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Title IV of HEA authorized several student aid programs including the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and the William D. Ford Direct Loan (Direct Loan) programs, the Federal Pell Grant program, and campus-based aid programs. The FFEL and Direct Loan programs are the largest source of aid for students. The FFEL pro... | During fiscal year 2002, an estimated 5.8 million people borrowed about $38 billion in federal student loans. Despite a dramatic reduction in annual default rates on those loans since fiscal year 1990 (from 22.4 to 5.9 percent), the total volume of dollars in default doubled to nearly $22 billion by fiscal year 2001 fr... |
Coast Guard is the federal agency responsible for oversight of U.S. merchant marine credentialing and licensing. As part of these responsibilities, Coast Guard develops credentialing regulations based on statutory requirements and international treaties developed under the auspices of the IMO, to which the United State... | Merchant mariners operate U.S. commercial ships and support national defense in emergency and war. Coast Guard issues regulations and policies to ensure merchant mariners are credentialed and meet minimum international standards. To incorporate changes made to the international STCW Convention in 2010, Coast Guard issu... |
Fire is a natural process that plays an important role in maintaining the health of many forest and grassland ecosystems, but wildland fire can also endanger the homes and lives of people living in or near wildlands. Areas where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland are co... | Since 1984, wildland fires have burned an average of more than 850 homes each year in the United States and, because more people are moving into fire-prone areas bordering wildlands, the number of homes at risk is likely to grow. The primary responsibility for ensuring that preventive steps are taken to protect homes l... |
The Davis-Bacon Act was enacted in 1931, in part, to protect communities and workers from the economic disruption caused by contractors hiring lower-wage workers from outside their local area, thus obtaining federal construction contracts by underbidding competitors who pay local wage rates. Davis-Bacon generally requi... | Procedures for determining Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates, which must be paid to workers on certain federally funded construction projects, and their vulnerability to the use of inaccurate data have long been an issue for Congress, employers, and workers. In this report, GAO examined (1) the extent to which the Depa... |
Over the last three decades, Congress has enacted several laws to assist agencies and the federal government in managing IT investments. For example, to assist agencies in managing their investments, Congress enacted the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. This act requires OMB to establish processes to analyze, track, and eval... | The federal government invests more than $80 billion on IT annually, with much of this amount reportedly spent on operating and maintaining existing (legacy) IT systems. Given the magnitude of these investments, it is important that agencies effectively manage their O&M. GAO's objectives were to (1) assess federal agen... |
Social Security is largely a pay-as-you-go, defined benefit system under which taxes collected from current workers are used to pay the benefits of current retirees. Social Security is financed primarily by a payroll tax of 12.4 percent on annual wages up to $72,600 (in 1999) split evenly between employees and employer... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on three Texas counties' employee retirement plans, known as Alternate Plans, focusing on: (1) comparing the principal features and benefits of these plans with those of social security; and (2) simulating the retirement, survivor, and disability benefits th... |
SEC oversees mutual funds primarily through its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), Division of Investment Management, and Division of Enforcement. OCIE examines mutual funds to evaluate their compliance with the federal securities laws, to determine if they are operating in accordance with disclo... | As the frontline regulator of mutual funds, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays a key role in protecting the nearly half of all U.S. households owning mutual funds, valued around $8 trillion in 2005. Mutual fund abuses raised questions about the integrity of the industry and quality of oversight provided... |
About one-third of all land in the United States is federally owned and consists largely of forests, grasslands, and other vegetated lands. Over the years, underbrush has grown substantially on these lands, and along with recent drought conditions and disease infestation, has fueled larger and more intense wildfires. F... | In 2003, wildfires burned roughly 4 million acres, destroyed over 5,000 structures, took the lives of 30 firefighters, and cost over $1 billion to suppress. The substantial expense of fighting wildfires has exceeded the funds appropriated for wildfire suppression nearly every year since 1990. To pay for wildfire suppre... |
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) establishes the policies and procedures governing suspension and debarment actions related to federal contracts. The Nonprocurement Common Rule (NCR) establishes the policies and procedures governing suspension and debarment for discretionary nonprocurement awards (i.e., grants,... | To protect the government's interests, agencies can use suspension and debarment to exclude individuals, contractors, and grantees from receiving future contracts, grants, and other federal assistance due to various types of misconduct. In 2011, GAO reviewed ten agencies and found that agencies issuing the most procure... |
RHCDS was established by Public Law 103-354, the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994, dated October 13, 1994. Its programs include the housing programs previously administered by the Farmers Home Administration and the rural community loan programs previously administe... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Rural Housing and Community Development Service's (RHCDS) housing loan programs, focusing on opportunities for cost savings and management improvements in the loan programs. GAO found that: (1) RHCDS is improving its loan programs' operations, but imp... |
The department’s vision of “One VA” was articulated to assist it in carrying out its mission of providing benefits and other services to veterans and dependents. It stems from the recognition that veterans think of VA as a single entity, but often encounter a confusing, bureaucratic maze of uncoordinated programs—such ... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) information technology (IT) program, focusing on VA's efforts to: (1) improve its process for selecting, controlling, and evaluating IT investments; (2) fill the chief information officer (CIO) position; (3) develop an overall s... |
A supercomputing revolution is under way in the United States as dramatic advances in supercomputers continue—doubling in power approximately every 18 months. Supercomputers are defined as the largest and fastest computers currently being built. Today’s supercomputers are capable of processing speeds of up to 1,000 tim... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) acquisition and use of supercomputers, focusing on the: (1) number and cost of the supercomputers DOE acquired in fiscal years (FY) 1994 through 1997 and the number and proposed funding for planned major supercomputer acquisitions in FY ... |
VA’s national health care system is one of the largest in the United States and provides enrolled veterans—including women veterans—with a full range of services including primary care, mental health care, inpatient care, and residential treatment. VA’s national health care system is organized into regionally organized... | In 2010, GAO found a number of weaknesses related to care for women veterans at VA medical facilities. GAO was asked to update that study. This report examines (1) the extent that VA medical centers complied with requirements related to the environment of care for women veterans and VHA's oversight of that compliance; ... |
At any given time, participants in the cheese industry may have an interest in buying or selling cheese for immediate delivery. Historically, they could do so by identifying a buyer or seller through their contacts and relationships in the industry or by participating in various centralized markets throughout the Unite... | The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is home to the spot cheddar cheese market, which impacts the prices of virtually all cheese traded in the United States, producer milk prices, and milk futures contracts. The spot cheese market, formerly the National Cheese Exchange (NCE) in Wisconsin, has been and continues to be ... |
IRS is in the midst of a major modernization effort, which, if implemented as intended, will change the way IRS receives, processes, stores, and retrieves information needed to administer the tax system and change the way taxpayers and IRS interact. As part of this effort, IRS plans to (1) shift from a paper-based to a... | GAO reviewed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) plans to maximize electronic filing, focusing on: (1) IRS progress in broadening the use of electronic filing; (2) the availability of data needed to develop an electronic filing strategy; and (3) the implications for IRS if it does not significantly reduce its paper-pr... |
To accomplish its mission, HUD administers community and housing programs that affect millions of households each year. Among other things, the department provides affordable rental housing opportunities and helps homeless families and chronically homeless individuals and veterans. The department also administers mortg... | HUD relies on IT to deliver services and manage programs in support of its mission of strengthening communities and ensuring access to affordable housing. However, the department has experienced shortcomings in its IT management capability and limitations in the systems supporting its mission. A Senate report accompany... |
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was intended to provide states the flexibility to design cash assistance programs that encourage work and end welfare dependence. Although the act greatly affected AFDC and SSI, few changes were made to Medicaid to help ensure continued health care cov... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Medicaid-related actions states have taken in the first year of welfare reform, focusing on: (1) the Medicaid related options the welfare reform law gave states and the approaches states have taken; (2) the implications of these states choices for Medicaid eligibles... |
The costs of natural gas, its transportation and storage, and subsequent local delivery are incorporated into monthly gas bills. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), residential customers in 1997 were billed $34.6 billion for natural gas deliveries, or $617 per customer. Figure 1 shows the separate components o... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) initial participation in natural gas customer choice programs; and (2) the effect of these recent customer choice initiatives on residential and small commercial customers. GAO noted that: (1) 43 gas utilities in 16 states have customer choice progra... |
According to The 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, veterans make up about 9.2 percent of the total U.S. population, and, they comprise about 10 percent of all homeless people. Ninety-one percent of homeless veterans are men, and according to a literature review conducted for the Department of Labor, t... | In August 2016, HUD and VA announced that the number of homeless veterans in the United States had been cut nearly in half since 2010 to less than 40,000. Part of this effort is the EUL program, which uses unneeded federal property (land or buildings) for housing for homeless veterans. GAO was asked to review VA's EUL ... |
The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (Statute) includes a congressional finding that labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest because they contribute to effectively conducting public business, among other things. The Statute allows for the use of of... | In fiscal year 2012, there were over 250,000 bargaining unit employees at VA, and these employees spent about 1.1 million hours performing union representational activities on official time, according to an OPM report. The ways in which VA manages its human resources, including the use of official time, have received i... |
Increasingly, agencies are using telework to diminish the disruption that severe weather events and other events may have on agencies’ abilities to accomplish their missions. For example, OPM encouraged agencies to use telework in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area in response to the potential for disruptions cause... | The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 required agencies to develop telework policies and OPM to provide guidance and report on telework use, among other things. GAO was asked to review agency telework programs. This report examines (1) how selected agencies comply with the act's requirements, (2) the internal controls a... |
Since the 1960s, the United States has operated two separate operational polar-orbiting meteorological satellite systems: the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) series, which is managed by NOAA, and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which is managed by the Air Force. These sate... | In the 8 years since a contract was awarded, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS)--a tri-agency program managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)--has exp... |
Afghanistan is a mountainous, arid, land-locked country with limited natural resources, bordered by Pakistan to the east and south; Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and China to the north; and Iran to the west (see fig. 1). At 647,500 square kilometers, Afghanistan is slightly smaller than the state of Texas; its ... | In October 2001, in response to the Taliban regime's protection of al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States, coalition forces forcibly removed the regime from Afghanistan. In December 2002, Congress passed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act authorizing assistance funds to help Afghanistan rebuild a stable, d... |
In 1990, the Congress enacted the Global Change Research Act. This act, among other things, required the administration to (1) prepare and at least every 3 years revise and submit to the Congress a national global change research plan, including an estimate of federal funding for global change research activities to be... | The Congress has required the administration to report annually on federal spending on climate change. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reports funding in four categories: technology (to reduce greenhouse gas emissions), science (to better understand the climate), international assistance (to help developing c... |
The serious breakdown in internal controls at the SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego and the Navy Public Works Center San Diego are the result of a weak overall internal control environment, flawed or nonexistent policies and procedures, and employees that do not adhere to valid policies. We found significant problems wit... | GAO reviewed purchase card activity at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Navy Public Works Center in San Diego and found significant breakdowns in internal controls over purchase card transactions, including fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchases and theft and misuse of go... |
The Air Force began the F/A-22 development program in 1986 and expected to complete development in 9 years for an estimated cost of $12.6 billion. Today, after being in development for almost two decades, the estimated development cost is $28.7 billion, a 127 percent increase. The average unit procurement cost to buy t... | The Department of Defense's (DOD) two major tactical aircraft fighter programs, the F/A-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter, represent an investment of about $280 billion. Problems in the F/A-22 development program have led to a 10-year delay in delivering the initial capability and development cost increases of $16 billio... |
Awareness of the environmental and economic importance of the Arctic region is growing. The Arctic region is a very harsh operating environment, making research expensive and risky. NSF is the largest federal provider of funds for research in this region. The U.S. Coast Guard, part of the Department of Transportation, ... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the justification for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) proposed procurement of an icebreaking research vessel. GAO found that: (1) NSF and the scientific community have not demonstrated an increase in icebreaker requirements since 1990 to sufficiently justify a f... |
The national park system has 376 units. These units have, among other things, over 16,000 permanent structures, 8,000 miles of roads, 1,500 bridges and tunnels, 5,000 housing units, about 1,500 water and waste systems, 200 radio systems, and over 400 dams. According to the Park Service, these facilities are valued at o... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Park Service's (NPS) efforts to identify and manage the maintenance backlog, focusing on: (1) NPS' estimate of the maintenance backlog and its composition; (2) how NPS determined the maintenance backlog estimate and whether it is reliable; (3) how NPS manag... |
The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended, is the primary body of law governing immigration and visa operations. Among other functions, the INA defines the power given to the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, immigration officers, and consular officers; delineates the categories of and qualific... | Each year thousands of international science students and scholars apply for visas to enter the United States to participate in education and exchange programs. They offer our country diversity and intellectual knowledge and are an economic resource. At the same time, the United States has important national security i... |
RHS and FHA operate major federal programs that guarantee mortgage loans. The guaranteed loans generally feature attractive interest rates (comparable to those of prime loans), but serve borrowers who may have difficulty qualifying for conventional mortgage credit (that is, mortgage loans without government guarantees)... | RHS and FHA help borrowers finance homes by guaranteeing single-family mortgage loans made by private lenders, and both operate in rural areas. However, eligibility for RHS guarantees is restricted to RHS-eligible areas and to low- and moderate-income households. A prior GAO report (GAO-12-554) found overlap in the pro... |
Patch management is a critical process used to help alleviate many of the challenges involved with securing computing systems from attack. A component of configuration management, it includes acquiring, testing, applying, and monitoring patches to a computer system. Flaws in software code that could cause a program to ... | Flaws in software code can introduce vulnerabilities that may be exploited to cause significant damage to federal information systems. Such risks continue to grow with the increasing speed, sophistication, and volume of reported attacks, as well as the decreasing period of the time from vulnerability announcement to at... |
All international mail and packages entering the United States through the U.S. Postal Service and private carriers are subject to potential CBP inspection at the 13 International Mail Branches (IMBs) located at U.S. Postal Service international mail facilities and 29 express consignment carrier facilities operated by ... | American consumers are increasingly drawn to the convenience, privacy, and cost advantages that might be accrued by purchasing prescription drugs over the Internet. However, there is growing concern about the safety of the drugs and the lawfulness of shipping the drugs into the United States through international mail ... |
Design standards, building codes, and voluntary certifications provide guidelines for the construction of infrastructure. Standards-developing organizations are the primary source of the standards, codes, and certifications that federal, state, local, and private-sector infrastructure planners follow. Standards-develop... | Over the last decade, extreme weather cost the federal government more than $320 billion for, among other things, repairs to federal infrastructure, and according to the President's 2017 budget request, these costs may rise as the climate continues to change. GAO's prior work found that using the best available climate... |
The SBIR program was initiated in 1982 and has four main purposes: (1) use small businesses to meet federal R&D needs, (2) stimulate technological innovation, (3) increase commercialization of innovations derived from federal R&D efforts, and (4) encourage participation in technological innovation by small businesses o... | Federal agencies have awarded more than 156,000 contracts and grants, totaling nearly $40 billion, through the SBIR and STTR programs to small businesses to develop and commercialize innovative technologies. The Small Business Act requires agencies with extramural R&D budgets that meet certain thresholds for participat... |
The base of the individual income tax covers income paid to individuals, such as wages, interest, dividends, realized net capital gains, various forms of business income, and income from pensions, annuities, trusts and estates. This tax base is reduced by personal exemptions for taxpayers and their spouses and children... | The federal government currently relies heavily on the individual income tax and payroll taxes for about 80 percent of its total annual revenue. Long-range projections show that without some form of policy change, the gap between revenues and spending will increasingly widen. The debate about the future tax system is p... |
Modern commercial aircraft contain sophisticated electronic systems that gather, process, and manage digital data on many aspects of flight. These data originate from various systems and sensors throughout the aircraft. The data range from pilot operations to the outputs of sensors and systems. Some of these data are c... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) how the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) and U.S. airlines' Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) programs will enhance aviation safety; (2) the costs and benefits of such programs; and (3) the factors that could impede their full implem... |
The process of issuing and enforcing regulations is one of the basic tools of government. The main elements of the federal rulemaking process are described in section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which was enacted in 1946. The APA generally requires agencies to (1) publish a notice of proposed rulemak... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed federal agencies' implementation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), focusing on what effect title II of UMRA has had on agencies' rulemaking actions. GAO noted that: (1) the enactment of title II of UMRA appears to have had only limited direct impact on... |
FOIA established a legal right of access to government information on the basis of the principles of openness and accountability in government. Prior to passage of the act in 1966, the government required an individual or entity to demonstrate a “need to know” before being granted the right to examine a federal record.... | The OPEN Government Act of 2007 amended FOIA and established OGIS within the National Archives and Records Administration to provide oversight and assistance to federal agencies in implementing FOIA. To evaluate how effectively the office is meeting its responsibilities, GAO assessed the actions that the office has tak... |
State and DOD provide a variety of security assistance programs to train and equip security forces (military and police) in North Africa. Many of these programs are funded by State and implemented by DOD. DOD manages security assistance under its Theater Security Cooperation umbrella along with a variety of other activ... | Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia are important U.S. allies in the war on terrorism. The United States provides these countries with security assistance, however, Congress restricts funding when credible evidence exists that foreign security units have committed gross human rights violations. GAO (1) describes the goals of... |
The safety and quality of the U.S. food supply is governed by a highly complex system stemming from at least 30 laws related to food safety that are collectively administered by 15 agencies. The two primary food safety agencies are USDA and FDA. USDA is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, processed egg product... | For more than a decade, GAO has reported on the fragmented nature of federal food safety oversight and how it results in inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination, and inefficient use of resources. In 2007, GAO added this issue to its high-risk list. In March 2009, the President established the Food Safety Worki... |
As you know, among its responsibilities for aviation safety, FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service (Aircraft Certification) grants approvals (called type certificates) for new aircraft, engines, and propellers. Certification projects, which involve the activities to determine compliance of a new product with applicable ... | FAA issues certificates for new U.S.-manufactured aviation products, based on federal aviation regulations. GAO has previously reviewed the efficiency of FAA's certification process and the consistency of its regulatory interpretations. As required by the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act, FAA chartered two aviatio... |
MCC, a government corporation, is managed by a chief executive officer (CEO), whom the President appoints with the advice and consent of the Senate, and is overseen by a Board of Directors. The Secretary of State serves as board chair, and the Secretary of the Treasury serves as vice- chair. MCC’s model is based on a s... | The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was established in 2004 to help developing countries reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth through multiyear compact agreements. As of June 2011, MCC had signed compacts with 23 countries totaling approximately $8.2 billion in assistance. MCC asks countries to develop c... |
The Head Start program was established in 1965 to deliver comprehensive educational, social, health, nutritional, and psychological services to low- income families and their children who are below the age of compulsory school attendance. These services include preschool education, family support, health screenings, an... | The Head Start program, overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services and administered by the Office of Head Start, provides child development services primarily to low-income families and their children. Federal law allows up to 10 percent of enrolled families to have incomes above 130 percent of the poverty... |
The Food Stamp Program provides a safety net to the millions of low-income individuals and families nationwide who do not otherwise have the means to obtain a healthy diet. Food stamp benefits are calculated to ensure that households have the resources needed to purchase a model diet plan based on the National Academy ... | GAO discussed fraud and abuse in the Food Stamp Program, focusing on the: (1) nature and extent of the problem; (2) reasons it often goes undetected; and (3) ways computerized information can be used to identify and reduce it. GAO noted that: (1) fraud and abuse in the Food Stamp Program generally occurs in the form of... |
Asylum is a form of humanitarian protection that provides refuge for individuals who are unable or unwilling to return to their home countries because they were persecuted or have a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinio... | Each year, tens of thousands of people who have been persecuted or fear persecution in their home countries apply for asylum in the United States. Immigration judges (IJ) from the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) decide whether to grant or deny asylum to aliens in removal pro... |
To determine the challenges FPS faces in managing its guard contractors and guards, we conducted site visits at 6 of FPS’s 11 regions. To select these 6 regions, we considered the number of FPS guards, contractors, and federal facilities, and the geographic dispersion of the regions across the United States. At each re... | To accomplish its mission of protecting about 9,000 federal facilities, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) currently has a budget of about $1 billion, about 1,225 full-time employees, and about 15,000 contract security guards. FPS obligated $659 million for guard services in fiscal year 2009. This report assesses the... |
BOP is responsible for approximately 219,600 inmates in federal custody. About 81 percent, or approximately 176,900 inmates, are housed in 119 of BOP’s own federal institutions—operating at different security levelshoused in privately managed contract facilities—generally housing low- —and about 13 percent, or approxim... | BOP is responsible for the care and custody--including mental health care--of more than 219,600 federal inmates. BOP identifies and treats inmates' mental health disorders, and has procedures in place to assess the provision of mental health services in its 119 facilities, and 15 private prisons operating under contrac... |
The Medicare Part D program offers beneficiaries an outpatient prescription drug benefit through various plan sponsors who offer coverage through drug plans, which may vary in terms of their benefits and costs. Enrollment in Part D consists of several steps and requires coordination among various organizations, such as... | Medicare Part D coverage is provided through plan sponsors that contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). As of April 2008, about 26 million beneficiaries were enrolled in Part D. When beneficiaries encounter problems with Part D, they can either file a complaint with CMS or a grievance with the... |
The HHS National Incidence Study has shown since the early 1980s that children of all races and ethnicities are equally likely to be abused or neglected; however, African American children, and to some extent other minority children, have been significantly more likely to be represented in foster care, according to HHS... | A significantly greater proportion of African American children are in foster care than children of other races and ethnicities, according to HHS and other research. Given this situation, GAO was asked to analyze the (1) major factors influencing the proportion of African American children in foster care, (2) extent th... |
NRC issues licenses under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, to individuals and entities such as hospitals, research and fuel cycle facilities, and manufacturers that use radioactive materials. The license—termed a “materials license”—permits the licensee to possess, use, and/or transfer radioactive materials u... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the effectiveness of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) decommissioning program, focusing on: (1) NRC progress in identifying all former licensees' sites that require additional cleanup; (2) NRC progress in ensuring that sites on its Site Decommissioning Manageme... |
The Department of the Interior has jurisdiction over more than 500 million acres of land—about one-fifth of the total U.S. landmass—and over 1.8 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. As the guardian of these resources, the department is entrusted to preserve the nation’s most awe- inspiring landscapes, such as ... | The Department of the Interior is responsible for managing much of the nation's vast natural resources. Its agencies implement an array of programs intended to protect these precious resources for future generations while also allowing certain uses of them, such as oil and gas development and recreation. In some cases,... |
FAMS was originally established as the Sky Marshal program in the 1970s to counter hijackers. In response to 9/11, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act expanded FAMS’s mission and workforce and mandated the deployment of federal air marshals on high-security risk flights. Within the 10-month period immediately ... | By deploying armed air marshals onboard selected flights, the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), a component of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), plays a key role in helping to protect approximately 29,000 domestic and international flights operated daily by U.S. air carriers. This testimony discusses ... |
CPD manages the Youthbuild program. CPD programs generally fall into three categories: (1) formula grants, of which the largest are the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnership Program, which account for the majority of CPD funding; (2) competitive homeless programs; and (3) competitive non... | Since 1993, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has provided funding for Youthbuild, a competitive grant program that trains and educates disadvantaged youth and helps build low-income housing. In 2006, Youthbuild was transferred to the Department of Labor (Labor) to better align the Youthbuild progra... |
Federal facilities have been contaminated with a wide range of substances, including highly radioactive waste and toxic chemicals. As of April 1995, federal agencies had placed 2,070 facilities on the federal facility docket, EPA’s listing of the facilities awaiting evaluation for possible cleanup. EPA had placed 154 f... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how priorities are being set for hazardous waste cleanups, focusing on: (1) whether the Superfund program is identifying the highest-priority cleanup sites; and (2) the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of the Interior approache... |
The term “ombudsman” originated in Sweden and has generally come to mean an impartial official who receives complaints and questions, collects relevant information through an investigation or inquiry, and works toward the resolution of the particular issues brought to his attention. Ombudsmen may make recommendations f... | Through the impartial and independent investigation of citizens' complaints, federal ombudsmen provide the public with an informal and accessible avenue of redress. Ombudsmen help federal agencies be more responsive to persons who believe that their concerns have not been dealt with fully or fairly through normal probl... |
The nation’s transportation infrastructure consists of over 4 million miles of public highways and roads; over 140,000 miles of national, regional, and local railroad networks; and 25,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways over which trillions of dollars worth of freight move annually. Public roads account for t... | Road, rail, and waterway freight transportation is vital to the nation's economy. Government tax, regulatory, and infrastructure investment policies can affect the costs that shippers pass on to their customers. If government policy gives one mode a cost advantage over another, by, for example, not recouping all the co... |
The Forest Service manages about 193 million acres of land, encompassing 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. Laws guiding the management of the forests require that the Forest Service manage its lands for various purposes—including recreation; rangeland; wilderness; and the protection of watersheds, fish, ... | The Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture, manages over 190 million acres of forest and grassland. The agency is responsible for managing its lands for various purposes--including recreation, grazing, timber harvesting, and others--while ensuring that such activities do not impair the lands' long-term pr... |
Rare earths contain one or more of the following 17 elements in the periodic table: the lanthanides that begin with lanthanum (atomic number 57) through lutetium (atomic number 71) and two non-lanthanides that have similar properties, yttrium and scandium (see figure 1). These elements are referred to as rare because t... | DOD depends on rare earths that contain one or more of 17 similar metals which have unique properties, such as magnetism at high temperatures, to provide functionality in weapon system components. Many steps in the rare earths supply chain, such as mining, are conducted in China, a situation that may pose risks to the ... |
Section 313 of EPCRA generally requires facilities at which toxic chemicals are manufactured, processed, or otherwise used to report annually to EPA and the states on, among other things, releases of these substances. The requirement applies to facilities with 10 or more full-time employees in specified industries that... | Pursuant to a legislative mandate, GAO determined the status of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to: (1) provide communities with risk information on toxic chemical releases in their areas; (2) make the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act's (EPCRA) chemical inventory information public... |
With respect to its workload and workforce, EPA has struggled for years to identify its human resource needs and to deploy its staff throughout the agency in a manner that would do the most good. In 2010, we reported that rather than establishing a process for budgeting and allocating human resources that fully conside... | The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faces a number of management and budgetary challenges, which are particularly important as Congress seeks to decrease the cost of government while improving its performance. EPA operates in a highly complex and controversial regulatory arena, and its policies and programs affec... |
TEA-21 authorized a total of $36 billion in “guaranteed” funding for a variety of transit programs, including financial assistance to states and localities to develop, operate, and maintain transit systems. Under one of these programs, New Starts, FTA identifies and selects fixed-guideway transit projects for funding—i... | The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and subsequent legislation authorized about $13.5 billion in guaranteed funding for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which is used to select fixed guideway transit projects, such as rail and trolley projects, and to award full fun... |
DOD and the military services classify TWVs by weight or payload capacity into three categories—light, medium, and heavy—although the definitions of each class vary among the services. Each class generally includes multiple variants or models built on a common chassis. For example, the Army’s FMTV consists of 2.5- and ... | DODs need for TWVs dramatically increased in response to operational demands and threats experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq. TWVs primarily transport cargo and personnel in the field and include the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. The U.S. TWV industrial base, which i... |
Under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (FCRA), FHA and other federal agencies must estimate the net lifetime costs—known as credit subsidy costs—of their loan insurance or guarantee programs and include the costs to the government in their annual budgets. Credit subsidy costs represent the net present value of exp... | In recent years, two components of HUD—FHA and Ginnie Mae—have played a major role in the single-family mortgage market. FHA insures lenders against losses from mortgage defaults. Ginnie Mae guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest for securities backed by federally insured or guaranteed mortgages. Due p... |
Under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (FCRA), FHA and other federal agencies must estimate the net lifetime costs—known as credit subsidy costs—of their loan insurance or guarantee programs and include the costs to the government in their annual budgets. Credit subsidy costs represent the net present value of exp... | The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has helped millions purchase homes by insuring private lenders against losses from defaults on single-family mortgages. In recent years, FHA has experienced a dramatic increase in its market role due, in part, to the contraction of other mortgage market segments. The increased r... |
The popularity of on-line trading and growth in the number of broker- dealers with on-line channels has significantly changed the way many investors trade and manage their savings and investments. Last year alone, broker-dealers handled an average of about one million on-line trades per day from individual investors. I... | On-line trading continues to be an important part of the securities trading market. The industry reports investing greater resources to improve the performance of their systems, and regulators have made substantial progress in ensuring that investors receive better information in key investor protection areas. However,... |
The destruction, looting, and trafficking of cultural property, especially during times of political instability and armed conflict, is a longstanding international concern. Destruction of cultural property entails intentional or unintentional bombing and damage to sites and objects. Looting involves the illegal remova... | The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other groups have seized upon the conflicts in Iraq and Syria to destroy, loot, and traffic cultural property, including antiquities. According to the United Nations (UN), this destruction and looting has reached unprecedented levels. The UN has also reported that since th... |
CBP is the lead federal agency in charge of securing the nation’s borders. When CBP was created, it represented a merger of components from three agencies—the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Under the Immigration and Nation... | From January 2003 to September 2007, GAO testified before the Committee on three occasions to describe security vulnerabilities that terrorists could exploit to enter the country. GAO's first two testimonies focused on covert testing at ports of entry--the air, sea, and land locations where international travelers can ... |
Both State and DOD recognize the need to improve stability and reconstruction capabilities of the United States, and the importance of coordinating military activities with those of other U.S. government agencies and international partners. Following the problems with reconstruction efforts in Iraq in the Fall of 2003,... | The United States has become increasingly involved in stabilization and reconstruction operations as evidenced in the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In December 2005, the President issued National Security Presidential Directive 44, establishing governmentwide policy for coordinating, planning, and imp... |
In the 1980s, multilateral development bank-supported projects around the world were criticized for imposing unacceptable environmental and social costs on borrowing countries. The World Bank, the oldest and largest of the multilateral development banks, was the focal point for much of this criticism. Several World Ban... | Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed certain aspects of the environmental assessment and information disclosure policies and practices of the multilateral development banks, focusing on the: (1) steps the banks have taken to ensure meaningful public consultation on the environmental implications of propose... |
Before discussing FAA’s efforts to implement a number of security initiatives, it is important to discuss some of the vulnerabilities that exist within the nation’s aviation security system. In our previous reports and testimonies, we highlighted a number of these vulnerabilities. Since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Fligh... | GAO discussed its recent review of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) implementation of five key initiatives: automated passenger profiling, explosives detection technologies, passenger-bag match, vulnerability assessments, and certification of screening companies and improvement of screeners' performance. GAO... |
Title IV-B of the Social Security Act authorizes funds to states to provide an array of child welfare services to prevent the occurrence of abuse, neglect, and need to place children in foster care. The Administration for Children and Families within HHS is responsible for the administration and oversight of federal fu... | For federal fiscal year 2004, state and local child protective services staff determined that an estimated 872,000 children have been victims of abuse or neglect. Title IV-B subparts 1 and 2 authorize a wide array of child welfare services with some restrictions on states' use of funds. This testimony discusses: (1) ho... |
Three Interior bureaus—BLM, BOEM, and BSEE—are responsible for regulating the processes that operators must follow when leasing, drilling, and producing oil and gas from federal lands and waters. BLM manages onshore oil and gas activities, and BOEM and BSEE manage offshore oil and gas activities. Onshore. BLM manages m... | Interior employs a wide range of highly-trained specialists and scientists with key skills to oversee oil and gas operations on leased federal lands and waters. GAO and others have reported that Interior has faced challenges hiring and retaining sufficient staff to carry out these responsibilities. In February 2011, GA... |
Safeguarding government computer systems and the sensitive information that resides on them is an ongoing challenge because of the complexity and interconnectivity of systems, the ease of obtaining and using hacking tools, the steady advances in the sophistication and effectiveness of attack technology, and the emergen... | EPA is responsible for protecting human health and the environment by implementing and enforcing the laws and regulations intended to improve the quality of the nations air, water, and lands. The agencys policies and programs affect virtually all segments of the economy, society, and government. In addition, it relie... |
In recent years, Congress passed legislation that modified the visa program for foreign workers who enter the country with H-1B visas to work in specialty occupations. Changes have included expanding the limits on the number of workers who may be approved for these visas from 65,000 to 195,000, providing Labor with add... | In recent years, U.S. employers have complained of shortages of workers with higher-level skills in information technology, the sciences, and other fields. To find workers with these skills, employers often turn to foreign workers who enter the United States with H-1B visas to work in specialty occupations. Despite the... |
This section describes TVA’s (1) legislation and governance, (2) operations and planning, (3) debt ceiling, and (4) retirement system. TVA is an independent federal corporation established by the TVA Act. The act established TVA to improve the quality of life in the Tennessee River Valley by improving navigation, promo... | TVA, the nation's largest public power provider, is a federal electric utility with revenues of about $10.6 billion in fiscal year 2016. TVA's mission is to provide affordable electricity, manage river systems, and promote economic development. TVA provides electricity to more than 9 million customers in the southeaste... |
OMB Policy Letter 89-1, “Conflict of Interest Policies Applicable to Consultants,” issued by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, establishes federal policy relating to OCI standards for persons who provide consulting services, including advisory and assistance services, to the government. The federal government o... | Pursuant to a legislative requirement and a congressional request, GAO reviewed three federal agencies' implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) policies on conflicts of interest, focusing on: (1) whether the agencies have complied with existing requirements to identify and evaluate potential organ... |
The demands on judges’ time are largely a function of both the number and complexity of the cases on their dockets. To measure the case-related workload of district court judges, the Judicial Conference has adopted weighted case filings. The purpose of the district court case weights was to create a measure of the aver... | Biennially, the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary's principal policymaking body, assesses the need for additional judges. The assessment is based on a variety of factors, but begins with quantitative case-related workload measures. This testimony focuses on (1) whether the judiciary's quantitative case-related... |
WIA specifies separate funding streams for each of the act’s main client groups—adults, youths, and dislocated workers. A dislocated worker is an individual who (1) has been terminated or laid off, or who has received a notice of termination or layoff, from employment; is eligible for or has exhausted entitlement to un... | The Department of Labor (Labor) awards national emergency grants to states and local areas to provide assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of major economic dislocations or disasters. Most grants awarded are regular grants to assist workers affected by plant closings or mass layoffs. Questions have been ra... |
Although typically organized as a corporation, a mutual fund’s structure and operation differ from those of a traditional corporation. In a typical corporation, the firm’s employees operate and manage the firm, and the corporation’s board of directors, elected by the corporation’s stockholders, oversees its operations.... | The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators have recently identified two significant types of trading abuses--market timing and late trading--in the mutual fund industry. The more widespread abuse was market timing, which involved situations where investment advisers (firms that may manage mutual ... |
As reflected by federal statutes and a number of executive orders, it is the policy of the federal government to encourage the participation of small businesses, including businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, in the performance of federal procurement contracts. The Sma... | In 2005, federal spending on advertising exceeded $1 billion. Five agencies--DOD, Treasury, HHS, Interior, and NASA--together made up over 90 percent of this spending from 2001 to 2005. Executive Order 13170, signed in October 2000, directs agencies to take an aggressive role in ensuring substantial participation in fe... |
According to SEC, short selling provides the market with at least two important benefits: market liquidity and pricing efficiency. For example, market professionals, such as market makers (including specialists) may provide liquidity by naked short selling to offset temporary imbalances in the buying and selling intere... | The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted Regulation SHO to, among other things, curb the potential for manipulative naked short selling in equity securities. Selling a security short without borrowing the securities needed to settle the trade within the standard 3-day period, can result in failures to deliv... |
Internal control is not one event, but a series of actions and activities that occur throughout an entity’s operations and on an ongoing basis. Internal control should be recognized as an integral part of each system that management uses to regulate and guide its operations rather than as a separate system within an ag... | In its role as the nation's tax collector, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a demanding responsibility in annually collecting over $2 trillion in taxes, processing hundreds of millions of tax and information returns, and enforcing the nation's tax laws. Since its first audit of IRS's financial statements in fisca... |
Historically, the mining of hardrock minerals, such as gold, lead, copper, silver, and uranium, was an economic incentive for exploring and settling the American West. However, when the ore was depleted, miners often left behind a legacy of abandoned mines, structures, safety hazards, and contaminated land and water. E... | The Mining Act of 1872 helped foster the development of the West by giving individuals exclusive rights to mine gold, silver, copper, and other hardrock minerals on federal lands. However, miners often abandoned mines, leaving behind structures, safety hazards, and contaminated land and water. Four federal agencies--th... |
At the federal level, CMS, within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for overseeing the design and operation of states’ Medicaid programs, and states administer their respective Medicaid programs’ day-to-day operations. In conformance with federal requirements, states establish beneficiar... | Medicaid is an important source of health coverage for millions of low-income individuals. Research on Medicaid has demonstrated that a small percentage of beneficiaries account for a disproportionately large share of Medicaid expenditures. Understanding states' expenditures for high-expenditure populations—both those ... |
In 1989, the Congress established the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (the Commission) to explore the factors contributing to structural, economic, and social distress in public housing; identify strategies for remediation; and propose a national action plan to eradicate distressed conditions ... | The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requested that we review the HOPE VI program. Because of the scope of the request, we agreed with the office of the Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, to provide the information in a series ... |
In recent years there has been a significant increase in apprehensions of unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (see table 1). We previously reported that children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras often leave their home country due to crime, violence, and lack of economic opportunity... | ORR is responsible for coordinating and implementing the care and placement of unaccompanied children. The number of children placed in ORR's care rose from nearly 6,600 in fiscal year 2011 to nearly 57,500 in fiscal year 2014. GAO was asked to review how ORR managed their care. This report examines (1) ORR's response ... |
As part of its efforts to ensure the safety and quality of imported drugs, FDA may conduct inspections of foreign establishments manufacturing drugs, including APIs, that are imported into the United States. FDA relies on these establishment inspections to determine compliance with current good manufacturing practice r... | Globalization has placed increasing demands on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in ensuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs marketed in the United States. The pharmaceutical industry has increasingly relied on global supply chains in which each manufacturing step may be outsourced to foreign establishments.... |
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 authorizes OSHA to set occupational safety and health standards, rules, and regulations and to enforce their compliance. OSHA uses two approaches—enforcement and compliance assistance. Enforcement is carried out primarily by using compliance officers to inspect employer wo... | Concerns about the safety and health of workers involved in the response to Hurricane Katrina included their exposure to contaminated floodwaters and injuries from working around debris. The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for coordinating federal efforts to pro... |
While Congress originally envisioned Open World as a vehicle to bring Russia’s emerging political leaders to the United States, Open World has recently been authorized to expand the scope of its program. As shown in fig. 1, Open World has launched pilot programs in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, with the first gro... | Congress created the Russian Leadership Program in 1999 as a pilot project to promote mutual understanding by exposing emerging Russian leaders to the American economic system and democratic institutions. In 2003, Congress renamed the program the Open World Leadership Center, expanded its scope, and extended eligibilit... |
RECA establishes a procedure to make partial restitution to individuals who contracted serious diseases, such as certain types of cancers, presumably resulting from their exposure to radiation from aboveground nuclear tests or as a result of their employment in uranium mines. The law established three claimant categori... | From 1945 through 1962, the United States conducted a series of aboveground atomic weapons tests. Many people exposed to radiation from this nuclear weapons testing program later developed serious diseases, including cancer. To begin the process of making partial restitution to these victims, the President signed into ... |
U.S. troops were reportedly exposed before, during, and after the Gulf War to a variety of potentially hazardous substances. These substances include decontaminating and protective compounds used without proper safeguards (particularly decontaminating solution 2, or DS2, and chemical agent resistant coating); diesel fu... | GAO discussed its evaluation of the federal strategy to research Gulf War illnesses. GAO noted that: (1) the government was not proactive in researching Gulf War illnesses; (2) the government's early research emphasized stress as a cause for Gulf War veterans' illnesses and gave other hypotheses, such as multiple chemi... |
This section describes (1) the federal oil and gas fiscal system, (2) leasing processes, and (3) the history of oil and gas management challenges. Created by Congress in 1849, Interior oversees the nation’s publicly owned natural resources including parks, wildlife habitat, and crude oil and natural gas resources on mi... | In fiscal year 2012, companies received over $66 billion from the sale of oil and gas produced from federal lands and waters, and they paid $10 billion to the federal government for developing these resources according to the Department of the Interior. The federal government seeks a fair return on its share of revenue... |
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 authorized U.S. assistance to support a transition to democracy in Iraq in key areas, including radio and television broadcasting. In 1999 President Clinton designated the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as eligible to receive assistance under the act. INC was formed in the early 1990s whe... | As part of the efforts by the United States to oust Saddam Hussein, a critical element of U.S. policy included funding the Iraqi National Congress as the lead Iraqi opposition coalition. In 1999, the Iraqi National Congress Support Foundation (INCSF) was established to provide an organizational structure for Department... |
At retirement, participants in 401(k) plans enter the distribution—or “spend-down” —phase during which they typically use their savings to meet their retirement needs. Typically, participants can choose to take a payment of their entire account balance, referred to as a “lump sum” payment, or they can roll their accoun... | As 401(k) plan participants reach retirement they face the challenge of making their savings last for an unknown lifespan, and many 401(k) plan sponsors do not offer options to help participants with this complex task. GAO was asked to review any related challenges and potential changes to help plan sponsors and partic... |
The CSA places various plants, drugs, and chemicals such as narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids, into one of five schedules based on the substance’s medical use or lack thereof, potential for abuse, and safety or potential for dependence. The act requires persons who handle controll... | The Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Diversion Control Program is responsible for enforcing the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and ensuring the availability of prescription drugs such as pain relievers and stimulants while preventing their diversion for abuse. The CSA requires entities handling controlled subst... |
Under the Export Administration Act of 1979 as amended and the implementing Export Administration Regulations, Commerce is authorized to require firms to seek licenses for exports of dual-use technologies that pose national security or foreign policy concerns. Such technologies could be used by countries of concern to ... | To protect its national security and foreign policy interests, the United States controls exports of civilian technologies that have military uses. U.S. firms may be required to obtain a license from the Department of Commerce before exporting these "dual-use" technologies from the United States to many other countries... |
The Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 created Amtrak to provide intercity passenger rail service because existing railroads found such service unprofitable. Although Amtrak was given significant flexibility with respect to its route system by the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997, that act also directed it ... | Because of Amtrak's worsening financial condition, there is growing agreement that the current mission, funding, and structure for providing intercity passenger rail needs to be changed. Intercity passenger rail has the potential to complement other more heavily used modes of transportation in markets where rail transp... |
Congressional oversight of rulemaking using the CRA can be an important and useful tool for monitoring the regulatory process and balancing and accommodating the concerns of American citizens and businesses with the effects of federal agencies’ rules. As we noted early in the implementation of CRA, it is important to a... | This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Congressional oversight of rulemaking using the CRA can be an important and useful tool for monitoring the regulatory process and balancing and accommodating the concerns of American citizens and businesses with the effects of federal agencies'... |
The Medicare program’s day-to-day operations rely on numerous large- scale information systems, which house or process information on, among other things, beneficiaries’ enrollment and utilization of services, claims, and payments to providers. These systems serve Medicare’s traditional fee- for-service component, whic... | Congress has questioned whether the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly the Health Care Financing Administration, adequately implemented new payment methods, effectively safeguarded program payments, and adequately oversaw the quality of care provided to beneficiaries. CMS depends on hundreds of ... |
During World War I, Public Health Service hospitals treated returning veterans and, at the end of the war, several military hospitals were transferred to the Public Health Service to enable it to continue treating injured soldiers. In 1921, those hospitals were transferred to the newly established Veterans’ Bureau. By ... | In previous GAO reports and testimonies on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and in its ongoing reviews, GAO identified major management challenges related to enhancing access to health care, improving the efficiency of health care delivery, and improving the effectiveness of disability programs. This testimony ... |
Subsets and Splits
Short Government Reports Sample
Retrieves short reports or summaries from the training dataset, which helps identify potentially incomplete or truncated entries that might need data quality improvement.
Short Government Reports Filtering
Retrieves short reports from the training dataset, providing basic filtering but offering limited analytical value beyond simple length constraints.