Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Justice's (DOJ) antitrust review will be a critical step in the proposed merger between American Airlines (American) and US Airways. DOJ uses an integrated analytical framework set forth in the Horizontal Merger Guidelines to determine whether the merger poses any antitrust concerns. Under that process, DOJ assesses, among other things, the extent of likely anticompetitive effects of the proposed merger in the relevant markets, in this case, airline city-pair markets, and the likelihood that other airlines may enter these markets and counteract any anticompetitive effects, such as higher fares. DOJ also considers efficiencies that a merger or acquisition could bring--for example, consumer benefits from an expanded route network. The Department of Transportation (DOT) aids DOJ's analysis."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Some small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)--which are defined by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy as independent businesses with fewer than 500 employees--have petitioned for the imposition of antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duties to seek relief from unfair trade practices. Among the 56 petitions filed between 2007 and 2012, GAO found 21 that included at least 1 SME petitioner. In addition, the 56 petitions represented a total of 147 petitioners, of which 38 were SMEs. The majority of these SME petitioners had annual sales revenue of at least $10 million. Close to half of the total SME petitioners were in the iron and steel industry. Since participation in the petitions is not mandatory, producers, including SMEs, may benefit from a successful petition even if they choose not to join as a petitioner."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal years 2006 through 2012, Army's Industrial Operations' actual carryover was under the allowable amounts in 5 of the 7 fiscal years. However, carryover more than doubled during that period, reaching a high of $5.8 billion in fiscal year 2011. Army officials stated that fiscal year 2011 was an abnormal year because Industrial Operations (1) received more orders than it had ever received--$7.5 billion in new orders--and (2) implemented a system called the Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) that changed the business rules for recognizing revenue and therefore resulted in carryover being higher than it would have been under the prior system. Army officials anticipate carryover decreasing in fiscal year 2013. According to the Army fiscal year 2014 budget, the Army expects carryover to be under $4 billion at the end of fiscal year 2013."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has reported progress in stemming illegal cross-border activity, but it could strengthen the assessment of its efforts. For example, since fiscal year 2011, DHS has used the number of apprehensions on the southwest border between ports of entry (POE) as an interim measure for border security. GAO reported in December 2012 that apprehensions decreased across the southwest border from fiscal years 2006 through 2011, generally mirroring a decrease in estimated known illegal entries in each southwest border sector. CBP attributed this decrease in part to changes in the U.S. economy and increased resources for border security. Data reported by CBP's Office of Border Patrol (Border Patrol) show that total apprehensions across the southwest border increased from over 327,000 in fiscal year 2011 to about 357,000 in fiscal year 2012. It is too early to assess whether this increase indicates a change in the trend. GAO testified in February 2013 that the number of apprehensions provides information on activity levels but does not inform program results or resource allocation decisions. Border Patrol is in the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) five Regional Centers for Security Studies (Regional Centers) share similarities and differences with other DOD institutions that provide training and education, including professional military education, advanced degree-conferring, and professional development institutions, in terms of curriculum topics, targeted audience, and program format. GAO found that they all offer training and educational programs and activities to help participants understand security and military matters and to enhance their knowledge, skills, and experiences in these matters. However, there are notable differences in that the Regional Centers generally focus on helping foreign participants understand and respond to regional security issues; generally target a foreign civilian and military personnel audience; and offer shorter and typically less formal courses of study. The Regional Centers support DOD policy objectives with curricula designed to enhance security and foster partnerships through education and exchanges. By contrast, other DOD training and education organizations focus their curricula on military operations and leadership. While the Regional Centers' target audience is foreign civilian and military officials, the other DOD educational organizations typically aim their programs and activities at U.S. servicemembers at all career levels. Regional …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reported in June 2005 that EPA has historically faced the following challenges in implementing the provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA):"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Publishers included in GAO's study have disclosed textbook information required by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), such as pricing and format options, and made components of bundled materials available individually, but stakeholders GAO interviewed said these practices have had little effect on faculty decisions. While most publishers in GAO's study provided all relevant textbook information, two smaller publishers did not provide copyright dates of prior editions, and one did not provide certain pricing information. Publishers communicated information to faculty online and in other marketing materials, and in most cases the information was available to students and the public. In addition, publishers said they began making bundled materials available for sale individually before HEOA was passed. Faculty GAO interviewed said they typically prioritize selecting the most appropriate materials for their courses over pricing and format considerations, although they said they are more aware of affordability issues than they used to be. Changes in the availability of options in the college textbook market that are not related to HEOA, such as the increase in digital products, have also shaped faculty decisions about course materials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Four factors facilitated the ability of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Gallery of Art, Presidio Trust, and Smithsonian Institution to leverage nonfederal resources: (1) unique legal authorities and management flexibilities; (2) benefits received from these congressionally chartered organizations' (CCO) federal status; (3) governing boards that provided management and oversight; and (4) informal networks that enabled CCOs to share lessons. A critical flexibility is the ability to accept gifts and solicit private donations, but the CCOs in this study are not required to, and did not always provide, a complete picture of nonfederal resources to Congress. The federal budget process is the primary means by which the President and Congress select among competing demands for federal funds; as such, it is essential that budget information be comprehensive and clear. While Congress does not direct the CCOs' use of nonfederal funds, consistent and timely information about CCOs' total resources could provide important context for understanding both the relative tradeoffs among funding decisions and the implications of such decisions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) strategy for improving the reporting of contractor past performance information consists of providing additional training to its acquisition workforce and developing tools and metrics to improve oversight. The number of personnel trained more than doubled since 2010 to more than 7,000, and DOD oversight officials now have the ability to track compliance with reporting requirements down to the level of individual contracting offices. DOD continues to utilize existing past performance guidance, which generally aligns with requirements specified in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the last decade, the Department of Defense (DOD) has taken several actions to address legislative requirements to improve the acquisition and management of services. In 2001, as amended in 2006, Congress required DOD to implement a management structure for the acquisition of services. In response, DOD implemented such a structure and service acquisition review and approval process. Recently, DOD also established new positions within its management structure, including senior managers within the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (USD(AT&L)) and the military departments, to oversee and coordinate service acquisition. With a management structure and review process in place, USD(AT&L) is focusing on efforts to improve the process for how requirements for individual service acquisitions are developed and enhancing training to respond to several legislative directives. USD(AT&L) also created its Acquisition of Services Functional Integrated Product Team, in part, to determine how to address legislative requirements to provide training for personnel acquiring services. USD(AT&L) did not develop a plan to implement the Defense Science Board recommendations to improve service acquisition but identified 23 different actions, including its Better Buying Power …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Reducing the cap to the President's salary ($400,000) or the Vice President's salary ($230,700) would have substantially increased the number of employees with compensation costs exceeding the cap in 2010-2012."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken some important steps to establish an enduring expeditionary forensic capability by issuing a concept of operations in 2008, followed by a directive in 2011 to establish policy and assign responsibilities. As required by the directive, DOD has drafted a strategic plan to guide the activities of the Defense Forensic Enterprise, including expeditionary forensics. Although the plan includes a mission statement, and goals and objectives--two of the five key elements identified by GAO as integral to a well-developed strategic plan--it does not identify approaches for how goals and objectives will be achieved, milestones and metrics to gauge progress, and resources needed to achieve goals and objectives. GAO's prior work has shown that organizations need a well-developed strategic plan to identify and achieve their goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. Officials in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (OUSD(AT&L)) said that they decided to create a concise, high-level strategic plan and that they plan to issue guidance tasking the DOD components to develop individual implementation plans that include milestones. However, approaches, metrics, and resources …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) methods for estimating excess capacity outside of a congressionally-authorized Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process have limitations. DOD used similar processes in its excess capacity analyses conducted in 1998 and 2004. This process included three major steps: (1) categorizing bases according to their primary missions and defining indicators of capacity; (2) developing ratios of capacity-to-force structure for DOD's baseline year of 1989; and (3) aggregating the analysis from the installation level across the military services and department-wide."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) preliminary cost estimate for its current realignment plan is not reliable, because it is missing costs and is based on limited data. According to DOD officials, DOD has not yet been able to put together a more reliable cost estimate because it will not have specific detailed information on the plan's requirements until the completion of environmental analyses and host nation negotiations. Currently, DOD estimates that it would cost approximately $12.1 billion to implement its realignment plan--not including the Australia segment of the realignment. Still, GAO found that DOD did not include some up-front practices that could have provided a more reliable estimate that are not dependent on the completion of the environmental analyses and host nation negotiations. Specifically, DOD omitted any costs associated with mobility support, a critical component of the implementation, from its cost estimate. Furthermore, although DOD based its cost estimate on several assumptions, there was no evidence DOD conducted analysis needed to determine the reliability of those assumptions. Without a reliable estimate, DOD will not be able to provide Congress and other stakeholders with the information Congress …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Of the $595 million identified by Labor as having been appropriated or allocated specifically for green jobs activities since 2009, approximately $501 million went toward efforts with training and support services as their primary objective, with much of that funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). Because the Recovery Act directed federal agencies to spend funds quickly and prudently, Labor implemented a number of high-investment green jobs efforts simultaneously. As a result, in some cases, Recovery Act training programs were initiated prior to a full assessment of the demand for green jobs, which presented challenges for grantees. While Labor's internal agencies initially communicated with each other and with other federal agencies after the Recovery Act was passed, most Recovery Act grants have ended or are winding down."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Ex-Im's Business Plan concluded that the exposure limits in the Reauthorization Act were appropriate, but GAO’s May 2013 report found weaknesses in the methodology Ex-Im used to justify that conclusion. The Reauthorization Act increased the Ex-Im exposure limit to $120 billion in 2012, with provisions for additional increases to $130 billion in 2013 and $140 billion in 2014. Ex-Im forecast that its year-end exposure would be $120.2 billion in 2013 and $134.9 billion in 2014, below the congressionally determined limits. However, the buffer between the exposure limit and Ex-Im's exposure forecast for 2013 and 2014 is small in comparison with recent historical experience."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "FAA uses a variety of approaches, including certifying airplane design and inspecting air carriers, to oversee procedures and technologies that prevent or mitigate the effects of dense, continuous smoke in the cockpit. In the course of our review, we identified five such procedures and technologies that FAA oversees. They are:(1) Evacuation of dense smoke from the cockpit—FAA’s certification standards for aircraft design include that smoke evacuation must be readily accomplished. Additionally, FAA’s guidelines state that airplane manufacturers may demonstrate compliance with this requirement by evacuating dense smoke from the cockpit within 3 minutes. The guidelines also recommend, but do not require, that manufacturers demonstrate the capability to evacuate continuously generated smoke from the cockpit. However, according to FAA, no manufacturer has yet chosen to demonstrate this capability.(2) Protective breathing equipment for the flightcrew—FAA requires air carriers to provide protective breathing equipment that protects the flightcrew from the effects of smoke. The equipment must supply breathing gas for at least 15 minutes, must allow the pilots to use communication equipment, and must be readily accessible by the pilot. FAA inspections of aircraft include checks of this equipment.(3) Pilot training …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2007, the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers various programs for farmers that help support farm incomes and provide disaster assistance, has established procedures for preventing improper payments to deceased individuals, including, on a quarterly basis, matching payments to program participants with the Social Security Administration's (SSA) data on deceased individuals. In addition, FSA state and county offices review and verify whether payments made to deceased individuals are proper or improper. Overall, these procedures have enabled FSA to identify thousands of deceased individuals who were paid $3.3 million in improper payments after their dates of death, of which FSA has recovered approximately $1 million. GAO reviewed a generalizable random sample of payments to deceased individuals that FSA identified as proper and found that 9 percent did not have sufficient support to be coded as proper. More monitoring to ensure that county offices' coding of payments is supported by documentation could help reduce the error rate."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Thirteen of the 16 state transportation agencies GAO contacted used Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) to select the pavement type (e.g., asphalt or concrete) for certain road construction and rehabilitation projects. Officials in all 13 states indicated that LCCA helped ensure that the agency selected the pavement that was most cost-effective over the long term, but states' specific LCCA practices varied. In general, these states used LCCA for larger projects, but each state had unique criteria to determine which projects should be subject to an LCCA. Likewise, the broad categories of LCCA inputs--such as agency costs, timing of future road work, and discount rate--are similar, but state transportation agencies handled each of these inputs in different ways. For example, estimates of when future roadwork would occur for a particular pavement type were based on state-specific factors, such as past experience with pavements and climate. Furthermore, state agencies used different criteria to decide if LCCA results clearly indicated a pavement type with the lowest life-cycle cost. In 9 of the 13 states that used LCCA, the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) LCCA guidance was an important influence on state …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) performance in selling its foreclosed properties--known as real estate-owned (REO) properties--lagged the performance of both of the government-sponsored enterprises (enterprises), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. FHA disposed of more than 400,000 properties from January 2007 through June 2012. Its combined 2007-2012 returns, measured by the net execution rate (net sales proceeds divided by independently assessed property values) were about 4 to 6 percentage points below the enterprises' returns. After controlling for certain differences in their properties' characteristics (e.g., value, location, and local market conditions), differences in combined returns between FHA and the enterprises persisted at an estimated 2 to 5 percentage points."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Ten states concentrated in the western, midwestern, and southeastern United States--areas where the housing market had experienced strong growth in the prior decade--each experienced 10 or more commercial bank or thrift (bank) failures between 2008 and 2011. The failures of small banks (those with less than $1 billion in assets) in these states were largely driven by credit losses on commercial real estate (CRE) loans, particularly loans secured by real estate to finance land development and construction. Many of the failed banks had often pursued aggressive growth strategies using nontraditional, riskier funding sources and exhibited weak underwriting and credit administration practices. The Department of the Treasury and the Financial Stability Forum's Working Group on Loss Provisioning observed that earlier recognition of credit losses could have potentially lessened the impact of the crisis. The accounting model used for estimating credit losses is based on historical loss rates, which were low in the prefinancial crisis years. In part due to these accounting rules, loan loss allowances were not adequate to absorb the wave of credit losses that occurred once the financial crisis began. Banks had to recognize these losses through …