. In contrast, the legacy modernization programs made planned incremental improvements to existing mission capabilities. All of the modernization programs began at about the same time in development and procurement. The F-22A program is developing and retrofitting new capabilities onto a complex stealth aircraft, which is costly—currently estimated at $9.7 billion total. Legacy modernization programs were less complex, and thus less costly, and incorporated mature technologies onto new production aircraft. Accurately identifying and comparing the total cost of each modernization program is difficult. Each of the programs, including the F-22A, initially managed and funded modernization as a continuation of its baseline program, so modernization costs …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies can use several different types of contracts to leverage the government's buying power for goods and services. These include interagency contracts--where one agency uses another's contract for its own needs--such as the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs multiple award schedule (MAS) contracts, multiagency contracts (MAC) for a wide range of goods and services, and governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWAC) for information technology. Agencies spent at least $60 billion in fiscal year 2008 through these contracts and similar single-agency enterprisewide contracts. However, concerns exist about duplication, oversight, and a lack of information on these contracts, and pricing and management of the MAS program. GAO was asked to assess the reasons for establishing and the policies to manage these contracts; the effectiveness of GSA tools for obtaining best MAS contract prices; and GSA's management of the MAS program. To do this, GAO reviewed statutes, regulations, policies, contract documentation and data, and interviewed officials from OMB and six agencies."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter formally transmits the briefing in response to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Pub. L. No. 111-84), which required GAO to submit a report on rare earth materials in the defense supply chain to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives by April 1, 2010."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The financing of the federal government depends largely on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) efforts to collect taxes. These efforts focus on providing taxpayer services, such as electronic filing and telephone assistance, to make voluntary compliance easier and enforcing tax laws to ensure everyone meets their obligations to pay taxes. To fund IRS's 2012 operations, the President requested $13.3 billion spread over five appropriations, including $6 billion for enforcement, $4.6 billion for operations support, and $2.3 billion for taxpayer services. Because of the size of IRS's budget and the importance of its service and compliance programs for all taxpayers, Congress asked us to review the fiscal year 2012 budget justification for IRS. Special areas of interest included any new tax law enforcement and taxpayer service initiatives, the cost of implementing IRS's responsibilities under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and any opportunities for savings. Based on your request our objectives were to: (1) describe IRS's budget and staffing trends for fiscal years 2008 through 2012; (2) assess IRS's process for identifying potential savings and how it used savings that were greater than projected; (3) …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Indian Health Service (IHS) have developed mechanisms to implement and monitor their memorandum of understanding (MOU); however, the performance metrics developed to assess its implementation do not adequately measure progress made toward its goals. VA and IHS have defined common goals for implementing the MOU and developed strategies to achieve them. They have also created two mechanisms to implement the MOU--12 workgroups with members from both agencies to address the goals of the MOU, and a Joint Implementation Task Force, comprised of VA and IHS officials, to oversee the MOU's implementation. These steps are consistent with practices that GAO has found enhance and sustain agency collaboration. The agencies have also developed three metrics aimed at measuring progress toward the MOU's goals. However, two of the three metrics are inadequate because their connection to any specific MOU goal is not clear and, while they include quantitative measures that tally the number of programs and activities increased or enhanced as a result of the MOU, they lack qualitative measures that would allow the agencies to assess the degree to which …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), about 60 percent of the chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) medical countermeasures in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) have been approved for children, but in many instances approval is limited to specific age groups. In addition, about 40 percent of the CBRN countermeasures have not been approved for any pediatric use. Furthermore, some of the countermeasures have not been approved to treat individuals for the specific indications for which they have been stockpiled. For example, ciprofloxacin is stockpiled in the SNS for the treatment of anthrax, plague, and tularemia, but is not approved for these indications. Countermeasures may be used to treat unapproved age groups or indications under an emergency use authorization (EUA) or an Investigational New Drug (IND) application submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has played an active role in helping to reform financial regulations to address weaknesses revealed by the 2007-2009 financial crisis. According to Treasury officials, during the acute phase of the crisis, the United States proposed elevating the Group of Twenty (G20) forum—representing 19 countries (including the United States) and the European Union—from the level of finance ministers and central banks to the level of heads of state or government. In 2008, the U.S. President and other G20 leaders held their first summit in Washington, D.C., in part to establish a framework to help prevent financial crises. The G20 leaders established principles for financial regulatory reform and agreed on a series of financial reforms, which they have revised or expanded at subsequent summits. To implement their reforms, the G20 leaders generally have called on their national authorities—finance ministries, central banks, and regulators—and international bodies, including the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and standard setting bodies, such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. In 2009, the G20 leaders established FSB to coordinate and promote implementation of the financial reforms, which typically involves standard setting bodies …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) manages more than 209,000 inmates, up 45 percent between fiscal years 2000 and 2010. As the prison population grows, so do concerns about correctional officer safety. As requested, GAO examined the (1) equipment that BOP and selected state departments of corrections (DOC) provide to protect officers, and the officers' and other correctional practitioners' opinions of this equipment; (2) extent to which BOP has evaluated the effectiveness of this equipment, and factors correctional equipment experts consider important to the acquisition of new equipment; and (3) institutional factors correctional accrediting experts reported as impacting officer safety, and the extent to which BOP has evaluated the effectiveness of the steps it has taken in response. GAO reviewed BOP policies and procedures; interviewed BOP officials and officers within BOP's six regions, selected based on such factors as the level of facility overcrowding; interviewed officials at 14 of the 15 largest state DOCs; and surveyed 21 individuals selected for their expertise in corrections. The results of the interviews cannot be generalized, but provide insight into issues affecting officer safety."