The federal government uses grants to achieve national priorities through nonfederal parties, including state and local governments, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations. While there can be significant variation among different grant programs, most federal grants share a common life cycle for administering the grants: pre-award, award, implementation, and closeout.

Advisory groups-both FACA and non-FACA-exist throughout the executive branch of the federal government, providing input and advice to agencies in a variety of ways, such as preparing reports and developing recommendations. Agencies are not required to implement the advice or recommendations of advisory groups because they are by design advisory. While an advisory group's input or recommendations may form the basis for a federal agency's decisions or policies, other factors may play a role in determining what action an agency ultimately takes. However, both types of advisory groups serve as a...

Federal assistance for highway and bridge infrastructure-about $40 billion each year-is distributed through multiple formula and discretionary grant programs collectively known as the federal-aid highway program. The federal-aid highway program is financed through the Highway Trust Fund, a dedicated source of federal revenue based on the "user-pay principle"-that is, users of transportation systems pay for the systems' construction through the federal tax on motor fuels, tires, and trucks.

DOD has established criteria for the types of items that are required to be marked with IUID labels.

FEMA's workforce is comprised of a combination of permanent full-time employees (permanent employees) and temporary employees. Permanent employees conduct a wide variety of specialized functions including mitigation activities, such as flood mapping and managing the National Flood Insurance Program; preparedness activities, such as national capabilities assessments; and managing nationwide grant programs, among other things. According to FEMA, the agency obligated $630,649,000 to fund the salaries and benefits of its permanent employees for fiscal year 2012.

DOD guidance requires that the services and DLA report the current and projected status of their secondary item inventories to support OSD's oversight responsibilities and for use in its procurement and repair budget deliberations.10 To ensure the department has consistent data, the services and DLA are required, among other things, to group their secondary item inventories into several specific categories, according to the purpose for which they are held (see figure 1).

Health centers are private, nonprofit community-based organizations or, less commonly, public organizations such as public health department clinics. Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act, which authorizes the Health Center Program, requires health centers to provide a comprehensive set of primary health care services, including enabling services-such as language translation and transportation-that facilitate access to health care. Among other things, health centers are also required to have a sliding fee scale based on a patient's ability to pay and to be governed by a community board...

OAM resources are divided among 70 air and marine locations across three regions (southeast, southwest, and northern); the National Capital area; and National Air Security Operations Centers (NASOC) throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as shown in figure 1. OAM also has mission support facilities including those for maintenance, training, and radar-tracking to detect and direct interdiction of illegal aircraft and maritime vessels.

The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, enacted in December 2010, requires each executive agency to designate a telework managing officer, develop training programs, establish a telework policy, and submit an annual report to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council on the agency's efforts to promote telework. Under the act, OPM is to play a leading role in helping executive agencies implement the new telework provisions, which include setting telework goals and establishing qualitative and quantitative measures.

Although numerous U.S. agencies are engaged in U.S. efforts to provide assistance to foreign police forces, DOD and State are the major providers-providing police training around the world through a variety of authorities. DOD trains and equips foreign police forces to support its counterinsurgency operations.