A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Nearly all of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program managers GAO surveyed reported their programs had experienced significant challenges. Sixty-eight of the 71 respondents reported they experienced funding instability, faced workforce shortfalls, or their planned capabilities changed after initiation, and most survey respondents reported a combination of these challenges. DHS lacks the data needed to accurately measure program performance, but GAO was able to use survey results, information DHS provided to Congress, and an internal DHS review from March 2012 to identify 42 programs that experienced cost growth, schedule slips, or both. GAO gained insight into the magnitude of the cost growth for 16 of the 42 programs, which increased from $19.7 billion in 2008 to $52.2 billion in 2011, an aggregate increase of 166 percent."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other federal agencies have taken steps to improve federal spending data available on USAspending.gov. This effort to publicly display comprehensive data arose from the federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which required OMB to establish a free, publicly accessible website containing data on federal awards and subawards. OMB launched USAspending.gov in December 2007 to meet these requirements. As GAO reported in 2010, while OMB had satisfied most of the requirements associated with the act, such as establishing the site with required data elements and search capability, it had only partially satisfied the requirement to establish a pilot program to test the collection and display of subaward data and had not met the requirements to include subaward data by January 2009, or to report to Congress on the site’s usage. Also, GAO found that from a sample of 100 awards on USAspending.gov, each award had at least one data error and that USAspending.gov did not include information on grants from programs at 9 agencies for fiscal year 2008. Subsequently, OMB and agencies have taken steps to improve the site …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Almost all public housing authorities (PHA) met their spending deadlines for the Public Housing Capital Fund formula and competitive grant programs. As mandated, all but one PHA spent 100 percent of their formula grants by March 17, 2012. According to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials, PHAs with competitive grants were on track to meet their September 2012 spending deadlines. PHAs we interviewed cited various challenges to meeting the grant deadlines, such as the tight time frames and many attributed their ability to meet deadlines to good planning within their organizations and help from HUD. According to analyses of HUD data, about 3,100 PHAs planned to undertake improvements with their formula grants that affected about 495,000 housing units. Many used their grants to make improvements that enhanced energy efficiency, such as installing energy-efficient windows and appliances. GAO determined that HUD’s monitoring strategy for these programs incorporated key internal controls, such as developing and implementing measures that allowed HUD staff to compare actual with planned results. At specific sites that GAO visited, PHAs were able to demonstrate work was under way or had been completed."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and aircraft operators have taken several important actions to enhance general aviation security, and TSA is gathering input from operators to develop additional requirements. For example, TSA requires that certain general aviation aircraft operators implement security programs. Aircraft operators under these programs must, among other things, develop and maintain TSA-approved security programs. TSA has also conducted outreach to the general aviation community to establish a cooperative relationship with general aviation stakeholders. In 2008, TSA developed a proposed rule that would have imposed security requirements on all aircraft over 12,500 pounds, including large aircraft that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) analysis has shown could cause significant damage in an attack. In response to industry concerns about the proposed rule’s costs and security benefits, TSA is developing a new proposed rule. Officials from all six industry associations GAO spoke with stated that TSA has reached out to gather industry’s input, and three of the six associations stated that TSA has improved its efforts to gather input since the 2008 notice of proposed rulemaking."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has identified and is communicating to its components and state and local partners topics that the training on countering violent extremism (CVE) it provides or funds should cover; in contrast, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not identified what topics should be covered in its CVE-related training. According to a DHS official who leads DHS's CVE efforts, identifying topics has helped to provide a logical structure for DHS's CVE-related training efforts. According to DOJ officials, even though they have not specifically identified what topics should be covered in CVE-related training, they understand internally which of the department's training is CVE-related and contributes either directly or indirectly to the department's training responsibilities under the CVE national strategy. However, over the course of this review, the department generally relied upon the framework GAO developed for potential CVE-related training topics to determine which of its existing training was CVE-related. Further, because DOJ has not identified CVE-related training topics, DOJ components have had challenges in determining the extent to which their training efforts contribute to DOJ's responsibilities under the CVE national strategy. In addition, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "TSA and aircraft operators have taken several important actions to enhance general aviation security, and TSA is working with aviation industry stakeholders to develop new security guidelines and regulations. Among other measures, TSA worked with members of the General Aviation Working Group of its Aviation Security Advisory Committee in 2003 and 2004 to develop recommended guidelines for general aviation airport security, and TSA expects the group to issue updated guidelines later this year. In addition, pursuant to the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, TSA established and oversees implementation of a security program in which aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds in scheduled or charter service that carry passengers or cargo or both, and that do not fall under another security program, must implement a “Twelve-Five” standard security program. Aircraft operators implementing a Twelve-Five security program must include, among other elements, procedures regarding bomb or air piracy threats. TSA obtains information directly from aircraft operators that fall under Twelve-Five through its review and approval of the security programs developed by these operators and through periodic inspections to determine the extent to which operators comply with their security programs. TSA …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) has drafted a new investment management plan, system development methodology, and requirements development and management processes to improve its ability to manage information technology (IT) investments and system development, but additional work is needed to ensure these processes are effective and successfully implemented across the bureau. GAO and others have identified the importance of implementing critical processes within an agency to allow it to select, control, and evaluate its IT investments and effectively manage system development. The bureau has developed a new draft investment management plan which contains policies and guidance for managing IT projects; however, the plan does not explain when investments with cost or schedule variances should be escalated to higher-level boards for review, or when managers should provide updated investment information to a planned bureau-wide tracking tool. The bureau has also developed a new system development methodology guide, but the guide has critical gaps. For example, although there are five development process models allowed, including the traditional sequential approach and newer more iterative approaches, the guide does not explain how to adapt processes and related work products …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While there have been efficiency gains and efforts to improve service, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) faced challenges providing telephone service and responding to correspondence, continuing trends experienced in recent years. In 2012, 82 percent of individual taxpayers filed their returns electronically (e-filed), reducing IRS's processing costs. IRS also increased calls answered using automated service and added a variety of self service tools, which helped gain efficiencies. However, IRS's level of telephone service (the percentage of callers seeking live assistance who receive it) declined to 68 percent. In addition, of the 21 million pieces of paper correspondence IRS received, about 40 percent were considered overage (meaning that IRS did not respond within 45 days of receipt), an increase compared to last year. While IRS plans to continue to pursue efficiency gains, its strategy for future years does not specifically address how it plans to reverse these negative trends. Reversing the declines in telephone and correspondence services may require IRS to consider difficult tradeoffs, such as reassessing which phone calls IRS should answer with a live assistor and which it should not because automated services are available."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Treasury has taken a number of actions since 2008, in part in response to recommendations we made, to establish a structured system to manage potential conflicts of interest involving its contractors and financial agents. The system is based on a formal regulation Treasury issued in interim form in 2009 and final form in 2011, which prohibits organizational or personal conflicts of interest unless they have been waived or mitigated under a Treasury-approved plan. The regulation sets forth requirements to address actual and potential conflicts that may arise, establishes responsibilities for contractors and financial agents in preventing conflicts from occurring, and outlines Treasury's process for reviewing and addressing conflicts. Treasury has developed a multifaceted process to manage and oversee potential conflicts of interest, which is managed by OFS's Office of the Chief Compliance Officer. The process includes reviewing proposed contracts and financial agency agreements, approving contractor and financial agent mitigation plans, addressing conflicts of interest inquiries, reviewing conflicts of interest certifications, and preparing feedback reports for contractors and financial agents. In addition, because the monitoring of conflicts of interest was based to some degree on self-reported information …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) creates its budget request through its Enrollee Health Care Projection Model (EHCPM) using data from systems designed for the former single-account structure. These systems do not explicitly consider the three appropriations accounts: Medical Services, Medical Support and Compliance, and Medical Facilities. According to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) officials, VHA formulates its budget based on the single appropriations account, in part, because the systems to formulate the request were in place prior to 2004, which was when the three-account structure was established. VA then presents the information in the Congressional Budget Justification (CBJ) by taking the data developed by the EHCPM and then, based on historical percentages and future projections, assigning the requested amounts to the three appropriations accounts."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO’s recent work highlights the types of challenges facing the Department of Defense (DOD) as it strives to attain audit readiness and reengineer its business processes and systems. The urgency in addressing these challenges has been increased by the goals of an auditable DOD Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR) by the end of fiscal year 2014 and a complete set of auditable financial statements by the end of fiscal year 2017. For example, GAO’s 2011 reporting highlights difficulties the DOD components experienced in attempting to achieve an auditable SBR. These include:"

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 "Employee Performance Standards for the Timely Review of Medical Product Applications:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Large federal excise tax disparities among tobacco products, which resulted from the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) of 2009, created opportunities for tax avoidance and led to significant market shifts by manufacturers and price sensitive consumers toward the lower-taxed products. Monthly sales of pipe tobacco increased from approximately 240,000 pounds in January 2009 to over 3 million pounds in September 2011, while roll-your-own tobacco dropped from about 2 million pounds to 315,000 pounds. For the same months, large cigar sales increased from 411 million to over 1 billion cigars, while small cigars dropped from about 430 million to 60 million cigars. According to government, industry, and nongovernmental organization representatives, many roll-your-own tobacco and small cigar manufacturers shifted to the lower-taxed products after CHIPRA to avoid paying higher taxes."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To reduce the backlog of incurred cost audits, the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) implemented an initiative to focus its resources on auditing contractors' incurred costs that involve high dollar values or are otherwise determined to be high risk. Incurred cost audits are conducted on a contractor's annual proposal that includes all costs incurred on certain types of contracts in that fiscal year. Under the initiative, DCAA raised the dollar threshold that triggers an automatic audit on a contractor's incurred cost proposal from $15 million to $250 million, revised the criteria used to determine a proposal's risk level, and significantly reduced the number of low risk audits that will be randomly sampled. This initiative appears promising, and DCAA plans to track certain characteristics, such as the number of risk determinations made and audits completed. But DCAA has not fully developed the measures by which it will assess whether the initiative reduces the backlog in a manner that protects the taxpayers' interests. Specifically, DCAA does not have a plan for how it will determine whether key features of the initiative, such as the revised risk criteria and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As of January 2012, GAO identified seven alternative models for compensating NRSROs (see table below). These models generally were designed to address the conflict of interest in the issuer-pays model, better align the NRSROs’ interest with users of ratings, or improve incentives NRSROs have to produce reliable and high-quality ratings. However, the amount of detail currently available for each model varies and none has been implemented. According to some of the authors of the models, there is little incentive to continue developing these models because it appears unlikely they will receive attention from regulators or legislators. For example, these authors noted that SEC had not reached out to them to further discuss these models as part of its ongoing study of alternative compensation models for credit rating agencies."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Older electricity generating units—those that began operating in or before 1978—provided 45 percent of electricity from fossil fuel units in 2010 but produced a disproportionate share of emissions, both in aggregate and per unit of electricity generated. Overall, in 2010 older units contributed 75 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 64 percent of nitrogen oxides emissions, and 54 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel units. For each unit of electricity generated, older units collectively emitted about 3.6 times as much sulfur dioxide, 2.1 times as much nitrogen oxides, and 1.3 times as much carbon dioxide as newer units. The difference in emissions between older units and their newer counterparts may be attributed to a number of factors. First, 93 percent of the electricity produced by older fossil fuel units in 2010 was generated by coal-fired units. Compared with natural gas units, coal-fired units produced over 90 times as much sulfur dioxide, twice as much carbon dioxide and over five times as much nitrogen oxides per unit of electricity, largely because coal contains more sulfur and carbon than natural gas. Second, fewer older units have installed emissions controls, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies conducted the regulatory analyses required by various federal statutes for all 54 regulations issued pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) that GAO reviewed. As part of their analyses, the agencies generally considered, but typically did not quantify or monetize, the benefits and costs of these rules. Most of the federal financial regulators, as independent regulatory agencies, are not subject to executive orders that require comprehensive benefit-cost analysis in accordance with guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Although most financial regulators are not required to follow OMB's guidance, they told GAO that they attempt to follow it in principle or spirit. GAO's review of selected rules found that regulators did not consistently follow key elements of the OMB guidance in their regulatory analyses. For example, while some regulators identified the benefits and costs of their chosen regulatory approach in proposed rules, they did not evaluate their chosen approach compared to the benefits and costs of alternative approaches. GAO previously recommended that regulators more fully incorporate the OMB guidance into their rulemaking policies, and the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) has been performing its monitoring role under Title XI, but several weaknesses have potentially limited its effectiveness. For example, Title XI did not originally provide ASC rulemaking and enforcement tools that could be useful in promoting state compliance. In addition, ASC has not reported or clearly defined the criteria it uses to assess states’ overall compliance levels. Title XI charges ASC with monitoring the appraisal requirements of the federal financial institutions regulators, but ASC has not defined the scope of this function—for example, by developing policies and procedures—and its monitoring activities have been limited. ASC also lacks specific policies for determining whether activities of the Appraisal Foundation (a private nonprofit organization that sets criteria for appraisals and appraisers) that are funded by ASC grants are Title XI-related. Not having appropriate policies and procedures is inconsistent with federal internal control standards designed to promote effectiveness and efficiency and limits the accountability and transparency of ASC’s activities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Multiple Title IV programs and tax expenditures provided substantial aid to populations across income levels. In 2009, 12.8 million students received Title IV aid, and approximately 18-million tax filers claimed a higher education tax benefit for current expenses. Recent increases in both programs from 2008 to 2009 may be because of enrollment increases and legislative actions, among other factors. Title IV grants tend to benefit students and families with incomes below the national median (about $52,000 from 2006–2010), while loans and work-study serve these students and those with family incomes above the median. Most tax benefits from the tuition and fees deduction and the parental exemption for dependent students went to households with incomes above $60,000, whereas the majority of benefits from the other higher education tax expenditures in GAO’s review—such as the American opportunity credit—went to households with lower incomes."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made progress in achieving its information-sharing mission, but could take additional steps to improve its efforts. Specifically, DHS has demonstrated leadership commitment by establishing a governance board to serve as the decision-making body for DHS information-sharing issues. The board has enhanced collaboration among DHS components and identified a list of key information-sharing initiatives. The board has also developed and documented a process to prioritize some of the initiatives for additional oversight and support. However, because DHS has not revised its policies and guidance to include processes for identifying information-sharing gaps and the results; analyzing root causes of those gaps; and identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks of removing incomplete initiatives from its list, it does not have an institutional record that would help it replicate and sustain those information-sharing efforts. Overall, DHS’s key information-sharing initiatives have progressed, and most have met interim milestones. However, progress has slowed for half of the 18 key initiatives, in part because of funding constraints. For example, 5 of DHS’s top 8 priority information-sharing initiatives currently face funding shortfalls. The board has not been able …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Use of some preventive services--cardiovascular disease screening and cervical cancer screening--by FFS beneficiaries generally aligned with clinical recommendations, but use of other cancer screenings for certain age groups, osteoporosis screening, and immunizations did not. In particular, among women aged 65 to 74, for whom breast cancer screening is recommended biannually by the Task Force, only two out of three received a mammogram in 2008 or 2009. Among beneficiaries aged 65 to 75, about one out of four received any of the Task Force recommended regimens for colorectal cancer screening from 2005 through 2009. Among men aged 75 or older, about two out of five received a Prostate-Specific Antigen test for prostate cancer--a test that required no cost sharing--from 2006 through 2009 even though the Task Force recommended against this service for that age group. Use of osteoporosis screening--for which Medicare coverage is limited--and influenza and pneumococcal immunizations was generally lower than recommended by the Task Force or ACIP. The Department of Health and Human Services has the authority to modify coverage of Medicare preventive services--such as osteoporosis screening--consistent with Task Force recommendations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent GAO work found that funding increases have expanded or created Department of Energy (DOE) programs with varying results. For example:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Tier 1 hybrid capital instruments, particularly trust preferred securities, have been heavily used by bank holding companies because of their financial advantages, but they are not as effective in absorbing losses as traditional forms of Tier 1 capital, such as common equity. As of December 31, 2010, almost two-thirds of all top-level bank holding companies that were subject to capital requirements included hybrid instruments in their Tier 1 capital, for a total value of $157 billion. Hybrid instruments such as trust preferred securities have offered institutions the benefit of lower-cost capital, largely because of their debt-related features—including tax-deductible dividends. These instruments also are accessible to a broader range of potential investors. However, trust preferred securities do not absorb losses like other Tier 1 instruments because of their obligation to repay principal and dividends. Trust preferred securities may provide limited financial flexibility in times of stress, but they may also hinder efforts to recapitalize troubled banking institutions."