Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) created the strategy for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project in 2005, the space landscape has changed significantly--the Space Shuttle program is retiring and the Ares I will not be available--increasing the importance of the timely development of COTS vehicles. The lack of alternatives for supplying the International Space Station and launching science missions have all contributed to an increased need for the COTS vehicles. The two COTS project partners, Orbital and SpaceX, have made progress in the development of their respective vehicles; however, both providers are behind schedule. As a result, the project recently received an additional $300 million to augment development efforts with risk reduction milestones. This testimony focuses on: (1) COTS development activities, including the recent funding increase; (2) the extent to which any COTS demonstration delays have affected commercial resupply services (CRS) missions and NASA's plans for meeting the space station's cargo resupply needs; and (3) lessons learned from NASA's acquisition approach for COTS. To prepare this statement, GAO used its prior relevant work and conducted additional audit work, such as analyzing each partner's agreement …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Today, GAO issued a correspondence identifying the internal controls that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has in place for reimbursable Space Act agreements and assessing to what extent the agency is adhering to those controls. Specifically, our review focused on NASA's internal controls related to (1) fair reimbursement from agreement partners; (2) interference between agreement partners' work and NASA's use of its facilities; and (3) alignment of agreement partners' work with NASA's mission. In that correspondence, we reported that NASA was generally adhering to its controls for entering into reimbursable Space Act agreements. In our review, however, we also found several instances in which agreements were not completely and accurately recorded in the Space Act Agreement Maker (SAAM) database. In addition, we identified one instance where NASA awarded a reimbursable agreement when similar services may have been available in the private sector. This action appears contrary to the National Space Policy and may have also been contrary to the Commercial Space Competitiveness Act. Federal government standards for internal controls state that control activities should help ensure that all transactions are completely and accurately recorded. NASA's SAAM …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the last few years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has increasingly relied on its authority under the Space Act of 1958 to enter into agreements, commonly referred to as Space Act agreements (SAA), to stimulate private sector development of systems capable of transporting cargo and crew to the International Space Station and to assist partner firms in developing their technologies. Reimbursable Space Act agreements involve the use of NASA's facilities, personnel, or equipment primarily for the benefit of the agreement partner. NASA undertakes reimbursable work when it has unique goods, services, or facilities which can be made available to another party in a manner that does not interfere with NASA mission requirements and is consistent with the agency's mission. According to NASA guidance, the agency generally collects full reimbursement for costs associated with a reimbursable agreement. These types of agreements are known as fully reimbursable SAAs. However, NASA can accept less than full reimbursement in certain instances, such as when the reimbursement is fair and reasonable when compared to the benefits NASA receives from the work. When NASA waives costs under a reimbursable SAA, NASA …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Our recent reviews of U.S counternarcotics programs in Mexico and Afghanistan highlighted the need to improve the programs' performance measures to track progress. The Department of State (State) received over $1 billion in its fiscal year 2010 appropriation for international counternarcotics assistance programs. The vast majority of this funding--about 90 percent in fiscal year 2010--supports counternarcotics programs in five countries--Mexico, Afghanistan, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is primarily responsible for implementing U.S. assistance programs involving eradication of illicit crops, interdiction of drug trafficking, and drug demand reduction, which represented about 85 percent of State's counternarcotics appropriation in fiscal year 2010. INL implements a large share of its funding through contractors, primarily for aviation support for eradication and interdiction efforts. Congress asked us to review State's performance measures for its counternarcotics programs. On March 10, 2011, we briefed congressional staff on our preliminary findings in which we described State's performance management system, including State's standard indicators for measuring the performance of counternarcotics assistance in recipient countries and requirements for posts to develop project-specific performance measures. Following the briefing, in subsequent …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To restore stability and liquidity to the financial system, Congress established the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and directed the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) to use the authorities granted under TARP to, among other things, preserve homeownership and protect home values. In February 2009, Treasury announced that up to $50 billion in TARP funds had been allocated to help struggling homeowners avoid potential foreclosure. However, the number of borrowers facing potential foreclosure has remained at historically high levels. In fact, in the first 2 years of the TARP-funded Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), more borrowers were denied or canceled from trial loan modifications than were given permanent modifications. In three prior reports, we looked at the implementation of HAMP and made several recommendations that were intended to address the challenges that Treasury faced in implementing the program. To better understand the experience of borrowers seeking HAMP modifications, we conducted a Web-based survey of housing counselors through the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program (NFMC) to obtain the counselors' perspectives of borrowers' experiences with HAMP. NFMC is administered by NeighborWorks America and funds approximately 130 grantees and …

Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This supplementary report to GAO-10-605SP provides individual state appendixes for 16 states and the District of Columbia for GAO's work on the sixth of its bimonthly reviews of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act)."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent studies have shown that use of herbal dietary supplements--chamomile, echinacea, garlic, ginkgo biloba, and ginseng--by the elderly within the United States has increased substantially. Sellers, such as retail stores, Web sites, and distributors, often claim these supplements help improve memory, circulation, and other bodily functions. GAO was asked to determine (1) whether sellers of herbal dietary supplements are using deceptive or questionable marketing practices and (2) whether selected herbal dietary supplements are contaminated with harmful substances. To conduct this investigation, GAO investigated a nonrepresentative selection of 22 storefront and mail-order retailers of herbal dietary supplements. Posing as elderly consumers, GAO investigators asked sales staff (by phone and in person) at each retailer a series of questions regarding herbal dietary supplements. GAO also reviewed written marketing language used on approximately 30 retail Web sites. Claims were evaluated against recognized scientific research published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). GAO also had an accredited lab test 40 unique popular single-ingredient herbal dietary supplements for the presence of lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, organichlorine pesticides, and organophosphorous pesticides."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The financing of the federal government depends importantly on the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) ability to administer the tax laws, including achieving its goals of providing taxpayer services to make voluntary compliance easier and enforcing tax laws to ensure everyone meets their obligations to pay taxes. The President requested $12.6 billion to fund IRS's fiscal year (FY) 2011 operations, including $5.8 billion for enforcement, $4.1 billion for operations support, and $2.3 billion for taxpayer services. Another $387 million is for IRS's Business Systems Modernization (BSM) program, IRS's ongoing effort to improve the agency's tax processing systems. In addition to its annual appropriation, IRS projects that it will also collect and have available to use about $339 million in offsetting collections, including user fees and reimbursable programs. IRS's Strategic Plan 2009-2013 guides budget and program decisions and emphasizes IRS's goals. It recognizes the increasing complexity of tax laws, changing business models, expanding use of electronic data and related security risks, accelerating growth in international tax activities, and growing human capital challenges. With all of these competing priorities for spending in IRS programs, limited resources make it …

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; Authority of Spindletop Mental Health Mental Retardation Services to sell or lease certain real property under House Bill 1759 and House Bill 1023 (RQ-0845-GA)

Document containing finding of no significant impact and final environmental assessment concerning the adoption of the United States Clean Water Rule and the definition of waters of the United States (104 pages).

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) included $4 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF). This testimony--based on GAO's report GAO-10-604, issued on May 26, 2010, in response to a mandate under the Recovery Act--addresses (1) state efforts to meet requirements associated with the Recovery Act and SRF program, (2) the uses of Recovery Act funds, and (3) EPA's and states' efforts to oversee the use of these funds. GAO's review of the Clean Water SRF program focused on 14 states and selected localities--known as subrecipients--in each of these states. These 14 states received approximately 50 percent of the total appropriated under the Recovery Act for the Clean Water SRF. GAO obtained data from EPA and the 14 states, including the amounts and types of financial assistance each SRF program provided, which subrecipients were first-time recipients of Clean Water SRF funding, and which projects serve disadvantaged communities."