The purpose of this report is to provide a concise status update for value-added products (VAP) implemented by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) new VAPs for which development has begun, (2) progress on existing VAPs, (3) future VAPs that have been recently approved, (4) other work that leads to a VAP, and (5) top requested VAPs from the archive.

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 the Department of Public Safety to contract with a county tax assessor-collector to performs its duties relating to the issuance of driver’s licenses and personal identification certificates (RQ-1002-GA)

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: Proration of homestead property tax exemption under section 11.131 of the Tax Code for a fully disabled veteran who died during 2011; and application of that exemption to the surviving spouse of a veteran who dies during 2011 (RQ-1005-GA)

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 the Texas Lottery Commission to conduct second-chance drawings and other games via the Internet (RQ1037-GA)

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the White House have acted to strengthen biosurveillance consistent with prior GAO recommendations made from December 2009 through October 2011.In August 2012, DHS issued a strategic plan for its National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) that officials say was written in coordination with federal partners and designed to respond to GAO’s December 2009 findings that NBIC did not have key resources to carry out its mission, in part due to collaboration issues it faced. In July 2012, the White House released the National Strategy for Biosurveillance, which describes guiding principles, core functions, and enablers for strengthening biosurveillance. In June 2010, GAO recommended a national biosurveillance strategy to provide a unifying framework for building and maintaining a national biosurveillance capability. In October 2011, GAO also recommended the strategy account for the need to leverage resources and respond to challenges while partnering with nonfederal entities. The July 2012 strategy partially responds to the issues GAO called for such a strategy to address, but does not fully address them, as discussed below. A strategic implementation plan is to be published within 120 days of strategy …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, according to FMS officials, FMS considers both TOP and the cross-servicing program to be fully mature in that all key elements of the programs have been implemented. As such, FMS's current and future efforts will focus on enhancements that will (1) for TOP, facilitate its ability to increase federal nontax debt collections through additional offsets and (2) for the cross-servicing program, enable it to collect such debt more efficiently and effectively. Further, FMS is considering a number of initiatives intended to improve centralized collection of delinquent federal nontax debt. These initiatives primarily involve increasing the amount of debt subject to collection by FMS, bolstering FMS's set of debt collection tools, and enhancing FMS's internal operations and interactions with referring federal agencies. Several of FMS's initiatives, which are in the early stages of development, could, if approved and effectively implemented, address long-standing concerns about FMS's centralized debt collection program."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Navy follows the five basic guiding principles for managing risk at the strategic, environmental, and operational levels before making decisions about the placement and operation of its force structure—including the placement of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers on the East Coast of the United States. The Navy does not conduct any unique risk assessment for its nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at naval installations; rather, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are high-value assets that are included in the Navy’s overall risk management process. At the strategic level, Office of the Secretary of the Navy and Office of the Chief of Naval Operations headquarters staff have identified and analyzed risks, such as emerging threats from hostile nation-states, which could make demands on homeland defense capabilities. Since 2004, according to Navy officials, the Navy has been using its strategic laydown and dispersal methodology in dividing its force structure and assets between the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. In addition, officials stated that there may be adjustments to the Navy’s current split of assets between the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets based on direction from the President that is reflected in DOD’s January 2012 defense strategic guidance, which …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, 1,964 hospitals and 45,962 professionals were awarded a total of approximately $2.7 billion in Medicaid EHR incentive payments for 2011. These 1,964 hospitals, which represented 39 percent of the 5,013 eligible hospitals, were awarded a total of $1.7 billion in Medicaid EHR incentive payments for 2011. While the amount of Medicaid EHR incentive payments awarded to each hospital ranged from $7,528 to $7.2 million, the median payment amount was $613,512. Participation rates, as well as total payments, were higher for hospitals in the Medicaid EHR program when compared to the Medicare EHR program, though the median payment amount in the Medicaid EHR program was less than half as large. About 50 percent of hospitals accounted for about 80 percent of the total amount of Medicaid incentive payments awarded to hospitals. Among hospitals awarded a Medicaid EHR incentive payment for 2011, we found that"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "USAID obligated and expended most of the ESF assistance to the West Bank and Gaza appropriated for fiscal years 2010 and 2011. Of the total $789 million provided for West Bank and Gaza assistance over the 2 years, USAID had obligated 96 percent and expended 70 percent by the end of April 2012. USAID obligated about $410 million for 26 development projects and $350 million in budget support to the PA over the 2 fiscal years. USAID provided the most assistance to the water resources and infrastructure sector, about 56 percent of total project obligations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "During fiscal year 2011, OFS addressed several of the internal control issues related to the significant deficiency we reported for fiscal year 2010 concerning its accounting and financial reporting processes. However, remaining uncorrected control deficiencies along with other control deficiencies that we identified in this area in fiscal year 2011 collectively represented a continuing significant deficiency in OFS’s internal control over its accounting and financial reporting processes. Specifically, while OFS improved its review and approval process for preparing its financial statements, notes, and Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) for TARP for fiscal year 2011, we continued to identify incorrect amounts and inconsistent disclosures in OFS’s draft financial statements, notes, and MD&A that were significant, but not material, and that were not detected by OFS. For fiscal year 2011, we also identified deficiencies in other OFS accounting and financial reporting procedures related to: (1) recording of noncash transactions, (2) recording of warrant adjustments, and (3) accounting for Public-Private Investment Fund (PPIF) equity distributions."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In our audit of SEC’s fiscal years 2011 and 2010 financial statements, we identified four significant deficiencies in internal control as of September 30, 2011. These significant internal control deficiencies represent continuing deficiencies concerning controls over (1) information systems, (2) financial reporting and accounting processes, (3) budgetary resources, and (4) registrant deposits and filing fees. These significant control deficiencies may adversely affect the accuracy and completeness of information used and reported by SEC’s management. We are making a total of 10 new recommendations to address these continuing significant internal control deficiencies."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for governmentwide federal spectrum management, but GAO reported in 2011 that NTIA’s efforts in this area had been limited. In 2003, the President directed NTIA to develop plans identifying federal and nonfederal spectrum needs, and in 2008, NTIA issued the federal plan. GAO found it did not identify governmentwide spectrum needs and did not contain key elements and conform to best practices for strategic planning. Furthermore, NTIA’s primary spectrum management operations do not focus on governmentwide needs. Instead, NTIA depends on agency self-evaluation of spectrum needs and focuses on mitigating interference among spectrum users, with limited emphasis on overall spectrum management. Additionally, NTIA’s data management system is antiquated and lacks internal controls to ensure the accuracy of agency-reported data, making it unclear if reliable data inform decisions about federal spectrum use. NTIA is developing a new data management system, but implementation is years away."

Individual raw datastreams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility fixed and mobile sites are collected and sent to the Data Management Facility (DMF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for processing in near real-time. Raw and processed data are then sent approximately daily to the ARM Data Archive, where they are made available to the research community. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of processed data records received daily at the Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual datastream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year (FY) dating back to 1998.