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Over the past half-century, the number of state and local government workers has grown significantly. In 2006, this sector accounted for about 12 percent of the nation's workforce. Since 1996, accounting standards calling for state and local governments to report their liabilities for future pension costs have been in place, but standards calling for similar treatment of the future costs of retiree health benefits have only recently been issue...

The nation's remaining grassland has several important benefits, such as providing land for grazing and wildlife habitat for many at-risk species. However, over the past 3 centuries about half of the grassland has been converted to other uses, principally cropland. In addition to losing important grassland values, such conversions may result in increased spending on federal farm programs, such as crop insurance, especially in marginal areas. T...

Concerns over national security, environmental stresses, and high fuel prices have raised interest in reducing oil consumption. Through the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires cars and light trucks to meet certain fuel economy standards. As requested, the author discusses (1) how CAFE standards are designed to reduce fuel consumption, (2) strengths and weaknesses of...

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service manage about 628 million acres of public land, mostly in the 11 western states and Alaska. Under the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), revenue raised from selling BLM lands is available to the agencies, primarily to acquire non-federal land within t...

Conflict over the use of our nation's natural resources, along with increased ecological problems, has led land managers to seek cooperative means to resolve natural resource conflicts and problems. Collaborative resource management is one such approach that communities began using in the 1980s and 1990s. A 2004 Executive Order on Co-operative Conservation encourages such efforts. This book deals with: (1) experts' views on collaborative resou...

U.S. trade preference programs promote economic development in poorer nations by providing export opportunities. The Generalized System of Preferences, Caribbean Basin Initiative, Andean Trade Preference Act, and African Growth and Opportunity Act unilaterally reduce U.S. tariffs for many products from over 130 countries. However, three of these programs expire partially or in full this year, and Congress is exploring options as it considers r...

Although likely a small percentage of all people screened, the thousands of persons misidentified to the Terrorist Watch List can experience additional questioning, delays, and other effects. Most misidentifications occur because of similarities to names on the Terrorist Watch List, agencies are attempting to reduce the incidence of misidentifications or otherwise facilitate individuals through the screening process. The Terrorist Screening Ce...

This book identifies over 5, 500 HPSAs designated throughout the United States as of September 2005, multiple federal programs relied on these designations to allocate resources or provide benefits. We estimated that slightly more than half of the HPSAs were designated for geographic areas or population groups, and these geographic and population-group HPSAs were located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Facility HPSAs, which acco...

This book reviews what FTAs have been pursued under TPA and why Overall, what is the economic significance of these agreements to the United States? What is the nature of the consultation process for Congress and how well has it worked in practice? What is the nature of the consultation process for private sector trade advisory committees and other stakeholders, and how well has it worked in practise?

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Federal funding to states supported over 200, 000 youths in residential facilities in 2004, many seeking help to address behavioural or emotional challenges. However, federal investigations have identified maltreatment and civil rights abuses in some facilities. GAO was asked to provide national information about (1) the nature of incidents that adversely affect youth well-being in residential facilities, (2) how state licensing and monitoring...

The nation's critical infrastructure sectors - such as public health, energy, water, and transportation -- rely on computerised information and systems to provide services to the public. To fulfil the requirement for a comprehensive plan, including cyber aspects, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a national plan in June 2006 for the sectors to use as a road map to enhance the protection of critical infrastructure. Lead federal a...

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (referred to hereafter as the Reform Act) included provisions to better inform individuals who file for personal bankruptcy about their options for reaffirming debt--whereby filers may voluntarily agree to pay certain creditors in an effort to retain assets, such as an automobile. Reaffirmation agreements between debtors and creditors are required, by law, to formally disclose...

The end of the Cold War -- along with increasing globalisation beginning in the 1990s -- has helped criminal organisations expand their activities and gain global reach. Criminal networks are believed to have benefited from the weakening of certain government institutions, more open borders, and the resurgence of ethnic and regional conflicts across the former Soviet Union and many other regions. Transnational criminal organisations have also ...

This book provides: (1) simulations of the state and local government sector's long-term fiscal outlook, (2) an analysis of the underlying causes of potential fiscal difficulties for the sector, (3) a discussion of the extent to which the long-term simulations are sensitive to alternative assumptions, and (4) an examination of how the state and local government sector could add to future federal fiscal challenges. This is an excerpted and inde...

This book analyses: (1) other countries' major efforts to reform entitlement programs, (2) the pressure(s) that led countries to undertake the reforms, (3) how reform proposals were developed, and (4) to what extent enacted reforms built in triggers requiring future actions under certain conditions, and where such trigger mechanisms did not exist, whether some adjustments nonetheless occurred. This book is an excerpted and indexed edition.

To better understand how changes in domestic and international petroleum products markets have affected prices, this book evaluated trends in: (1) the international trade of petroleum products, (2) refining capacity and intensity of refining capacity use internationally and in the United States, (3) international and domestic crude oil and petroleum product inventories, and (4) domestic petroleum supply infrastructure.

While billions have been provided to rebuild Iraq's oil and electricity sectors, Iraq's future needs are significant and sources of funding uncertain. For fiscal years 2003 through 2006, the United States made available about $7.4 billion and spent about $5.1 billion to rebuild the oil and electricity sectors.

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Over the last 25 years, pension coverage has shifted primarily from "traditional" defined benefit (DB) plans, in which workers accrue benefits based on years of service and earnings, toward defined contribution (DC) plans, in which participants accumulate retirement balances in individual accounts. DC plans provide greater portability of benefits, but shift the responsibility of saving for retirement from employers to employees. This book addr...