The FLSA requires that workers8 who are covered by the act and not specifically exempt from its provisions be paid at least the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) and 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek.9 The act also regulates the employment of youth under the age of 18 and establishes recordkeeping requirements for employers, among other provisions. There are a number of exceptions to the requirements of the FLSA; for example, independent contractors are not covered by the FLSA, and certain categories of workers, such as those in bona fide...

Coal is an important domestic energy source, and BLM is responsible for managing coal resources on about 570 million acres of federal, state, and private land. Since 1990, all federal coal leasing has taken place through a lease-by-application process where companies propose lease tracts to be put up for sale by BLM. In fiscal year 2012, about 1.05 billion tons of coal was produced in the United States, including production from federal coal leases, and the biggest coal production area for federal coal was the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana. Coal is also an...

While child sexual abuse-the act of forcing a child to engage in sexual activity with a perpetrator-is generally criminal in nature, perpetrators of such abuse typically exhibit other inappropriate, and sometimes noncriminal, behaviors. These behaviors of perpetrators may be displayed on a continuum and may include grooming, sexual misconduct and child sexual abuse.

The end of the cold war left the United States with a surplus of weapons-grade plutonium. Much of this material is found in a key nuclear weapon component known as a pit. In 1997, DOE announced a plan to dispose of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium through an approach that included fabrication of plutonium into MOX fuel for use in domestic commercial nuclear reactors. In 2000, the United States and Russia entered into a Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, in which each country pledged to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium. Through a protocol to...

OMB Circular A-126 and DOD guidance require that DOD's aircraft for special air missions operate primarily for official purposes to: perform agency responsibilities, as directed by the Secretary of Defense or the President; transport officials that the President or the Secretary of Defense designate due to the need for security, secure communications, or exceptional scheduling; and transport officials for other agency business, such as giving speeches, attending conferences, and making routine site visits.

In September 2009, the President announced a revised approach to missile defense in Europe called EPAA, which consists of phases of increasing capability to be deployed in the 2011, 2015, and 2018 time frames. EPAA serves as the U.S. contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) mission to protect alliance populations, territory, and forces against ballistic missile threats. As originally announced, EPAA included a fourth phase that was expected to add U.S. homeland defense and expanded regional defense in the 2020 time frame. In March 2013, the Secretary of Defense canceled...

In 1990, we first designated DOE program and contract management as an area at high risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In January 2009, to recognize the progress made at DOE's Office of Science, we narrowed the focus of the high-risk designation to two DOE program elements, NNSA and the Office of Environmental Management. In February 2013, our most recent high-risk update, we narrowed this focus to major projects (i.e., projects over $750 million) at NNSA and the Office of Environmental Management.

Alaska's location makes the United States an Arctic nation. Alaska has extensive maritime access, with over 6,000 miles of coastline, bordered by the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering Seas; the Arctic Ocean; the Gulf of Alaska; and the Bering Strait, whose jurisdiction is divided between the United States and Russia. See figure 1. The Bering Strait provides the only access to the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific Ocean, which lies south of the Aleutian Islands. Federal waters typically extend from 3 to 200 nautical miles offshore, and state waters for coastal states such as Alaska generally extend...

Broadband allows users to access information via the Internet through one of several high-speed transmission technologies. Broadband capacity, typically referred to as "speed," is described in download and upload capabilities and is measured by the number of bits of data transferred per second and include kilobits (1 thousand bits per second-kbps), megabits (1 million bits per second-Mbps), and gigabits (1 billion bits per second-Gbps).

Product support refers to the support functions required to field and maintain the readiness and operational capability of major weapon systems, subsystems, and components, including all functions related to a weapon system's readiness. O&S costs historically account for approximately 70 percent of a weapon system's total life-cycle cost and include costs for repair parts, maintenance, contract services, engineering support, and personnel, among other things.