Federal agencies spent more than half a trillion dollars in fiscal year 2011 through contracts to acquire goods and services in support of their missions, but have historically faced significant acquisition management challenges preventing them from getting the best return on their investments.

The FCDC ownership structure could provide a tax avoidance or evasion advantage relative to a structure where U.S. parents own foreign subsidiaries. Academic experts we spoke to said that the FCDC corporate structure does not provide an inherently greater ability to evade taxes through transfer pricing abuse because transfer pricing rules are the same for the FCDC structure as for U.S. corporations with foreign subsidiaries. However, according to IRS officials and our own research, the FCDC structure could confer a tax advantage because certain rules that can limit potential abuse by U.S....

In 2001, we reported that the UN headquarters complex in New York City-built largely between 1949 to 19527-no longer conformed to current safety, fire, and building codes or to UN technology and security requirements.8 6GAO, Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, The UN General Assembly noted that conditions in the UN headquarters complex posed serious risks to the health and safety of staff, visitors, and tourists. Thus, in December 2006, after several years of design and planning, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved the CMP to renovate the UN headquarters complex, at a budget not to...

Spent nuclear fuel, the used fuel removed from nuclear reactors, is one of the most hazardous substances created by humans. Commercial spent fuel is stored at reactor sites; about 74 percent of it is stored in pools of water, an 26 percent has been transferred to dry storage casks.

The U.S. government maintains more than 270 diplomatic posts, including embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic offices, in about 180 countries worldwide. More than 80,000 U.S. government employees work overseas, including both U.S. direct hires and locally-employed staff under chief of mission authority, representing more than 30 agencies and government entities. Agencies represented overseas include the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State, the Treasury, and USAID.

Security clearances are required for access to certain national security information, which is classified at one of three levels: top secret, secret, or confidential. The level of classification denotes the degree of protection required for information and the amount of damage that unauthorized disclosure could reasonably cause to national security.

NNSA oversees programs to carry out its missions for nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval nuclear propulsion, for which the President's budget submission to Congress requested more than $11.5 billion for fiscal year 2013-about 42 percent of DOE's total budget. NNSA has primary mission responsibilities in three areas.

The Department of Homeland Security has made progress in achieving its information-sharing mission, but could take additional steps to improve its efforts.

Biological threats that could result in catastrophic consequences exist in many forms and arise from multiple sources. For example, several known biological agents could be made into aerosolized weapons and intentionally released in a transportation hub or other populated urban setting, introduced into the agricultural infrastructure and food supply, or used to contaminate the water supply. Concerned with the threat of bioterrorism, in 2004, the White House released HSPD-10, which outlines four pillars of the biodefense enterprise and discusses various federal efforts and responsibilities...

In the U.S., while BRT projects vary in design, they generally include service enhancements designed to attract riders and provide similar transit-related benefits to rail transit.