Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) Missile Defense Agency (MDA) made progress in its goals to improve acquisition management, and accountability and transparency. The agency gained important knowledge for its Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) by successfully conducting several important tests, including the first missile defense system-level operational flight test. Additionally, key programs successfully conducted developmental flight tests that demonstrated key capabilities and modifications made to resolve prior issues. MDA also made some improvements to transparency and accountability. For example, MDA improved the management of its acquisition-related efforts to deploy a missile defense system in Europe and MDA continued to improve the clarity of its resource and schedule baselines, which are reported to Congress for oversight."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On November 14, 2008, we issued our opinion on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) fiscal years 2008 and 2007 financial statements. We also issued our opinion on the effectiveness of SEC's internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding of assets) and over compliance as of September 30, 2008, and our evaluation of SEC's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations during fiscal year 2008. The purpose of this report is to present issues identified during our fiscal year 2008 audit of SEC's internal controls and accounting procedures and to recommend actions to address these issues. Accordingly, in this report we are making 19 recommendations to SEC to strengthen internal controls and accounting procedures. These recommendations are in addition to 24 remaining recommendations included in prior year audits of SEC's financial statements that still need to be fully addressed."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Marshal Service was created by the first Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789. U.S. Marshals were placed in each federal judicial district and were given broad authority to support the federal courts and to carry out all lawful orders issued by judges, Congress, and the President. Early duties of U.S. Marshals included taking the census, distributing presidential proclamations, protecting the borders, and making arrests. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, some responsibilities of U.S. Marshals were transferred to newly created federal agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, the primary responsibilities of U.S. Marshals include protecting federal judges and witnesses, transporting federal prisoners, apprehending federal fugitives, and managing assets seized from criminal enterprises. We obtained information on the (1) U.S. Marshals' appointment process and, for comparison, the processes used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF); Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) to select senior field supervisors; (2) experience, education and diversity of U.S. Marshalls and senior field supervisors at the ATF, DEA, and IRS-CI; (3) authority of the Director …

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal deficits and debt have reached historic highs in recent years. Congress has taken action to address the fiscal imbalance, but longer-term challenges remain. The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 limits spending over the next decade and leads to an improved fiscal outlook. The act targets discretionary spending, and under both of GAO’s simulations, discretionary spending as a share of the economy would be lower in 2022 than at any point in the last 50 years. Further, as the economy recovers, revenue increases and spending decreases. While the BCA improved the outlook, it did not eliminate the longer-term challenge, in part because it did not focus on the fundamental drivers of the government’s future fiscal imbalances—a structural gap between revenues and spending driven by rising health care costs and demographics. As our 2011 simulations showed, if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the gap but would not eliminate it. The aging of the population and rising health care costs will continue putting upward pressure on spending. Assuming revenue in the long term …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In April 2001, we reported that the Army Materiel Command's guidance required that 50 percent of the excess conventional ammunition demilitarization budget--a figure for which we did not find any analytical basis--be set aside for commercial firms that use environmentally friendly demilitarization processes. This resulted in the retention and underutilization of environmentally friendly demilitarization capabilities at government facilities and in additional program costs. We thus recommended that the Department of Defense (DOD) develop a plan in consultation with Congress that included procedures for assessing the appropriate mix of government and commercial sector capacity needed to demilitarize excess ammunition. Our intent was to have DOD reexamine the cost-effectiveness of using commercial versus government facilities to demilitarize excess ammunition. Over the past several months we have conducted work to determine the specific actions taken to implement our recommendation. We made extensive use of our prior work as a baseline to compare the changes in demilitarization capacity and utilization at government-owned facilities since our prior report. We conducted our analysis of DOD's demilitarization program in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. The purpose of this letter is to note that …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Section 202 of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Authorization Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-391) requires that GAO verify NASA's accounting for amounts obligated against established limits for the space station and related space shuttle support. Under the act, obligations are limited to $25 billion for the space station and $17.7 billion for shuttle support."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Data from the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA), within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), do not show evidence of VHA receiving contaminated tissue products, although, it is difficult to link adverse events in recipients to such products. VA's National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS), which began operation in 1999, has not issued any patient safety alerts—mandates for action to address actual or potential threats to life or health—or advisories—guidance to address issues such as equipment design and product failure—related to tissue products potentially received by VA medical centers (VAMC) in the last 10 years. NCPS issues patient safety alerts and advisories for recalls that require specific clinical actions to ensure patient safety. Since NCPS began issuing and recording data on recalls in November 2008, NCPS has notified VAMCs of 13 recalls for tissue products from vendors from which VHA could have received affected products—none of these recalls have resulted in patient safety alerts or advisories. For 6 of the recalls, 27 VAMCs reported to NCPS that they had identified and removed the recalled products from their inventories. For the other 7 recalls, none of the VAMCs had the …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The number of reported information security incidents involving personally identifiable information (PII) has more than doubled over the last several years (see figure)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "DOD faces growing challenges in carrying out realistic training at installations and training ranges--land, air, and sea--because of encroachment by outside factors. These include urban growth, competition for radio frequencies or airspace, air or noise pollution, unexploded ordnance and munition components, endangered species habitat, and protected marine resources. Building on work reported on in 2002, GAO assessed (1) the impact of encroachment on training ranges, (2) DOD's efforts to document the effect on readiness and cost, and (3) DOD's progress in addressing encroachment."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force is developing the F/A-22 aircraft to replace its fleet of F-15 air superiority aircraft. The F/A-22 is designed to be superior to the F-15 by being capable of flying at higher speeds for longer distances, less detectable, and able to provide the pilot with substantially improved awareness of the surrounding situation. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 requires us to annually assess the F/A-22 development program and determine whether the program is meeting key performance, schedule, and cost goals. We have issued six of these annual reports to Congress. We have also reported on F/A-22 production program costs over the last 3 years. Most recently, we reported on F/A-22 production and development in February and March 2003 respectively. This testimony summarizes our work on the F/A-22 program, covering performance, cost, and scheduling issues."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because advisory committees provide input to federal decision makers on significant national issues, it is essential that their membership be, and be perceived as being, free from conflicts of interest and balanced as a whole. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) was enacted in 1972, in part, because of concerns that special interests had too much influence over federal agency decision makers. The General Services Administration (GSA) develops guidance on establishing and managing FACA committees. The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) develops regulations and guidance for statutory conflict-of- interest provisions that apply to some advisory committee members. As requested, this testimony discusses key findings and conclusions in our 2004 report, Federal Advisory Committees: Additional Guidance Could Help Agencies Better Ensure Independence and Balance; GAO's recommendations to GSA and OGE and their responses; and potential changes to FACA that could better ensure the independence and balance of advisory committees. For our 2004 work, we reviewed policies and procedures issued by GSA, OGE, and nine federal agencies that sponsor many committees. For this testimony, we obtained information from GSA and OGE on actions they have taken to implement our recommendations; …

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This is the E-supplement to GAO-08-480. This document presents the results of our electronic survey of 41 U.S. officials implementing PEPFAR funding in 15 focus countries (country team officials). We conducted the survey to identify potential challenges to implementing an alternative approach, developed from HIV/AIDS experts' suggestions, to allocating funds for the next 5-year phase of PEPFAR. The survey respondents included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Chief of Party, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) health team leader, and the PEPFAR coordinator in each of the 15 focus countries. The questions in our survey were intended to obtain information on country teams' experiences with setting targets, selecting interventions, and using cost information. Of the 41 country team officials, 38 responded to the survey, resulting in a survey response rate of 93 percent. This document presents results from all closed-ended survey questions but does not include narrative responses that we received. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in our report Global HIV/AIDS: A More Country-Based Approach Could Improve Allocation of PEPFAR Funding (GAO-08-480). We administered the survey from …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The District of Columbia (DC) Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) is responsible for protecting thousands of foster care children at risk of abuse and neglect and ensuring that critical services are provided for them and their families. Representative Tom Davis, Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, asked GAO to discuss the extent to which CFSA has taken actions to address the requirements of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 and other selected performance criteria, adopted and implemented child protection and foster care placement policies, and enhanced its working relationship with the D.C. Family Court."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The General Services Administration (GSA) has responsibility for more than 8,000 owned and leased buildings nationwide, together encompassing about 338 million square feet of space. Understanding construction and operating costs for these buildings is important, as the increased federal budget deficit has led to intensified competition for federal resources and recent events have highlighted security needs. GAO examined (1) factors that have affected GSA's construction, leasing, and operating costs and (2) our designation of federal real property as a high-risk area."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Federal, state, and local governments share responsibility for terrorist attacks. However, local government, including police and fire departments, emergency medical personnel, and public health agencies, is typically the first responder to an incident. The federal government historically has provided leadership, training, and funding assistance. In the aftermath of September 11, for instance, one-quarter of the $40 billion Emergency Response Fund was earmarked for homeland security, including enhancing state and local government preparedness. Because the national security threat is diffuse and the challenge is highly intergovernmental, national policymakers must formulate strategies with a firm understanding of the interests, capacity, and challenges facing those governments. The development of a national strategy will improve national preparedness and enhance partnerships between federal, state, and local governments. The creation of the Office of Homeland Security is an important and potentially significant first step. The Office of Homeland Security's strategic plan should (1) define and clarify the appropriate roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and local entities; (2) establish goals and performance measures to guide the nation's preparedness efforts; and (3) carefully choose the most appropriate tools of government to implement the national strategy …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the management challenges that continue to face the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). These challenges include (1) computer security, (2) financial management, (3) organizational modernization and performance management, and (4) business systems modernization management. IRS must make progress in all four areas to improve the agency's efficiency and to significantly improve service to taxpayers. IRS has taken important steps in all of these areas, but significant obstacles remain. In the area of computer security, IRS corrected many previously reported weaknesses and is launching a computer security management program that should help it manage its risks in this area. However, serious weaknesses persist that could impair IRS' ability to perform vital functions. In financial management, IRS was able to prepare financial statements this year that received an unqualified opinion. However, this achievement came through the use of substantial, costly, and time-consuming processes to work around IRS' system deficiencies. IRS has reorganized into four taxpayer-focused divisions and has developed a performance management approach consistent with management principles contained in the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act and the Government Performance and Results Act. However, much work remains to be …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on a global network of critical physical and cyber infrastructure to project, support, and sustain its forces and operations worldwide. The incapacitation, exploitation, or destruction of one or more of its assets would seriously damage DOD's ability to carry out its core missions. To identify and help assure the availability of this mission-critical infrastructure, in August 2005, DOD established the Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP), assigning overall responsibility for the program to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs (ASD[HD&ASA]). Since 2006, ASD(HD&ASA) has collaborated with the Joint Staff to compile a list of all DOD- and non-DOD-owned infrastructure essential to accomplish the National Defense Strategy. Each critical asset on the list must undergo a vulnerability assessment, which identifies weaknesses in relation to potential threats and suggests options to address those weaknesses. Data and material designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) or associated with Special Access Programs (SAP) are among the nation's most valued and closely guarded assets, and DOD faces inherent challenges in incorporating them into DCIP. The number of individuals authorized to access SCI and …

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the executive director of the Lubbock Housing Authority may serve as a member of the City of Lubbock Civil Service Commission (RQ-1022)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a district clerk may also serve as a reserve deputy sheriff (RQ-977)

Letter opinion 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, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a member of the Texas Southern University Board of Regents to serve as a volunteer, uncompensated coach (RQ-1025)

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, Crawford Martin, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Legality of expenditures by commissioner’s county from Road and Bridge funds.

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, Crawford Martin, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Authority of Commissioners Court to enter into contract with the United States for a Concentrated Employment Project under the MDTA and the EOA.

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 a municipality must pay a fire fighter or police officer for an appearance as a witness in a civil service hearing before a hearing examiner when the fire fighter or police officer is subpoenaed in his or her capacity as a fire fighter or police officer and testifies during time off (RQ-0633-GA)

Letter opinion 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, John Ben Shepperd, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Issuance of negotiable revenue bonds by State Parks Board.