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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Interpretation of Texas Government Code section 441.201 concerning the officials records of a former governor (RQ-0468-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether certain uses of driver’s license information violate the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725 (2000) (RQ-0464-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Constitutionality of racial profiling statute under article III, section 35 of the Texas Constitution (RQ-0467-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the governor is authorized to increase and appropriate state motor vehicle registration fees (RQ-0475-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Insurance Code article 3.70-3C, section 3A(c), (i) and article 20A.18B(c), (i) authorize the Texas Commissioner of Insurance to promulgate rules requiring health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations to disclose their policies regarding fees, bundling, and downcoding to physicians and other health care providers (RQ-0461-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county may maintain a road that has not been officially established as a public road but which has been accessible to and regularly used by the public (RQ-0469-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether section 37.123 of the Education Code, which creates the offense of “disruptive activity,” requires proof of intent (RQ-0474-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a casket constitutes “funeral merchandise” for purposes of Chapter 651 of the Occupations Code, and related questions (RQ-0477-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Smith County Commissioners Court violates the Open Meetings Act, chapter 551 of the Government Code, if it permits the Smith County Auditor to attend a meeting closed to consult with the county's attorney regarding pending litigation or settlement options, and related questions (RQ-0470-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Clarification of Attorney General Opinion JC-0426: Whether a state university may contract with a bank that employs a member of the board of regents as an officer (RQ-0473-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a hospital is authorized to report information required by chapter 108, Health and Safety Code, without obtaining the written consent of the affected patient (RQ-0481-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether section 402.909 of the Local Government Code is applicable to the San Antonio Water System and Related Questions(RQ-0489-JC).

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Improperly defined intellectual property rights in a government contract can result in the loss of an entity's critical assets or limit the development of applications critical to public health or safety. Conversely, successful contracts can spur economic development, innovation, and growth, and dramatically improve the quality of delivered goods and services. Contracting for intellectual property rights is difficult. The stakes are high, and negotiating positions are frequently ill-defined. Moreover, the concerns raised must be tempered with the understanding that government contracting can be challenging even without the complexities of intellectual property rights. Further, contractors often have reasons for not wanting to contract with the government, including concerns over profitability, capacity, accounting and administrative requirements, and opportunity costs. Within the commercial sector, companies identified a number of specific intellectual property concerns that affected their willingness to contract with the government. These included perceived poor definitions of what technical data is needed by the government, issues with the government's ability to protect proprietary data adequately, and unwillingness on the part of government officials to exercise the flexibilities available concerning intellectual property rights. Some of these concerns were on perception rather …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress is considering expanding the number of federal agencies required to prepare audited financial statements to include all executive branch agencies that have budget authority of $25 million or more. The Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 builds on the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act by encouraging agencies to have systems that generate timely, accurate, and useful information with which to make informed decisions on an ongoing basis. The 26 non-CFO Act agencies that GAO surveyed reported that they anticipate significant benefits from audited financial statements."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Rightsizing is the aligning of the number and location of staff assigned to U.S. embassies with foreign policy priorities, security, and other constraints. GAO is developing a framework to enable the executive branch to assess the number and mix of embassy staff. The framework will link staffing levels to the following three critical elements of overseas operations: (1) physical security and real estate, (2) mission priorities and requirements, and (3) operational costs. GAO reviewed policies and practices at the U.S. Embassy in Paris because of its large size and history of rightsizing decisions. GAO found that about 700 employees from 11 agencies work in main buildings at the Paris Embassy. Serious security concerns in at least one embassy building in Paris suggest the need to consider staff reductions unless building security can be improved. Staffing levels are hard to determine because agencies use different criteria and priorities to place staff. The lack of comprehensive cost data on all agencies' operations, which is estimated at more than $100 million annually in France, and the lack of an embassywide budget eliminate the possibility of cost-based decisionmaking on staffing. The number …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The following eight "encroachment" issues are hampering the military's ability to carry out realistic training: endangered species' critical habitat, unexploded ordnance and munitions, competition for radio frequency spectra, protected marine resources, competition for airspace, air pollution, noise pollution, and urban growth around military installations. Officials at all the installations and major commands GAO visited in the continental United States reported that encroachment had affected some of their training range capabilities, requiring work-arounds that are unrealistic. Service officials believe that population growth is responsible for current encroachment problems in the United States and is likely to cause more training range losses in the future. Despite concerns about encroachment, military readiness reports do not indicate the extent to which encroachment is harming training. Improvements in readiness reporting can better reveal shortfalls in training, but the ability to fully assess training limitations and their impact on capabilities and readiness will be limited without (1) more complete baseline data on training range capabilities, limitations, and requirements and (2) consideration of how live training capabilities may be complemented by training devices and simulations. Progress in addressing individual encroachment issues has been made, but …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Hazardous substances that leak from underground storage tanks can contaminate the soil and water and pose continuing health risks. Leaks of methyl tertiary butyl ether--a fuel additive--have forced several communities to close their wells. GAO surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine whether tanks are compliant with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) underground storage tank (UST) requirements. About 1.5 million tanks have been closed since the program was created, leaving about 693,000 tanks subject to UST requirements. Eighty-nine percent of these tanks had the required protective equipment installed, but nearly 30 percent of them were not properly operated and maintained. EPA estimates that the rest were inactive and empty. More than half of the states do not meet the minimum rate recommended by EPA for inspections. State officials said that they lacked the money, staff, and authority to conduct more inspections or more strongly enforce tank compliance. States reported that even tanks with the required leak prevention and detection equipment continue to leak, although the full extent of the problem is unknown. EPA is seeking better data on leaks from upgraded tanks and is …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent $21 billion in fiscal year 2001 to treat 3.8 million veterans--most of whom had service-connected disabilities or low incomes. Since 1997, VA has used the Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) system to allocate most of its medical care appropriation. GAO found that VERA has had a substantial impact on network resource allocations and workloads. VERA shifted $921 million from networks primarily in the northeast and midwest to networks in the south and west in fiscal year 2001. VERA, along with other VA initiatives, has provided an incentive for networks to serve more veterans. In GAO's view, VERA's overall design is a reasonable approach to allocating resources according to workloads. It provides a predetermined dollar amount per veteran served to each of VA's 22 health care networks. This amount varies depending upon the health care needs of the veteran served and local cost differences. However, GAO identified weaknesses in VERA's implementation. First, VERA excludes about one fifth of VA's workload in determining each network's allocation. Second, VERA does not account well for cost differences among networks resulting from variation in their patients' …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) paid $2.1 billion in medical and death benefits and received 174,000 new injury claims during fiscal year 2000. GAO found that (1) one in four appealed claims' decisions are reversed or remanded to OWCP district offices for additional consideration and a new decision because of questions about or problems with the initial claims decision; (2) OWCP set a goal of informing 96 percent of claimants within 110 days of the date of the hearing; (3) nearly all doctors used by OWCP to provide opinions on injuries claimed were board certified and state licensed and were specialists in areas consistent with the injuries they evaluated; and (4) OWCP has used mailed surveys, telephone surveys, and focus groups to measure customer satisfaction. The Labor inspector general is monitoring fraud within OWCP's workers compensation program and using the claims examiners as one source to identify potentially fraudulent claims. This testimony is based on a May report (GAO-02-637)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century changed the budgetary treatment of programs financed by the Highway Trust Fund. The act guaranteed annual funding levels for most highway and transit programs and linked highway user tax receipts, such as those from motor fuel and truck tire taxes, to the annual funding levels for highway programs. Revenue aligned budget authority adjustments are made to the annual guaranteed funding level provided in the act as highway account receipt levels change. For the first time, the adjustment for fiscal year 2003 is negative--decreasing the guaranteed level of highway funding by $4.369 billion. GAO found that the amounts distributed to the Highway Trust Fund for the first nine months of fiscal year 2001, as adjusted based on the Internal Revenue Service's certifications, were reasonable and adequately supported."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony addresses GAO's fiscal year 2001 performance and results, current challenges and future plans, and GAO's budget request for fiscal year 2003."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 reauthorizes and expands the information security, evaluation, and reporting requirements enacted in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. Concerned that pervasive information security weaknesses place federal operations at significant risk of disruption, tampering, fraud, and inappropriate disclosures of sensitive information, Congress enacted the Government Security Reform Act (GISRA) for more effective oversight. The Federal Information Security Management Act also changes and clarifies information security issues noted in the first-year implementation of GISRA. In particular, the bill requires the development, promulgation of, and compliance with minimum mandatory management controls for securing information and information systems; requires annual agency reporting to both the Office of Management and Budget and the Comptroller General; and defines the evaluation responsibilities for national security systems. To ensure that information security receives appropriate attention and resources and that known deficiencies are addressed, it will be necessary to delineate the roles and responsibilities of the numerous entities involved; obtain adequate technical expertise to select, implement, and maintain controls; and allocate enough agency resources for information security."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Postal Service continues to face financial and transformation challenges. Since GAO placed the Service's long-term outlook and transformation efforts on its high-risk list, the Service's financial situation has continued to decline, and its operational challenges have increased. The Service took a good first step when it issued its Transformation Plan. The plan provides information about the Service's challenges, identifies many actions the Service plans to take under its existing authority, and outlines steps that would require congressional action. The plan does not, however, adequately address some key issues or include an action plan with key milestones. The catastrophic events of September 11 and subsequent anthrax scares, coupled with the recent economic slowdown, have decreased mail volumes and revenues. However, the Service's financial difficulties are not just a cyclical phenomenon that will fade as the economy recovers. The Service's basic business model, which assumes that rising mail volume will cover rising costs and mitigate rate increases, is questionable as mail volumes stagnate or deteriorate in an increasingly competitive environment. The Service's Transformation Plan recognizes that postal costs are rising faster than revenues and identifies many actions that …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2002, U.S. Postal Service employees accounted for one-third of both the federal civilian workforce and the $2.1 billion in overall costs for the Federal Workers' Compensation Program (WCP). Postal workers submitted half of the claims for new work-related injuries that year. Postal Service employees with job-related traumatic injuries or occupational diseases almost always provided the evidence required to make a determination on their entitlement. In two percent of the cases, the Office of Workers' Compensation Program (OWCP) found that evidence was missing for one or more of the required elements. However, the length of time taken to process claims varied widely even though all were subject to the same OWCP processing standards. OWCP claims examiners took 59 days to process traumatic injury claims after receiving the notice of injury claim forms from the Postal Service--a process that should take 45 days for all but the most complex cases, according to OWCP performance standards. The case files lacked the information necessary to determine whether the claims for compensation were prepared and filed by the employees within the time frame set by OWCP regulations. OWCP claims examiners …