The Veterans Administration says it is doing its best to respond to a scathing report by the Government Accountability Office which slammed the department’s oversight of construction projects around the country that are running years behind schedule and a combined $1.5 billion over budget.
Tag Archives: Government Accountability Office
Amazon Web Services files complaint in court over CIA contract
Amazon Web Services has filed a complaint in a U.S. court after the Government Accountability Office sustained in part a protest by IBM against the award of a contract by the CIA for a cloud computing project.
IBM had challenged the evaluation of proposals and the selection decision in the award of the CIA contract for commercial cloud services to AWS in Seattle, Washington.
The bid protest complaint filed by AWS on Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims is under seal as some of the information contained in it is under a protective order from the GAO.
“We believe strongly that the CIA got it right the first time. Providing true cloud computing services to the intelligence community requires a transformative approach with superior technology,” AWS said in an emailed statement.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld
Nuclear Evacuation Study Shows That Communities Outside 10-Mile Zone May Bog Down System
By The Huffington Post News Editors
— A new government report challenges a pillar of planning for disasters at American nuclear power plants, finding that people living beyond the official 10-mile evacuation zone might be so frightened by the prospect of spreading radiation that they would flee of their own accord, clog roads, and delay the escape of others.
For more than 30 years, community readiness has been based on the belief that evacuation planning isn’t needed beyond 10 miles from nuclear sites. But the Government Accountability Office report – to be released later Wednesday but obtained in advance by The Associated Press – found that regulators have never properly studied how many people beyond 10 miles would make their own decisions to take flight, prompting what is called a “shadow evacuation.”
Read More…
More on Nuclear Power
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
From catfish inspection to job training, study finds dozens of overlapping federal programs
The government has 76 programs to treat drug abuse spread across 15 different agencies. It has 47 programs for job training. And there are three federal agencies that inspect catfish.These are among the findings in a new Government Accountability Office report that found 162 areas where services are duplicated or money is being wasted in the federal government.
U.S. Strategic Helium Reserve Dwindles, Prompting Supply Concerns And Legislative Action
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By John Kemp
LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) – Bipartisan bills introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate aim to avert the imminent shutdown of the Federal Helium Reserve, which provides a third of all the gas consumed worldwide, and develop a proper market to avoid a long-term crunch in supplies of one of the world’s most critical raw materials.
Helium is best known for filling party balloons and making people talk with a squeaky voice.
But its properties as the second-lightest element, chemically unreactive, and with a boiling point just 4 degrees above absolute zero, give it an essential role in a range of cutting-edge scientific applications.
The biggest uses are to cool the superconducting magnets used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners; help manufacture semiconductors and fibre optic cables; and, purge and pressurise the liquid hydrogen/oxygen propulsion systems used on space rockets, including the giant Delta IV launch vehicles that put spy satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Prices for refined helium sold to end-users have quadrupled from $40 per thousand cubic feet in 2000 to $160 in 2012, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which warned the Natural Resources Committee of the House of Representatives last month of “urgent issues facing the Bureau of Land Management‘s storage and sale of helium reserves.”
Availability has fluctuated wildly in the last seven years. Problems at helium refineries in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as start up delays with new refining facilities in Qatar in 2006, led to shortages and rationing.
Reliable and affordable supplies are essential. But more than 40 percent of the helium used in the United States, and roughly a third of the gas consumed worldwide, is sourced from a stockpile in northern Texas left over from the Cold War.
As a result, helium is one of the last commodities where the government still drives prices. The price charged by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which runs the Federal Helium Reserve, effectively sets …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Government study finds security risks at US bio labs still high
A 56-page report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office says federal officials have failed to develop adequate standards for lab design, operation and construction, and the facilities are being built to local standards because there are no national safety guidelines for them.
US Bioterror Labs Rife With Risks: Reports
By Evann Gastaldo 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Why Don’t We Just Buy Chinese Fighters For The Air Force?
Just a little over a year ago, I brought to your attention the screwing of the American worker in Wichita, Kansas by the Iran-friendly Brazilian government; a Sparks, Nevada front company; and our friends in the Obama Administration.
At issue was a contract to send a half a billion dollars worth of light attack aircraft to our “friends” in Afghanistan (at our expense, of course).
It seems that despite the fact that the United States Government and its allies already own about 750 Beechcraft AT-6 aircraft proudly manufactured in Wichita by union machinists, the Obama Administration seemed hellbent on sending the new contract to a company called Embraer, which, despite a company in Sparks, Nevada fronting for them, is largely subsidized and formerly owned by the Iran-friendly Brazilian government.
Last year, the contract was re-examined.
But the Obamaites don’t quit.
Shortly after President Wonderful was re-elected, the folks in Wichita found out that elections did, indeed, have consequences.
You know all those things President Wonderful said about jobs? He meant Brazilian jobs. Certainly not Kansas jobs. Kansas is a red state. Interestingly, the new plane is supposed to be produced largely in Florida. Again, elections have consequences.
It seems that despite a three year battle, the Air Force (read that the Obamaites in DoD) has decided to use the same sort of sleazy lawyer tricks to go ahead and get started building the Brazilian planes despite a Government Accountability Office stop work order on the contract while it investigates.
This is apparently what President Wonderful meant when he talked about “spreading the wealth around.”
To refresh your memories, the Beechcraft plane is already widely used by our armed forces and our allies. The Brazilian plane is used by (hold your breath) Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.
It might even be a good plane.
But it’s certainly not built in Wichita, Kansas by highly skilled American workers.
And its purchase in bulk benefits a nation that has a trading relationship with the same clowns who are building a nuclear weapon and who want to wipe our best ally, Israel, off the face of the Earth.
We have put sanctions in place against Iran. Brazil has not. Why should we support directly or indirectly a regime that trades with people who make improvised explosive devices used against Israel and our own troops in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Wouldn’t a better method of getting what we want from Iran be making their friends and trading partners know that actions have consequences?
Buying the Embraer plane is wrong on so many levels that only an administration as amateurish and incompetent as Barack Obama’s would even consider it.
I know that I’m going to take a load of crap from the Nevada front company for the Brazilians, Sierra Nevada Corporation. They are a large local presence, but they happen to be in bed with the wrong people in this case. Nothing personal, guys. But if you were fronting for Boeing or General Dynamics or …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism
Video of New Mexico man shooting horse in head sparks outrage
An employee of a southeastern New Mexico slaughterhouse has posted a video online showing him fatally shooting a horse in the head.
That has sparked outrage among animal activists and led to death-threat calls to the Roswell meat company, which is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get a horse slaughter plant in the area.
A maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Co. is shown in the video bringing a horse out of its pen, swearing at activists and then killing the horse with a single gunshot, KOB-TV reported Thursday.
Rick De Los Santos, a part-owner of Valley Meat Co., said he has been slammed with hate calls and death threats since the video hit the Internet.
“I didn’t have anything to do with that video. That’s the honest truth,” De Los Santos said.
De Los Santos said the contract worker, Tim Sappington, shot the video on his own time and at his own home.
“He shot a horse. That’s what he eats. It’s not against the law to slaughter your own horse,” De Los Santos said. “Now, putting it on YouTube, I would not have done that.”
Last year, De Los Santos sued the USDA to resume the inspections necessary to open what would be the nation’s first new horse slaughterhouse in more than five years.
The suit alleges USDA inaction on the company’s application was driven by emotional political debates and has cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Many animal humane groups and public officials were outraged at the idea of resuming domestic horse slaughter, including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.
But others — including some horse rescuers, livestock associations and the American Quarter Horse Association — support a return to domestic horse slaughter.
They point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since Congress effectively banned horse slaughter by cutting funding for federal inspection programs in 2006.
NM worker films himself fatally shooting a horse
An employee of a southeastern New Mexico slaughterhouse has posted a video online showing him fatally shooting a horse in the head.
That has sparked outrage among animal activists and led to death-threat calls to the Roswell meat company, which is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get a horse slaughter plant in the area.
A maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Co. is shown in the video bringing a horse out of its pen, swearing at activists and then killing the horse with a single gunshot, KOB-TV reported Thursday (http://bit.ly/YuZFSK ).
Rick De Los Santos, a part-owner of Valley Meat Co., said he has been slammed with hate calls and death threats since the video hit the Internet.
“I didn’t have anything to do with that video. That’s the honest truth,” De Los Santos said.
De Los Santos said the contract worker, Tim Sappington, shot the video on his own time and at his own home.
“He shot a horse. That’s what he eats. It’s not against the law to slaughter your own horse,” De Los Santos said. “Now, putting it on YouTube, I would not have done that.”
Last year, De Los Santos sued the USDA to resume the inspections necessary to open what would be the nation’s first new horse slaughterhouse in more than five years.
The suit alleges USDA inaction on the company’s application was driven by emotional political debates and has cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Many animal humane groups and public officials were outraged at the idea of resuming domestic horse slaughter, including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.
But others — including some horse rescuers, livestock associations and the American Quarter Horse Association — support a return to domestic horse slaughter.
They point to a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office that shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since Congress effectively banned horse slaughter by cutting funding for federal inspection programs in 2006.
___
‘Not One Dime’: Health Care Law Projected To Add $6.2 Trillion To U.S. Deficit
Congress is likely to follow precedent and bypass the new health care law’s draconian payment cuts to doctors and hospitals, causing the law’s cost to balloon by trillions of dollars.
It turns out President Obama was right when he said his health care law wouldn’t add one dime to the federal deficit.1 Figures from the Government Accountability Office suggest that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will in fact add 62 trillion dimes over the next 75 years.2 (To give that $6.2 trillion some perspective, our national debt is currently $16.7 trillion.) Sometimes called the congressional watchdog, the GAO is the official auditor for the U.S. Congress. GAO is the agency that designated Medicare and Medicaid as high-risk programs because they are particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and improper payments. And it is likewise the agency that ultimately will be tasked with identifying all the bureaucratic snafus associated with Obamacare as it continues to roll out, affecting more and more Americans.
Federal Budget on an “Unsustainable” Path
In the meantime, GAO has issued a report that paints a bleak picture of Obamacare’s impact on our fiscal future. An important takeaway is shown in Figure 1.
No matter whether we use current law (labeled the “baseline extended” scenario) or current policy (labeled the “alternative” fiscal scenario), the January 2010 projections (calculated before Obamacare was written into law) show U.S. public debt3 is soon headed toward historically unprecedented4 and economically unsustainable levels.5 The baseline scenario essentially assumes we follow current law to the letter. Thus, for example, the baseline scenario for last fall assumed that Medicare would slash payment rates to physicians by 26.5 percent on January 1, 2013, since that was what the law at the time required.
Read More at The American . By Christopher J. Conover.
Photo credit: terrellaftermath
‘Not One Dime’: Obamacare Projected To Add $6.2 Trillion To U.S. Deficit
Congress is likely to follow precedent and bypass the new health care law’s draconian payment cuts to doctors and hospitals, causing the law’s cost to balloon by trillions of dollars.
It turns out President Obama was right when he said his health care law wouldn’t add one dime to the federal deficit.1 Figures from the Government Accountability Office suggest that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will in fact add 62 trillion dimes over the next 75 years.2 (To give that $6.2 trillion some perspective, our national debt is currently $16.7 trillion.) Sometimes called the congressional watchdog, the GAO is the official auditor for the U.S. Congress. GAO is the agency that designated Medicare and Medicaid as high-risk programs because they are particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and improper payments. And it is likewise the agency that ultimately will be tasked with identifying all the bureaucratic snafus associated with Obamacare as it continues to roll out, affecting more and more Americans.
Federal Budget on an “Unsustainable” Path
In the meantime, GAO has issued a report that paints a bleak picture of Obamacare’s impact on our fiscal future. An important takeaway is shown in Figure 1.
No matter whether we use current law (labeled the “baseline extended” scenario) or current policy (labeled the “alternative” fiscal scenario), the January 2010 projections (calculated before Obamacare was written into law) show U.S. public debt3 is soon headed toward historically unprecedented4 and economically unsustainable levels.5 The baseline scenario essentially assumes we follow current law to the letter. Thus, for example, the baseline scenario for last fall assumed that Medicare would slash payment rates to physicians by 26.5 percent on January 1, 2013, since that was what the law at the time required.
Read More at The American . By Christopher J. Conover.
Photo credit: terrellaftermath
Beechcraft to Protest Sierra Nevada/Embraer Contract Win
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Beechcraft Corp. plans to “protest” a contract awarded to a competitor, saying the Air Force chose a more expensive option and its decision puts 1,400 jobs in Kansas and other states in jeopardy.
About two weeks ago, privately held U.S.-based aerospace firm Sierra Nevada won a competition, in alliance with Brazil’s Embraer , to produce 20 Light Air Support aircraft for the Afghan air force. The U.S. Air Force would buy 20 Super Tucano prop-driver fighter planes, and deliver them to Afghanistan for use by the local military. Winning the competition to supply the planes, Sierra Nevada and Embraer (SN-E) stood to receive as much as $950 million for their work.
In a reprise of a dispute that scuttled a similar contract back in 2011, rival aerospace firm Beechcraft announced last week that it intends to formally protest the contract’s award to SN-E, once again perhaps delaying delivery of the planes to the conflict zone. According to Goldman Sachs -owned Beechcraft, “Our belief that we have the best aircraft was confirmed by the Air Force rating our aircraft ‘exceptional’ and the fact that we are the lower cost solution was confirmed by the USAF‘s public award announcement.”
Beechcraft argues that in addition to offering “less capable aircraft,” the SN-E offering also costs $125 million more than Beechcraft would charge to build its own AT-6 Texan II fighters. An AOL Defense article reports that Beechcraft bid $297 million to build 20 planes for the Air Force.
Beechcraft said it intends to file its protest with the Government Accountability Office which, if it finds Beechcraft’s objections have merit, has the power to order the Air Force to rebid the contract.
The article Beechcraft to Protest Sierra Nevada/Embraer Contract Win originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Embraer-Empresa Brasileira and Goldman Sachs. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
School Maintenance Report Shows Need For $542 Billion To Update, Modernize Buildings
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — America’s schools are in such disrepair that it would cost more than $270 billion just to get elementary and secondary buildings back to their original conditions and twice that to get them up to date, a report released Tuesday estimated. In a foreword to the report, former President Bill Clinton said “we are still struggling to provide equal opportunity” to children and urged the first federal study of school buildings in almost two decades.
Clinton and the Center for Green Schools urged a Government Accountability Office assessment on what it would take to get school buildings up to date to help students learn, keep teachers healthy and put workers back on the jobs. The last such report, issued in 1995 during the Clinton administration, estimated it would take $112 billion to bring the schools into good repair and did not include the need for new buildings to accommodate the growing number of students.
Sequester As Opportunity? Simple Ways To Cut Prison Spending, Maybe Avoid Furloughs
On his always interesting blog, “Sentencing Law and Policy,” Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, makes the succinct argument that the ominous-sounding sequester could provide an opportunity to “improve the administration of justice and save money if [the Department of Justice] and [Bureau of Prisons] and others would use existing statutory mechanisms to reduce federal prison populations and costs.” Berman cites a Federal Public and Community Defenders presentation from last year (PDF) that offers realistic ways to push such changes forward (taking cues from a Government Accountability Office report): First, the GAO identified three statutory programs that, if fully implemented, would save taxpayer dollars that are now being wasted on unnecessary incarceration: …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Failures In Managing Federal Property Costing Taxpayers Billions
Inefficiency, inaccuracy and underuse in managing federal property costs taxpayers at least $1.6 billion each year. That is the troubling conclusion of a report the House Subcommittee on Government Operations addressed today in its first-ever hearing.
Though real property management may seem “boring,” underused and inefficiently managed property is important because of how much money it wastes, said subcommittee chairman John Mica.
“Americans have a right to know how their money Washington has taken from them — how it is spent, and that it is well-spent,” Mica said at a hearing titled “Failures in Managing Federal Real Property: Billions in Losses.”
The issue has been listed high on the Government Accountability Office’s high-risk series for 10 years now, despite several efforts to fix inefficient systems across the government. The issue is especially pressing with sequestration looming and the federal debt approaching $17 trillion, Mica said.
Read More at The Washington Examiner . By Michal Conger.
Oregon senator to ask for GAO probe of Hanford nuclear site
A spokesman for Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden says the senator will ask the Government Accountability Office to investigate a monitoring and maintenance program for underground waste tanks at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site.