This report discusses the ongoing debate about whether or not to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for energy development. The report discusses arguments for and against such development and focuses especially on related pieces of legislation that directly affects the future of the ANWR.

This report provides the following: an overview of postsecondary education (institutions and students), an overview of the Higher Education Act (HEA) with a focus on its most significant programs and provisions, and a discussion of major issues likely to be of interest to the Congress during the HEA reauthorization process.

In recent years conflicting budget priorities and divided political control have accentuated the institutional tensions between the executive and legislative branches inherent in the federal budget process. President Clinton, like his two predecessors, called for an item veto, or possibly expanded impoundment authority, to provide him with greater control over federal spending. This report provides a brief history of impoundment and discusses the debate surrounding the line item veto.

Members of Congress often get requests from constituents for information and help in obtaining funds for projects. Many state and local governments, nonprofit social service and community action organizations, private research groups, small businesses, and individuals approach congressional offices to find out about funding, both from the federal government and from the private sector. The success rate in obtaining federal assistance is not high, given the competition for federal funds. A grants staff’s effectiveness often depends on both an understanding of the grants process and on the relations it establishes with agency and other contacts. The following report does not constitute a blueprint for every office involved in grants and projects activity, nor does it present in-depth information about all aspects of staff activity in this area. The discussion is aimed at describing some basics about the grants process and some of the approaches and techniques used by congressional offices in dealing with this type of constituent service.

Members of Congress often get requests from constituents for information and help in obtaining funds for projects. Many state and local governments, nonprofit social service and community action organizations, private research groups, small businesses, and individuals approach congressional offices to find out about funding, both from the federal government and from the private sector. The success rate in obtaining federal assistance is not high, given the competition for federal funds. A grants staff’s effectiveness often depends on both an understanding of the grants process and on the relations it establishes with agency and other contacts. The following report does not constitute a blueprint for every office involved in grants and projects activity, nor does it present in-depth information about all aspects of staff activity in this area. The discussion is aimed at describing some basics about the grants process and some of the approaches and techniques used by congressional offices in dealing with this type of constituent service.

This report addresses the current policy on immigration visa issuances and options for reassigning this function to the proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It opens with an overview of visa issuances, with sections on procedures for aliens coming to live in the United States permanently and on procedures for aliens admitted for temporary stays. An analysis of the grounds for excluding aliens follows. The report summarizes the debate on transferring visa issuance policy functions to homeland security and concludes with a discussion of the legislative proposals to reassign the visa issuance activities and to revise visa issuance policies.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

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 an autopsy report may be withheld from the public if the prosecutor determines that its release could hinder a murder investigation (RQ-0511-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 that collects fees and costs under section 51.702 of the Government Code must, under section 25.0005 of the same code, "set" an increased salary for statutory county court judges, and related questions (RQ-0513-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: Authority of a general-law municipality to assign to a "city administrator" duties reserved by statute to the mayor or city manager, and related questions (RQ-0515-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 statute authorizing the Texas Commission of Human Rights to review the personnel policies and procedures of Texas state appellate courts for compliance with the Texas Human Rights Act (RQ-0538-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 city council may determine than its members are not eligible to serve as members of a volunteer fire department, and related questions (RQ-0539-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 2001.556 of the Occupations Code prohibits a revenue-share leasing agreement between a manufacturer of bingo equipment and a distributor of bingo equipment (RQ-0417-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 driver who falls asleep and drives off the road has committed an offense under section 545.060(a) of the Transportation Code (RQ-0421-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 constitutional county law judges who try misdemeanor criminal matters are entitled to participate in the management of community supervision and corrections departments under section 76.002 of the Government Code (RQ-0433-JC)

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 "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 "Medicare provides valuable and extensive health care coverage for 40 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries. Nevertheless, significant gaps leave some beneficiaries vulnerable to sizeable out-of-pocket expenses. Medicare provides no limit on out-of-pocket spending and no coverage for most outpatient prescription drugs. Most beneficiaries have supplemental coverage that helps to fill Medicare coverage gaps and pay some out-of-pocket expenses. Privately purchased Medigap policies are a widely available source of supplemental coverage. The other sources--employer-sponsored policies, Medicare + Choice plans, and Medicaid--are not available to all beneficiaries. Medigap policies help to fill in some of Medicare's gaps but also have shortcomings. In 1999, premiums paid for Medigap policies averaged $1,300, with more than 20 percent going to administrative costs. Medigap plans typically cover Medicare's required deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments but do not fully protect beneficiaries from potentially significant out-of-pocket costs. Medigap policies offering prescription drug coverage can be inadequate because beneficiaries still pay most of the cost and the Medigap benefit is capped."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Congress implemented a physician fee schedule and a fee update formula to moderate spending growth relative to specified Medicare spending targets. These spending targets increase annually to reflect higher costs for physician services, the growth in the overall economy, and changes in the number of Medicare beneficiaries. Physician fees are adjusted for changes in the costs of providing services and on actual cumulative spending compared to the cumulative targets. Physician fees are updated to reflect higher costs to provide services. These updates are adjusted up or down on actual spending either falling below or exceeding the targets. In November 2001, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid announced that updating Medicare's fees will decline 5.4 percent from what was paid in 2001, despite an estimated 2.6 percent increase in the cost of physician inputs. This reduction accounts for historical cumulative spending that exceeded the target by $8.9 billion, or 13 percent of estimated 2002 spending. Several factors contributed to the disparity between actual and targeted spending, including the correction of substantial errors in past spending estimates and the revision of targets for prior years. The current update mechanism could …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In some cases, Medicare pays significantly more for covered outpatient drugs than the actual costs to the physicians and pharmacy suppliers. Attempts to reduce these payments have been met with provider claims that overpayments for the drugs are needed to cover underpayments for administering or delivering them. Medicare's method for establishing drug payments is flawed. Medicare pays 95 percent of the average wholesale price (AWP), which, despite its name, is neither an average nor a price that wholesalers charge. Instead, it is a number that manufacturers derive using their own criteria. There are no requirements or conventions that AWP reflect the price of actual drug sales. Widely available purchase prices for drugs in 2001 were substantially below AWP. For both physician-billed drugs and pharmacy supplier-billed drugs, Medicare payments often far exceeded widely available prices. Physicians and pharmacy suppliers contend that the excess payments for covered drugs are necessary to offset what they claim are inappropriately low Medicare payments or no such payments for services related to the administration or delivery of these drugs. Although physicians receive an explicit payment for administering drugs, Medicare's payment policies for delivering pharmacy …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In light of the fourth anniversary of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, which established Congress' expectation that IRS modernize to better meet taxpayer needs, GAO gave an overview of IRS's current performance and resources and then assessed the progress that IRS has made modernizing and the risks to continued progress. Overall, IRS has seen increased workload, decreased staffing, and significant changes in the allocation of resources between taxpayer assistance programs and its compliance and collection programs. Between 1995 and 2001, IRS's workload, measured by returns filed, increased by 10 percent while aggregate staffing declined by 14 percent. Over the same time, there was a significant internal reallocation of resources with a disproportionate decline in compliance and collection program staffing to accommodate more emphasis on taxpayer service, such as telephone assistance, and to information systems operation and investment. Electronic filing of returns increased but not enough to reduce paper returns sufficiently to free significant processing resources for use elsewhere. The reallocation of resources shows signs of beginning to produce more accurate service for taxpayers, but the compliance and collection programs have seen large …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Identity theft involves "stealing" another person's personal identifying information, such as their Social Security Number (SSN), date of birth, or mother's maiden name, and using it to fraudulently establish credit, run up debt, or take over existing financial accounts. The prevalence and cost of identity theft seem to be increasing. Recently introduced bills seek to prevent identity theft and enforce laws prohibiting identity theft. Since May 1998, various actions--particularly passage of federal and state statutes--have been taken to address identity theft. Precise, statistical measurement of identity theft trends is difficult for several reasons. Federal law enforcement agencies lack information systems to track identity theft cases. Also, identity theft almost always accompanies white-collar or financial crimes, such as bank fraud, credit card or access device fraud, or the use of counterfeit financial instruments. Data sources, such as consumer complaints and hotline allegations, can be used as proxies for gauging the prevalence of identity theft. Law enforcement investigations and prosecutions of identity theft-related crimes, such as bank and credit card fraud, also provide data."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The early years of the 21st century are proving to be a period of profound transition for our world, our country, and our government. The federal government needs to engage in a comprehensive review, reassessment, reprioritization, and as appropriate, re-engineering of what the government does, how it does business, and in some cases, who does the government's business. Leading public and private organizations in the United States and abroad have found that for organizations to successfully transform themselves they must often fundamentally change their culture. On September 24, 2001, GAO convened a forum to identify and discuss useful practices and lessons learned from major private and public sector organizational mergers, acquisitions, and transformations that federal agencies could implement to successfully transform their cultures and a new Department of Homeland Security could use to merge its various originating components into a unified department. The invited participants have experience managing or studying large-scale organizational mergers, acquisitions, and transformations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 requires that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issue sequestration reports annually to Congress. Overall, GAO found that OMB and CBO substantially complied with the act in fiscal year 2002. However, as in previous years, some of the required OMB and CBO reports were issued late. Further, GAO identified a total of 19 items where differences of over $500 million existed between CBO's and OMB's scoring of discretionary budget authority and/or outlays for enacted laws."