Report regarding U.S. attention to terrorism in Latin America, which has intensified in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The report talks about the 112th Congress's initiatives that have been introduced related to terrorism issues in the Western Hemisphere regarding Mexico, Venezuela, and the activities of Iran and Hezbollah.

Report that focuses on potential approaches that Europe might employ to diversify its sources of natural gas supply, Russia's role in Europe's natural gas policies, and key factors that could hinder efforts to develop alternative suppliers of natural gas.

Report that provides background information and discussion related to immigration issues.

Report that provides background on Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), a brief explanation of the program, its origins, issues, and how the Affordable Care Act might impact COBRA.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2002, the federal government has offered long-term care insurance to its employees, retirees, and certain others through the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP). Enrollees pay the full cost of their premiums. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) oversees the program. OPM has held two competitive processes to select contractors to insure enrollees and administer FLTCIP, although interest in and competition for these contracts has been limited. In 2009, soon after OPM's award of FLTCIP's second 7-year contract to John Hancock Life Insurance Company (John Hancock), 66 percent of enrollees were notified that their premiums would increase up to 25 percent in order to compensate for how the actuarial assumptions used to set premiums differed from the program's experience. GAO was asked to review FLTCIP. In this report, GAO describes (1) factors affecting carriers' interest in FLTCIP, (2) how the actuarial assumptions used to set FLTCIP premiums have changed since the program's inception, and (3) OPM's oversight of actuarial assumptions and experience and program communications. To do so, GAO interviewed officials from six carriers that in 2009 insured over 60 percent of all long-term …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To carry out complex national security initiatives--such as combating illicit financing of terrorist activities, undertaking development projects in conflict zones, and countering piracy off the Horn of Africa--U.S. government agencies must coordinate with a large number of organizations in their planning efforts. Our prior work on the federal government's national security initiatives has determined that U.S. agencies face a number of challenges to effectively collaborating with one another, potentially resulting in gaps and overlaps in policy implementation. In particular, we have found that agencies face challenges to developing overarching strategies to achieve common goals, creating effective mechanisms for operating across agencies, and sharing sensitive information. For example, our work has shown that the Department of State (State) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have different planning time frames than the Department of Defense (DOD), which poses a challenge for the three organizations. This report summarizes and formally transmits the enclosed briefing in response to Section 1055 of the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, which required us to examine the need for and implications of a common alignment of world regions in …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, hedge funds, private equity funds, and other private funds proliferated but were largely unregulated, causing members of Congress and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff to raise questions about investor protection and systemic risk. To address this potential regulatory gap, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) brought certain advisers to private funds under the federal securities laws, requiring them to register with SEC. The Dodd-Frank Act also requires GAO to examine the feasibility of forming a self-regulatory organization (SRO) to provide primary oversight of private fund advisers. This report discusses (1) the feasibility of forming such an SRO, and (2) the potential advantages and disadvantages of a private fund adviser SRO. To address the mandate, GAO reviewed federal securities laws, SEC staff's recently completed study on its investment adviser examination program that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, past regulatory and legislative proposals to create an SRO for investment advisers, and associated comment letters. GAO also interviewed SEC and SRO staffs, other regulators, and various market participants and observers. We provided a draft of this report to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To prioritize capital investments, selected transit agencies we reviewed follow some leading practices in the areas of planning, information and data systems, and ranking capital projects. For example, several agencies have developed asset inventories that provide accessible, consistent, and comprehensive information about their assets. One agency also incorporated asset condition data into its asset replacement models, resulting in more accurate and cost-effective replacement investments. However, transit agencies face challenges in implementing these leading practices. For example, several agencies we visited reported challenges collecting data or monitoring or analyzing assets' condition and performance."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The selected federal agencies have made progress implementing the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) “Cloud First” policy. Consistent with this policy, each of the seven agencies incorporated cloud computing requirements into their policies and processes. For example, one agency had incorporated a review of its information technology (IT) investment portfolio to identify candidates for a cloud solution into its IT plan. Further, each of the seven agencies met the OMB deadlines to identify three cloud implementations by February 2011 and to implement at least one service by December 2011. However, two agencies do not plan to meet OMB’s deadline to implement three services by June 2012, but plan to do so by calendar year end, ranging from August to December. Each of the seven agencies has also identified opportunities for future cloud implementations, such as moving storage and help desk services to a cloud environment. While each of the seven agencies submitted plans to OMB for implementing the cloud solutions, all but one plan were missing key required elements. For example, 7 of the 20 plans did not include estimated costs and none of the …

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Data from the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) show that migrants from the freely associated states (FAS)—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands, and Palau—reside throughout U.S. areas. GAO's 2011 report found that Census estimates that roughly 56,000 compact migrants—nearly a quarter of all FAS citizens—were living in U.S. areas in 2005 to 2009. About 58 percent of compact migrants lived in areas that Congress defined in the amended compacts' enabling legislation as affected jurisdictions: American Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Explosives represent a continuing threat to aviation security. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), seeks to ensure through the Electronic Baggage Screening Program (EBSP) that checked-baggage-screening technology is capable of detecting explosives. Generally, the explosives detection system (EDS) is used in conjunction with explosives trace detection (ETD) machines to identify and resolve threats in checked baggage. As requested, GAO assessed the extent to which: (1) TSA revised explosives detection requirements and deployed technology to meet those requirements, and (2) TSA's approach to the current EDS acquisition meets best practices for schedules and cost estimates and includes plans for potential upgrades of deployed EDSs. GAO analyzed EDS requirements, compared the EDS acquisition schedule against GAO best practices, and interviewed DHS officials. This is a public version of a sensitive report that GAO issued in May 2011."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While the eight agencies GAO reviewed—the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency—varied in the extent to which their cost-estimating policies and procedures addressed best practices, most had significant weaknesses. For example, six of the eight agencies had established a clear requirement for programs to develop life-cycle cost estimates. However, most of the eight agencies’ policies lacked requirements for cost-estimating training, a standard structure for defining work products, and a central, independent cost-estimating team, among other things. The weaknesses in agencies’ policies were due, in part, to the lack of a priority for establishing or enhancing department or agency-level cost-estimating functions. Until agencies address weaknesses in their policies, it will be difficult for them to make effective use of program cost estimates for informed decision making, realistic budget formation, and meaningful progress measurement."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in consultation with the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) and other agencies, has identified federal and nonfederal storm data collection efforts that may provide the covered data--specified in the act to include wind speeds, storm surge, and other measures--for a post-storm model required by the Consumer Option for an Alternative System to Allocate Losses Act of 2012 (COASTAL Act). However, NOAA officials said they will not know which specific data collection efforts will be used until they develop the model, which the act requires NOAA develop by regulation by December 28, 2013. According to agency officials and representatives from nonfederal entities, such as a university and a nonprofit organization, efforts that can collect surface level water, wave, and wind measurements over land will likely provide important sources of data. NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as well as some nonfederal entities, such as universities and private companies, currently collect some surface level data on wind and water. However officials and representatives from the agencies and nonfederal entities, respectively, said current efforts may not be sufficient for the …

This report provides background information and presents potential issues for Congress concerning the Navy's ship force-structure goals and shipbuilding plans, including the planned size of the Navy, the rate of Navy ship procurement, and prospective affordability. Congressional decisions on Navy shipbuilding programs can substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the influence of the Taliban and other militant groups, and on the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This report also discusses the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship, in both the short and long term, and U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration to provide military, reconstructive, and stabilization aid.

This document provides information on the distribution of $535 million in monthly sales tax revenue to local government.

This report looks at political instability that has plagued the country since 2009. It address other concerns that Congress has about the country as well, specifically threats to Madagascar's unique ecosystem.

This report discusses the evolution of a national critical infrastructure policy and the institutional structures established to implement it. Critical infrastructure includes physical assets used to produce and distribute services such as electricity (including the power plants and electric grid), communications, and computers. The report highlights five issues of Congressional concern: identifying critical assets; assessing vulnerabilities and risks; allocating resources; information sharing; and regulation.

This report discusses the current political and foreign policy status of Morocco, especially with regard to its relationship with the United States and its struggles combating terrorism.

This is a report that discusses the procurement of Air Force F-22 Raptor fighters, which began in Fiscal Year 1999, and a total of 195 (177 production aircraft, 16 test aircraft, and 2 development aircraft) were procured through FY2009.

This report is on An Analysis of Charitable Giving and Donor Advised Funds.

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We report the most direct experimental verification of Mott-Hubbard and charge-transfer insulators through x-ray emission spectroscopy in transition-metal (TM) fluorides. The p-d hybridization features in the spectra allow a straightforward energy alignment of the anion-2p and metal-3d valence states, which visually shows the difference between the two types of insulators. Furthermore, in parallel with the theoretical Zaanen-Sawatzky-Allen diagram, a complete experimental systematics of the 3d Coulomb interaction and the 2p-3d charge-transfer energy is reported and could serve as a universal experimental trend for other TM systems including oxides.

During the start-up of Run II of the Tevatron Collider program, several issues surfaced which were not present, or not seen as detrimental, during Run I. These included the repeated deterioration of the closed orbit requiring orbit smoothing every two weeks or so, the inability to correct the closed orbit to desired positions due to various correctors running at maximum limits, regions of systematically strong vertical dipole corrections, and the identification of very strong coupling between the two transverse degrees-of-freedom. It became apparent that many of the problems being experienced operationally were connected to a deterioration of the main dipole magnet alignment, and remedial actions were undertaken. However, the alignment alone was not enough to explain the corrector strengths required to handle transverse coupling. With one exception, strong coupling had generally not been an issue in the Tevatron during Run I. Based on experience with the Main Ring, the Tevatron was designed with a very strong skew quadrupole circuit to compensate any quadrupole alignment and skew quadrupole field errors that might present themselves. The circuit was composed of 48 correctors placed evenly throughout the arcs, 8 per sector, evenly placed in every other cell. Other smaller circuits were installed but …