prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Report 1: According to the National Inventory of Dams, as of January 2016 there are approximately 90,500 dams in the United States and about 2 5 percent of these (approximately 2,100 dams) are associated with hydropower projects  Hydropower projects are owned and operated by both non-federal entities—such as private utility companies, municipalities, and state government agencies—or federal government agencies—primarily the U S  Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) and the Bureau of Reclamation  Collectively, these dams associated with hydropower projects account for about 8 percent of the total electric generating capacity in the United States  Hydropower projects generally consist of one or more dams and other key components associated with hydroelectric power generation and water storage, and are uniquely designed to accommodate watersheds, geology, and other natural conditions present at the time of construction  These components include both those that allow operators to adjust reservoir water levels, such as spillways and gates, as well as those that produce and distribute electricity, such as transmission lines and powerhouses, among others  (See fig  1 ) The Federal Power Act provides for FERC’s regulatory jurisdiction over a portfolio of about 1,000 non-federal hydropower projects comprising over 2,500 dams  While FERC does not construct, own, or operate dams, it licenses and provides oversight of non-federal hydropower projects to promote their safe operation  Licensees are responsible for the safety and liability of dams, pursuant to the Federal Power Act, and for their continuous upkeep and repair using sound and prudent engineering practices  FERC officials in each of the agency’s five regional offices work directly with licensees to help ensure these projects comply with licenses and meet federal guidelines for dam safety  In addition, stakeholder groups such as the Association of State Dam Safety Officials can assist licensees in staying current on federal and state dam laws and regulations, dam operations and maintenance practices, and emergency action planning, among other things  FERC’s regulations, supplemented by its Operating Manual and Engineering Guidelines, establish a framework for its dam safety oversight approach  FERC’s Operating Manual provides guidelines for the FERC staff performing inspections that are aimed at ensuring that structures are safe, are being properly maintained, and are being operated safely  FERC’s Engineering Guidelines provides FERC staff and licensees with procedures and criteria for the review and analysis of license applications, project modification proposals, technical studies, and dam designs  For example, one chapter presents guidelines for FERC staff to use to determine the appropriateness and level of geotechnical investigations and studies for dams  The Engineering Guidelines states that every dam is unique and that safety analysis of each dam require that engineers apply technical judgement based on their professional experience  As part of FERC’s safety oversight approach, it assigns a hazard classification to each dam in accordance with federal guidelines that consider the potential human or economic consequences of the dam’s failure  The hazard classification does not indicate the structural integrity of the dam itself, but rather the probable effects if a failure should occur  Depending on the hazard classification, the extent of and the frequency of safety oversight activities can vary  Low hazard dams are those where failure —an uncontrolled release of water from a water-retaining structure—would result in no probable loss of human life but could cause low economic and/or environmental losses  Significant hazard dams are those dams where failure would result in no probable loss of human life, but could cause economic loss, environmental damage, or other losses  High hazard dams are those dams where failure would probably cause loss of human life  FERC has designed a multi-layered oversight approach that involves both independent and coordinated actions with dam owners and independent consultants  Key elements of this approach include ensuring licensees have a safety program in place, conducting regular safety inspections, reviewing technical analyses, and analyzing safety as a part of project relicensing  (See fig  2 ) Licensee’s dam safety program  According to FERC guidance, licensees have the most important role in ensuring dam safety through continuous visual surveillance and ongoing monitoring to evaluate the health of the structure  Beyond this expectation for continuous oversight, FERC requires licensees of high and significant hazard dams to have an Owner’s Dam Safety Program  FERC dam safety inspection  The dam safety inspection, also called operation inspection, is a regularly-scheduled inspection conducted by a FERC regional office project engineer primarily addressing dam and public safety  FERC’s Operating Manual establishes the frequency that a FERC engineer conducts dam safety inspections  Independent consultant inspection and potential failure mode analysis  FERC requires licensees to hire a FERC-approved independent consulting engineer to inspect and evaluate high hazard dams and certain types of dams above a certain height or size and submit a report detailing the findings  Additionally, FERC requires the licensee of a high or significant hazard dam to conduct a potential failure mode analysis  A potential failure mode analysis is an exercise to identify and assess all potential failure modes under normal operating water levels and under extreme conditions caused by floods, earthquakes, and other events  FERC relicensing of projects  FERC issues hydropower licenses for the construction of new hydropower projects, and reissues licenses for existing projects when licenses expire  Licensees may submit applications for a new license for the continued operation of existing projects as part of a process known as relicensing  During relicensing, in addition to the power and development purposes for which FERC issues licenses, FERC must evaluate safety, environmental, recreational, cultural, and resource development among other factors when evaluating projects, according to its guidance  In addition, FERC requires licensees to conduct various engineering studies related to dam performance in accordance with FERC safety requirements  Required engineering studies focus on dam performance as affected by hydrology, seismicity, and dam stability  Licensees may also produce engineering studies, such as a focused spillway assessment, for their own operations or at the request of FERC  We found, based on our analysis of the 42 dam safety inspections we reviewed, that FERC staff generally conducted and collected information from these inspections consistent with guidance in its Operating Manual  According to FERC’s Operating Manual, staff’s approach to conducting these inspections and collecting information is to include preparing for the inspection by reviewing documents, conducting a field inspection of the dam and associated project components, and discussing inspection findings with licensees and with FERC supervisors  Preparation for inspection: We found that FERC staff generally met document review requirements in preparation for safety inspections of the 42 dams we reviewed  (See table 1 ) According to the Operating Manual, FERC staff are to review safety-related information contained in documents such as potential failure mode analyses and hazard potential classifications  For example, we found that staff documented their review of the most recent independent consultant inspection report and potential failure mode analysis for each of the 16 high hazard dams we reviewed  FERC staff told us that they generally used checklists when preparing for these inspections  For example, some of the staff told us they tailor the checklist included in the Operating Manual, based on the dam’s type, characteristics, and hazard classification  Additionally, for each of the dams in our sample, staff stated that they prepared for the inspection by reviewing prior inspection reports and recommendations  Field inspection: We found that FERC staff generally met requirements for reviewing project components and documenting their findings from field inspections of the 42 dams we reviewed  (See table 2 ) According to the Operating Manual, FERC staff are to conduct visual inspections of the dam, typically alongside the licensee, to assess the dam and project components by observing their condition and identifying any safety deficiency or maintenance requirement  Also during the inspection, FERC staff are to compare current conditions of the dam and project components to those described in prior inspection reports, and as applicable, collect information on the licensee’s progress towards resolving deficiencies and maintenance issues that can affect safety  To assess safety, FERC staff we interviewed stated that they primarily rely on their engineering judgment  Inspection findings: According to our interviews with FERC staff from selected projects, we found that staff generally followed FERC guidance in discussing inspection findings with licensees and supervisors prior to preparing inspection reports to document their findings  According to the Operating Manual, following the dam safety inspection, FERC staff are to discuss the inspection with the licensee, giving direction on how to address any findings  Additionally, upon returning to the office, staff are to discuss inspection findings with their supervisors who may suggest additional actions  FERC staff are then to develop a dam safety inspection report that documents observations and conclusions from their pre-inspection preparation and their field inspection and identifies follow-up actions for the licensee  We found that FERC staff prepared inspection reports to document findings from the 42 dam safety inspections we reviewed  In response to inspection findings, FERC requires licensees to submit a plan and schedule to remediate any deficiency, actions that FERC staff then reviews, approves, and monitors until the licensees have addressed the deficiency  While we found that FERC staff conducted inspections and collected inspection findings consistently in the files we reviewed, FERC’s approach to recording information varies across its regions, thus limiting the usefulness of the information  FERC’s approach to recording inspection information relies on multiple systems to record inspection information and affords broad discretion to its staff on how to characterize findings, such as whether to track inspection findings as maintenance issues or as safety deficiencies  As related to systems for recording inspection information, FERC staff use the Data and Management System (DAMS), the Office of Energy Projects-IT (OEP-IT) system, as well as spreadsheets  In particular, according to FERC staff: Four out of FERC’s five regional offices use DAMS—which is primarily a workload tracking tool—to track plans and schedules associated with safety investigations and modifications as well as inspection follow-up items  FERC staff stated that since the inspection information in DAMS is recorded as narrative text in a data field instead of as discrete categories, sorting or analysis of the information is difficult  One regional office uses OEP-IT to track safety deficiencies while the system is more widely used across FERC to track licensees’ compliance with the terms and conditions of their licenses  Three out of FERC’s five regional offices also use spreadsheets and other tools that are not integrated with DAMS or OEP-IT to track inspection information and licensee progress toward resolving safety deficiencies  FERC staff said that use of these different systems to record deficiencies identified during inspections limits their ability to analyze safety information  For example, according to FERC officials, OEP-IT was not designed to track safety deficiency information and is not compatible with DAMS for use in tracking information on a national level  Furthermore, because spreadsheets and other tools are specific to the regional office in which they are used, FERC staff does not use the information they contain for agency-wide analysis  Concerning decisions on how to characterize inspection findings, FERC staff relies on professional judgment, informed by their experience and the Engineering Guidelines, to determine whether to track inspection findings as a safety deficiency or as a maintenance item, according to FERC officials  With input from their supervisors, FERC staff also determines what information to record and how to track the status of the inspection finding  For example, staff assigned to a dam at a FERC- licensed project in New Hampshire observed concrete deterioration on several parts of the dam and its spillway and asked the licensee to monitor all concrete surfaces, making repairs as necessary  According to staff we interviewed, regional staff and supervisors decided not to identify this as a deficiency to be tracked in DAMS because concrete deterioration is normal and to be expected in consideration of the area’s harsh winter weather  In contrast, staff assigned to a dam at a FERC- licensed project in Minnesota observed concrete deterioration on several parts of the project, including the piers and the powerhouse walls, and entered the safety item in DAMS as requiring repair by the licensee  FERC officials stated they are comfortable with the use of professional judgement to classify and address inspection findings because it is important to allow for consideration of the characteristics unique to each situation and how they affect safety  FERC’s approach to recording inspection information is inconsistent because FERC has not provided standard language and procedures about how staff should record and track deficiencies including which system to use  Federal standards for internal control state that agencies should design an entity’s information system and related control activities to achieve objectives and control risks  In practice, this means that an agency would design control activities—such as policies and procedures—over the information technology infrastructure to support the completeness, accuracy, and validity of information processing by information technology  FERC officials acknowledged that there are inconsistent approaches in where and how staff record safety deficiency information, approaches that limit the information’s usefulness as an input to its oversight  While the agency has not developed guidance, officials stated that FERC plans to take steps to improve the consistency of recorded information by replacing the OEP-IT system with a new system, tentatively scheduled for September 2018, that will have a specific function to track dam safety requirements  However, this new system will not replace the functions of DAMS, which FERC will continue to use to store inspection information  The two will exist as parallel systems with the eventual goal of the two systems’ sharing information  By developing standard language and procedures to standardize the recording of information collected during inspections, FERC officials could help ensure that the information shared across these systems is comparable, steps that would allow FERC to identify the extent of and characteristics associated with common safety deficiencies across its entire portfolio of regulated dams  Moreover, with a consistent approach to recording information from individual dam safety inspections, FERC will be positioned to proactively identify comparable safety deficiencies across its portfolio and to tailor its inspections towards evaluating them  While FERC uses inspection information to monitor a licensee’s efforts to address a safety deficiency for an individual dam, FERC has not analyzed information collected from its dam safety inspections to evaluate safety risks across the entire regulated portfolio of dams  For example, FERC has not reviewed inspection information to identify common deficiencies among certain types of dams  Federal standards for internal control state that agencies should identify, analyze, and respond to risks related to their objectives  These standards note that one method for management to identify risks is the consideration of deficiencies identified through audits and other assessments  Dam safety inspections are an example of such an assessment  As part of such an approach, the agency analyzes risks to estimate their significance, which provides a basis for responding to the risk through specific actions  Furthermore, in our previous work on federal facilities, we have identified that an advanced use of risk management involving the ability to gauge risk across a portfolio of facilities could allow stakeholders to comprehensively identify and prioritize risks at a national level and direct resources toward alleviating them  FERC officials stated that they have not conducted a portfolio-wide analysis in part due to the inconsistency of recorded inspection data and because such an evaluation has not been a priority compared to inspecting individual dams  According to officials, the FERC headquarters office collects and reviews information semi-annually from each of its five regional offices on the progress of outstanding dam investigations and modifications in those regions  FERC’s review is designed to monitor the status of investigations on each individual dam but does not analyze risks across the portfolio of dams at the regional or national level  For example, officials from the New York Regional Office stated they do not perform trend analysis across the regional portfolio of dams under their authority, but they compile year-to-year data for each separate dam to show any progression or changes from previous data collected from individual dams  A portfolio-wide analysis could help FERC proactively identify safety risks and prioritize them at a national level  FERC officials stated that a proactive analysis of its portfolio could be useful to determining how to focus its inspections to alleviate safety risks, but it was not an action that FERC had taken to date  The benefits of a proactive analysis, for example, could be similar to those FERC derived from the analysis it conducted in reaction to the Oroville Dam incident  To conduct this analysis, FERC required 184 project licensees, identified by FERC regional offices as having spillways similar to the failed spillway at the Oroville Dam, to assess the spillways’ safety and capacity  According to FERC officials, these assessments identified 27 dam spillways with varying degrees of safety concerns  They stated that FERC’s spillway assessment initiative was a success because they were able to target a specific subgroup of dams within the portfolio and identify these safety concerns at 27 dam spillways  FERC officials stated that they are working with the dam licensees to address these safety concerns  A similar and proactive approach based on analysis of common deficiencies across the portfolio of dams under FERC’s authority could also help to identify any safety risks that may not have been targeted during the inspections of individual dams and prior to a safety incident  As directed by FERC, licensees and their consultants develop and review, or update, various engineering studies related to dam performance to help ensure their dams meet FERC requirements and remain safe  FERC regulations and guidelines describe the types and frequency of studies and analyses required based on dams’ hazard classifications  For all high hazard and some significant hazard dams, existing studies are to be reviewed by each licensee’s consultants every 5 years, as part of the independent consultant inspection and accompanying potential failure mode analysis  According to FERC officials, for those significant hazard dams that do not require an independent consultant inspection and for low hazard dams, FERC’s regulations and guidelines do not require any studies, but in practice FERC directs many licensees to conduct them  FERC also may request engineering studies in response to dam safety incidents at other projects, or engage a board of consultants to oversee the completion of a study  For example, as previously noted, following the Oroville Dam incident in 2017, FERC requested a special assessment of all dams with spillways similar to the failed spillway at the Oroville Dam  To develop these studies, all six of the consultants we interviewed stated that they follow guidelines provided by FERC and other dam safety agencies  Specifically, they stated that they use FERC’s Engineering Guidelines, which provide engineering principles to guide the development and review of engineering studies  In recognition of the unique characteristics of each dam, including its construction, geography, and applicable loading conditions, the Guidelines provides consultants with flexibility to apply engineering judgment, and as a result, the approach that licensees and their consultants use and the focus of their reviews of engineering studies may vary across regions or projects  For example, one independent consultant we interviewed noted that seismicity studies are not highlighted during the independent consultant inspections for projects in the Upper Midwest in comparison to projects in other areas of the country because the region is not seismically active, but that inspections do look closely at ice loads during the winter months  To create these studies, we found that licensees and their consultants generally use data from other federal agencies and rely on available modeling tools developed by federal agencies and the private sector to evaluate dam performance  For example, many of the engineering studies we reviewed rely on data from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to estimate precipitation patterns and the U S  Geological Survey to estimate seismic activity  In addition, licensees and their consultants use modeling tools and simulations, such as those developed by the Corps to estimate hydrology, to develop engineering studies  FERC staff noted that the engineering studies developed by licensees and their consultants generally focus on the analysis of extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods  In reference to extreme events, FERC staff said that both actual past events and likely future events are considered in determining their magnitude  FERC staff noted the probable maximum flood—the flood that would be expected to result from the most extreme combination of reasonably possible meteorological and hydrological conditions—as an example of a dam design criterion that is based on application of analysis of extreme events  In describing the efficacy of probable maximum flood calculations, FERC officials stated that they had not observed a flood that exceeded the probable maximum flood calculated for any dam and noted that their Engineering Guidelines provides a conservative approach to estimating the probable maximum flood and other extreme events  FERC officials stated that requiring a conservative approach to estimating extreme events helps to mitigate the substantial uncertainty associated with these events, including in consideration of emerging data estimating the effects of climate change on extreme weather events  Once developed, engineering studies we reviewed often remained in effect for a number of years, until FERC or the licensee and its consultant determined an update was required  For example, we found that the hydrology studies were 20 years or older for 17 of the 42 dams in our review, including for 9 of the 16 high hazard dams in our sample  FERC’s Engineering Guidelines states that studies should be updated as appropriate  For example, FERC’s Engineering Guidelines on hydrology studies state that previously accepted flood studies are not required to be reevaluated unless it is determined that a re-analysis is warranted  The Guidelines notes that FERC or the consultant may consider reanalyzing the study for several reasons, including if they identify (1) significant errors in the original study; (2) new data that may significantly alter previous study results; or (3) significant changes in the conditions of the drainage basin  FERC staff and consultants we interviewed stated that age alone is not a primary criterion to update or replace studies and that studies should be updated as needed depending on several factors including age, new or additional data, and professional judgment  Consultants we interviewed identified some limitations that can affect their ability to develop engineering studies for a dam  For example, they noted that some dams may lack original design information, used prior to construction of the dam, which includes the assumptions and calculations used to determine the type and size of dam, the amount of water storage capacity, and information on the pre-construction site geology and earthquake potential  FERC officials estimated that for a large percentage of the dams they relicense, the original information is no longer available  For example, according to the report from the independent forensic team investigating the Oroville Dam incident and as previously noted, some design drawings and construction records for the dam’s spillway could not be located and some other documents that were available were not included in the most recent independent consultant inspection report submitted to FERC  To overcome the lack of original design information, FERC told us that licensees and their consultants may use teams of experts, advanced data collection techniques, and other modern methods, where feasible, to assess the dam’s ability to perform given current environmental conditions  In cases where design or other engineering information is incomplete, consultants stated that they generally recommend the licensee conduct additional studies based on the risk presented by the missing information but also noted that the financial resources of a licensee may affect its willingness and ability to conduct additional studies  However, FERC officials stated that FERC staff are ultimately responsible for making decisions on whether additional engineering studies are needed to evaluate a dam’s performance  FERC has established policies and procedures that use formal guidance, and permit the use of professional judgment, to evaluate and review engineering studies of dam performance submitted by licensees and their consultants  FERC officials in both the headquarters and regional offices emphasized that their role as the regulator is to review and validate engineering studies developed by the licensee and their consultants  FERC generally does not develop engineering studies as officials noted that dam safety, including the development of engineering studies, is primarily the licensee’s responsibility  To carry out their responsibility to ensure public safety, FERC staff stated they use procedures and criteria in the FERC Engineering Guidelines to review engineering studies and apply professional judgment to leverage their specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities to support their determinations of dam safety  FERC’s Engineering Guidelines provides a framework for the review of engineering studies, though the Guidelines recognizes that each dam is unique and allows for flexibility and exemptions in their use  Moreover, the Guidelines notes that analysis of data is useful when evaluating a dam’s performance, but should not be used as a substitute for judgment based on experience and common sense  Because FERC’s Engineering Guidelines allows for the application of professional judgment, the methods used to review these studies vary depending on the staff, the region, and individual dam characteristics  For example, FERC staff said that when they review consultants’ assumptions, methods, calculations and conclusions, in some cases they may decide to conduct a sensitivity analysis if—based on the staff’s judgment—they need to take additional steps to validate or confirm factors of safety for the project  FERC officials also stated that staff may conduct their own independent analyses, as appropriate, such as evaluating a major structural change to the dam or validating submitted studies  For example, as part of its 2016 review of the Union Valley Dam in California, FERC staff validated the submitted hydrology study by independently calculating key inputs, such as precipitation rates and peak floods, to evaluate the dam’s performance and verify the spillway’s reported capacity  In addition, FERC has established various controls to help ensure the quality of its review, including using a risk-based review process, assigning multiple staff to review the studies, and rotating staff responsibilities over time  We have previously found in our reporting on other regulatory agencies that practices such as rotating staff in key decision-making roles, and including at least two supervisory staff when conducting oversight reviews help reduce threats to independence and regulatory capture  Risk-based review process  FERC’s review approach is risk-based, as the frequency of staff’s review of these studies is based on the hazard classification of the dam as well as professional judgment  FERC relies on three primary engineering studies (hydrology, seismicity, and stability), and others as appropriate, which form the basis for determining if a dam is safe  In addition, FERC requires licensees to hire a FERC-approved independent consulting engineer at least every 5 years to inspect and evaluate high hazard and other applicable dams and submit a report detailing the findings as part of the independent consultant inspection process  In general, for the dams we reviewed, we found that FERC staff reviewed engineering studies for dams subject to independent consultant inspections (which are typically high or significant hazard dams) more frequently than those engineering studies associated with dams for which FERC does not require an independent consultant inspection (typically low hazard dams)  For example, we found FERC staff had reviewed the most recent hydrology studies for all 22 high and significant hazard dams in our sample subject to independent consultant inspections within the last 6 years and documented their analysis  According to FERC officials, for dams not subject to an independent consultant inspection, FERC staff review engineering studies on an as needed basis, depending on whether the underlying assumptions and information from the previous studies are still relevant  For example, for the 20 dams in our study not subject to an independent consultant inspection, we found that most (15) of these studies were reviewed by FERC within the past 10 years, usually during the project’s relicensing  Multiple levels of supervisory review  As part of FERC’s quality control and internal oversight process, multiple FERC staff are to review the studies produced by the licensee and its consultant, with the number of successive reviews proportional to the complexity or importance of the study, according to FERC officials  FERC’s Operating Manual establishes the general procedure for the review of engineering studies  To begin the review process, the staff assigned to a dam is to review the engineering study and prepares an internal memo on its findings; that memo is then to be reviewed for accuracy and completeness by both a regional office Branch Chief, and the Regional Engineer  If necessary, Washington, D C , headquarters office staff are to review and approve the final memo  Upon completion of review, FERC staff are to provide a letter to the licensee indicating any particular areas where additional information is needed or where more studies are needed to evaluate the dam’s performance  According to FERC officials, each level of review adds successive quality control steps performed by experienced staff  We have previously found in reporting on other regulatory agencies that additional levels of review increases transparency and accountability and diminishes the risk of regulatory capture  Rotation of FERC staff responsibilities  As part of an internal quality control program to help minimize the risk of missing important safety- related items, FERC officials told us they rotate staff assignments and responsibilities approximately every 3 to 4 years  According to FERC officials, this practice decreases the chance that a deficiency would be missed over time due to differences in areas of engineering expertise between or among staff  We have previously found in our reporting on other regulatory agencies that strategies such as more frequently rotating staff in key roles can help reduce the risk to supervisory independence and regulatory capture  Some FERC regional offices have developed practices to further enhance their review of these studies  For example, the New York Regional Office established a subject matter expert team that helps review dams with unusually complex hydrology issues  This team was created, in part, because FERC staff noted that some of the hydrology studies conducted in the 1990s and 2000s were not as thorough as they would have wanted, and warranted a re-examination  Currently, the New York Regional Office is reviewing the hydrology analysis associated with 12 dam break studies to determine if the hydrology data used in developing these studies were as rigorously developed and validated  According to the FERC staff in this office, utilizing a team of subject matter experts has reduced Regional Office review time and improved the hydrology studies’ accuracy  FERC staff in the New York Regional Office also told us that they are working with other regional offices on setting up similar technical teams  For example, FERC staff in the New York Regional Office have been working with the Portland Regional Office to set up a similar team  FERC procedures require the use of engineering studies at key points over the dam’s licensing period to inform components of its safety oversight approach, including during the potential failure mode analyses of individual dams as well as during relicensing  Potential failure mode analysis  The potential failure mode analysis is to occur during the recurring independent consultant inspection and is conducted by the licensee’s independent consultant along with other key dam safety stakeholders  As previously explained, the analysis incorporates the engineering studies and identifies events that could cause a dam to potentially fail  During the potential failure mode analysis, FERC, the licensee, the consultant, and other key dam safety stakeholders are to refer to the engineering studies to establish environmental conditions that inform dam failure scenarios, the risks associated with these failures, and their consequences for an individual dam  Further, according to a FERC white paper on risk analysis, FERC is beginning to use information related to potential failure modes as inputs to an analysis tool that quantifies risks at each dam  With this information, FERC expects to make relative risk estimates of dams within its inventory and establish priorities for further study or remediation of risks at individual dams, according to the white paper  Relicensing  During relicensing, FERC staff are to review the engineering studies as well as information such as historical hydrological data and extreme weather events, which also inform their safety evaluation of the licensee’s application  FERC officials also stated that as a result of their relicensing review, they might alter the articles of the new license before it is issued should their reviews indicate that environmental conditions affecting the dam’s safety have changed  We found that FERC generally met its requirement to evaluate dam safety during the relicensing process for the 42 dams we reviewed  During the relicensing process, we found that for the dams we reviewed, FERC staff review safety information such as the past reports, inspections, and studies conducted by FERC, the licensee, and independent consultants and determine whether or not a dam owner operated and maintained its dam safely  According to FERC staff, the safety review for relicensing is generally a summary of prior safety and inspection information, rather than an analysis of new safety information, unless the licensee proposes a change to the operation or structure  FERC’s review during relicensing for the high hazard and significant hazard dams we reviewed was generally consistent with its guidance and safety memo template, though the extent of its review of low hazard dams varied  (See fig  3 ) For example, for the 22 high and significant hazard dams we reviewed, the safety relicensing memos followed the template and nearly all included summaries of hydrology studies, stability analyses, prior FERC inspections, and applicable independent consultant reports  For the 20 low hazard dams, FERC staff noted that some requirements in the template are not applicable or have been exempted and therefore were not reviewed during relicensing  While low hazard dams were more inconsistently reviewed during relicensing, FERC staff also noted that there has been a recent emphasis to more closely review, replace, or conduct engineering studies, such as the stability study, for low hazard dams during relicensing  Moreover, FERC staff told us that the safety risks associated with these dams are minimal, as the failure of a low hazard dam, by definition, does not pose a threat to human life or economic activity  According to FERC staff, if a licensee proposed altering the dam or its operations in any way as part of its application for a new license, FERC staff would review the proposed change and may recommend adding articles to the new license prior to its issuance to ensure dam safety  FERC officials noted that, as part of their review, any structural or operational changes proposed by the licensee during relicensing are reviewed by FERC  These officials also noted that FERC generally recommends modifications to the licensees’ proposed changes prior to their approval and inclusion in the new license  However, FERC officials noted that, in some cases, additional information is needed prior to approving the structural or operational change to ensure there are no risks posed by the changes  In those instances, FERC may recommend that articles be added to the new license, that require the licensee to conduct additional engineering studies of the issue and submit them to FERC for review and approval  For example, during the relicensing of the Otter Creek project in Vermont in 2014, the licensee proposed changes to the project’s operation resulting from construction  As a result, FERC’s staff recommended adding a number of articles to the license, including that the licensee conduct studies to evaluate the effect of the change on safety and to ensure safety during construction  During relicensing, third parties—such as environmental organizations, nearby residents and communities, and other federal agencies, such as the U S  Fish and Wildlife Service—may provide input on various topics related to the project, including safety  However, FERC officials said that very few third parties file studies or comments related to dam safety during relicensing  FERC’s template and guidance do not specifically require the consideration of such analyses as part of its safety review, and we did not identify any safety studies submitted by third parties for dams or reviewed by FERC in our sample  According to FERC officials, when stakeholders submit comments during relicensing, the comments tend to focus on environmental aspects of the project, such as adding passages for fish migration  Further, FERC is not required under the Federal Power Act to respond to any comments, including those related to dam safety, from third parties, according to FERC officials  However, according to FERC officials, courts have held that the Administrative Procedure Act precludes an agency from arbitrarily and capriciously ignoring issues raised in comments  Furthermore, these officials stated that if a court determines that FERC did not sufficiently address issues raised during the relicensing process, its orders are subject to being reversed and remanded by applicable United States courts of appeals  Moreover, FERC officials noted that the information needed to develop third party safety studies, such as the dam design drawings and engineering studies, are property of the licensee, rather than FERC  In addition, this information may not be readily available to third parties or the public if FERC designates it as critical energy infrastructure information, which would preclude its release to the general public  FERC staff we interviewed stated that there have been no instances where the Commission denied a new license to a licensee as a result of its safety review during relicensing  FERC staff stated that given the frequency of other inspections, including the FERC staff inspections, and independent consultant inspections, it is unlikely staff would find a previously unknown major safety issue during relicensing  FERC staff told us that rather than deny a license for safety deficiencies, FERC will keep a dam owner under the terms of a FERC license to better ensure the licensee remedies existing safety deficiencies  Specifically, FERC staff noted that under a license, FERC can ensure dam safety by (1) closely monitoring the deficiency’s remediation progress through its inspection program, (2) adding license terms in the new license tailored to the specific safety deficiency, and (3), as necessary, pursuing compliance and enforcement actions, such as civil penalties or stop work orders, to enforce the terms and conditions of the license  For example, prior to and during the relicensing of a FERC-licensed project in Wisconsin in 2014, FERC’s review identified that the spillway capacity was inadequate  While the project was relicensed in 2017 without changes to the spillway, FERC officials stated that they have been overseeing the plans and studies of the remediation of the spillway through their ongoing inspection program  However, if an imminent safety threat is identified during the relicensing review, FERC officials stated that they will order that the licensee take actions to remedy the issue immediately  Moreover, FERC officials noted that, if necessary, a license can be revoked for failure to comply with the terms of its license  FERC designed a multi-layered safety approach—which uses inspections, studies, and other assessments of individual dams—to reduce exposure to safety risks  However, as the spillway failure at the Oroville Dam project in 2017 demonstrated, it is not possible to eliminate all uncertainties and risks  As part of a continuing effort to ensure dam safety at licensed projects, FERC could complement its approach to evaluating the safety of individual dams by enhancing its capability to assess and identify the risks across its portfolio of licensed dams  Specifically, while FERC has collected and stored a substantial amount of information from its individual dam safety inspections, FERC’s approach to recording this information is inconsistent due to a lack of standard language and procedures  By clarifying its approach to the recording of information collected during inspections, FERC officials could help ensure that the information recorded is comparable when shared across its regions  Moreover, the absence of standard language and procedures to consistently record inspection information impedes a broader, portfolio- wide analysis of the extent of and characteristics associated with common safety deficiencies identified during FERC inspections  While FERC has not yet conducted such an analysis, a proactive assessment of common safety inspection deficiencies across FERC’s portfolio of licensed dams— similar to its identification of dam spillways with safety concerns following the Oroville Dam incident—could help FERC and its licensees identify safety risks prior to a safety incident and to develop approaches to mitigate those risks  We are making the following two recommendations to FERC: FERC should provide standard language and procedures to its staff on how to record information collected during inspections, including how and where to record information about safety deficiencies, in order to facilitate analysis of safety deficiencies across FERC’s portfolio of regulated dams  (Recommendation 1) FERC should use information from its inspections to assess safety risks across its portfolio of regulated dams to identify and prioritize safety risks at a national level  (Recommendation 2) We provided a draft of this report to FERC for review and comment  In its comments on the draft report, FERC said it generally agreed with the draft report’s findings and found the recommendations to be constructive  FERC said that it would direct staff to develop appropriate next steps to implement GAO’s recommendations  These comments are reproduced in appendix IV  In addition, FERC provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate  As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date  At that time, we will send copies to the Chairman of FERC and other interested parties  In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www gao gov  If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at 202-512-2834 or vonaha@gao gov  Contact points for our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report  GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix V  FERC seeks to ensure licensees’ compliance with FERC regulations and license requirements, including remediating safety deficiencies, by using a mix of preventative strategies to help identify situations before they become problems and reactive strategies such as issuing penalties  As part of its efforts, FERC published a compliance handbook in 2015 that provides an overall guide to compliance and enforcement of a variety of license requirements, including dam safety  The handbook includes instructions for implementing FERC rules, regulations, policies, and programs designed to ensure effective compliance with license conditions, which include dam safety, to protect and enhance beneficial public uses of waterways  FERC developed a range of enforcement actions, that include holding workshops to encourage compliance and issuing guidance, that increase in severity depending on the non- compliance issue  (See fig  4 ) More broadly, FERC’s guidance directs officials to determine enforcement actions and time frames for those actions on a case-by-case basis, depending on the characteristics of the specific compliance issue  According to FERC officials, many of these safety compliance discussions are handled informally  In addition, their compliance approach emphasizes activities that assist, rather than force, licensees to achieve compliance, according to its guidance  These activities include facilitating open lines of communication with licensees, participating in technical workshops, and publishing brochures and guidance documents, among other efforts  Also, according to these officials, FERC works with licensees to provide guidance and warnings of possible non-compliance matters, in order to avoid usage of any enforcement tools, if possible  According to FERC officials, any safety issues that endanger the public will result in immediate penalty or removal of the dam from power generation, but this action is not lightly taken  Additionally, the length of time between when a safety deficiency is identified and is resolved varies substantially depending on the specific project  As stated earlier in this report, FERC works with licensees to determine a plan and schedule for investigating safety issues and making any needed modifications  However, FERC officials stated that the majority of safety compliance issues are resolved within a month  However, FERC officials stated that if a licensee repeatedly does not take steps to address a compliance issue, FERC will explore enforcement actions through a formal process  According to officials, FERC’s enforcement options are based on authorities provided under the Federal Power Act and such options are flexible because of the variation in hazards, consequences, and dams  According to FERC officials, to ensure compliance with safety regulations, if a settlement cannot be reached, FERC may, among other things, issue an order to show cause, issue civil penalties in the form of fines to licensees, impose stop work or cease power generation orders, revoke licenses, and seek injunctions in federal court  Nevertheless, FERC officials stated that there is no specific requirement for how quickly the compliance issues or deficiencies should be resolved and that some issues can take years to resolve  For example, in 2004, the current licensee of a hydroelectric project operating in Edenville, Michigan, acquired the project, which was found by FERC to be in a state of non-compliance at that time  FERC staff made numerous attempts to work with the licensee to resolve the compliance issues  However, they were unable to resolve these issues and as a result issued a cease generation order in 2017, followed in 2018 by a license revocation order  In practice, FERC’s use of these enforcement tools to resolve safety issues has been fairly limited, particularly in comparison to other license compliance issues, according to FERC officials  Since 2013, FERC has issued one civil penalty for a safety-related hydropower violation and has issued compliance orders on eight other projects for safety-related reasons, including orders to cease generation on three projects  For the 14 projects and 42 dams we reviewed, FERC licensees and their consultants used a variety of tools to develop engineering studies of dam performance (see table 3)  These tools included programs and modeling tools developed by government agencies, such as the U S  Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), as well as commercially available modeling tools  FERC officials stated that they also used a number of the same tools used by its licensees and consultants  Similarly, for the 14 projects and 42 dams we reviewed, FERC licensees and their consultants used a variety of datasets to develop engineering studies of dam performance (see table 4)  These datasets included data maintained and updated by various government agencies, including the United States Geological Survey and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  FERC officials stated that they also used a number of the same datasets used by its licensees and consultants  This report assesses: (1) how FERC collects information from its dam safety inspections and the extent to which FERC analyzes it; (2) how FERC evaluates engineering studies of dam performance to analyze safety, and (3) the extent to which FERC reviews dam safety information during relicensing and the information FERC considers  This report also includes information on FERC actions to ensure licensee compliance with license requirements related to dam safety (app  I) and selected models and data sets used to develop and evaluate engineering studies of dam performance (app  II)  For each of the objectives, we reviewed laws, regulations, FERC guidance, templates, and other documentation pertaining to FERC’s evaluation of dam safety  In addition, we reviewed an independent forensic team’s assessment of the causes of the Oroville Dam incident, including the report’s analysis of FERC’s approach to ensuring safety at the project, to understand any limitations of FERC’s approach identified by the report  We also reviewed dam safety documentation, including dam performance studies, FERC memorandums, the most recent completed inspection report, and other information, from a non-probability sample of 14 projects encompassing 42 dams relicensed from fiscal years 2014 through 2017  (See table 5 ) We selected these projects and dams to include ones that were geographically dispersed, had varying potential risks associated with their potential failure, and had differences in the length of their relicensing process  We developed a data collection instrument to collect information from the dam safety documentation and analyzed data from the sample to evaluate the extent to which FERC followed its dam safety guidance across the selected projects  To develop the data collection instrument, we reviewed and incorporated FERC oversight requirements from its regulations, guidance, and templates  We conducted three pre-tests of the instrument, and revised the instrument after each pre-test  To ensure consistency and accuracy in the collection of this information, for each dam in the sample, one analyst conducted an initial review of the dam safety documentation; a second analyst reviewed the information independently; and the two analysts reconciled any differences  Following our review of the information from the dam safety documentation, we conducted semi-structured interviews with FERC engineering staff associated with each of the 14 projects and 42 dams to obtain information about FERC’s inspections, review of dam performance studies, and analysis of safety during the relicensing of these projects  Our interviews with these FERC staff provided insight into FERC’s dam safety oversight approach and are not generalizable to all projects  We also interviewed FERC officials responsible for dam safety about dam safety practices  In addition, to review how FERC collects information from its dam safety inspections and the extent to which FERC analyzes it, we also reviewed inspection data from FERC’s information management systems from fiscal years 2014 through 2017  To assess the reliability of these data, we reviewed guidance and interviewed FERC officials  We determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our purposes  We compared FERC’s approach to collecting, recording and using safety information to federal internal control standards for the design of information systems and related control activities  We also reviewed our prior work on portfolio- level risk management  To evaluate how FERC evaluates engineering studies of dam performance to analyze dam safety, we reviewed FERC policies and guidance  We interviewed six independent consultants having experience inspecting and analyzing FERC-regulated dams to understand how engineering studies of dam performance are developed  We selected consultants who had submitted an inspection report to FERC recently (between December 2017 and February 2018) based on the geographic location of the project they reviewed and experience conducting these inspections, and the number of reports submitted to FERC over this time period  (See table 6 ) Our interviews with these consultants provided insight into FERC’s approach to conducting and reviewing studies and are not generalizable to all projects or consultants  To evaluate the extent to which FERC reviews dam safety information during relicensing and the information it considers, we reviewed templates developed by FERC to assess safety during the relicensing and analyzed the extent to which staff followed guidance in these templates for the 14 projects and 42 dams in our sample  We also interviewed stakeholders, including the National Hydropower Association and Friends of the River to obtain general perspectives on FERC’s relicensing approach  Our interviews with these stakeholders provided insight into FERC’s approach to relicensing, and these views are not generalizable across all stakeholders  To review actions to ensure licensee compliance with license requirements related to dam safety, we reviewed FERC’s guidance related to compliance and enforcement and interviewed FERC officials responsible for implementation of the guidance  To review information on models and datasets used to develop and evaluate engineering studies of dam performance, we reviewed dam safety documentation associated with the projects in our sample (described previously), reviewed FERC documentation, and interviewed FERC officials  We conducted this performance audit from July 2017 to October 2018 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards  Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives  We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives  Andrew Von Ah, (202) 512-2834 or vonaha@gao gov  In addition to the contact named above, Mike Armes (Assistant Director); Matt Voit (Analyst-in-Charge); David Blanding; Brian Chung; Geoff Hamilton; Vondalee Hunt; Rich Johnson; Jon Melhus; Monique Nasrallah; Madhav Panwar; Malika Rice; Sandra Sokol; and Michelle Weathers made key contributions to this report 


Report 2: U S  foreign aid is the largest component of the international affairs budget, for decades viewed by many as an essential instrument of U S  foreign policy  Each year, the foreign aid budget is the subject of congressional debate over the size, composition, and purpose of the program  The focus of U S  foreign aid policy has been transformed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001  Global development, a major objective of foreign aid, has been cited as a third pillar of U S  national security, along with defense and diplomacy, in the national security strategies of the George W  Bush and Barack Obama Administrations  Although the Trump Administration's National Security Strategy does not explicitly address the status of development vis-à-vis diplomacy and defense, it does note the historic importance of aid in achieving foreign policy goals and supporting U S  national interests  This report addresses a number of the more frequently asked questions regarding the U S  foreign aid program; its objectives, costs, and organization; the role of Congress; and how it compares to those of other aid donors  It attempts not only to present a current snapshot of American foreign assistance, but also to illustrate the extent to which this instrument of U S  foreign policy has evolved over time  Data presented in the report are the most current, consistent, and reliable figures available, generally updated through FY2017  Dollar amounts come from a variety of sources, including the U S  Agency for International Development (USAID) Foreign Aid Explorer database (Explorer) and annual State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations acts  As new data are obtained or additional issues and questions arise, the report will be revised  Foreign aid abbreviations used in this report are listed in Appendix B   In its broadest sense, U S  foreign aid is defined under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA), the primary legislative basis of foreign aid programs, as any tangible or intangible item provided by the United States Government [including "by means of gift, loan, sale, credit, or guaranty"] to a foreign country or international organization under this or any other Act, including but not limited to any training, service, or technical advice, any item of real, personal, or mixed property, any agricultural commodity, United States dollars, and any currencies of any foreign country which are owned by the United States Government     (§634(b)) For many decades, nearly all assistance annually requested by the executive branch and debated and authorized by Congress was ultimately encompassed in the foreign operations appropriations and the international food aid title of the agriculture appropriations  In the U S  federal budget, these traditional foreign aid accounts have been subsumed under the 150 (international affairs) budget function  By the 1990s, however, it became increasingly apparent that the scope of U S  foreign aid was not fully accounted for by the total of the foreign operations and international food aid appropriations  Many U S  departments and agencies had adopted their own assistance programs, funded out of their own budgets and commonly in the form of professional exchanges with counterpart agencies abroad—the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, providing water quality expertise to other governments  These aid efforts, conducted outside the purview of the traditional foreign aid authorizing and appropriations committees, grew more substantial and varied in the mid-1990s  The Department of Defense (DOD) Nunn-Lugar effort provided billions in aid to secure and eliminate nuclear and other weapons, as did Department of Energy activities to control and protect nuclear materials—both aimed largely at the former Soviet Union  Growing participation by DOD in health and humanitarian efforts and expansion of health programs in developing countries by the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, especially in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, followed  During the past 15 years, DOD-funded and implemented aid programs in Iraq and Afghanistan to train and equip foreign forces and win hearts and minds through development efforts were often considerably larger than the traditional military and development assistance programs provided under the foreign operations appropriations  The recent decline in DOD activities in these countries has sharply decreased nontraditional aid funding  In FY2011, nontraditional sources of assistance, at $17 3 billion, represented 35% of total aid obligations  By FY2017, nontraditional aid, at $9 7 billion, represented 19% of total aid, still a significant proportion  While the executive branch has continued to request and Congress to debate most foreign aid within the parameters of the foreign operations legislation, both entities have sought to ascertain a fuller picture of assistance programs through improved data collection and reporting  Significant discrepancies remain between data available for traditional versus nontraditional types of aid and, therefore, the level of analysis applied to each  (See text box , "A Note on Numbers and Sources," below ) Nevertheless, to the extent possible, this report tries to capture the broadest definition of aid throughout  Foreign assistance is predicated on several rationales and supports a great many objectives  The importance and emphasis of various rationales and objectives have changed over time  Throughout the past 70 years, there have been three key rationales for foreign assistance National Security has been the predominant theme of U S  assistance programs  From rebuilding Europe after World War II under the Marshall Plan (1948-1951) and through the Cold War, U S  aid programs were viewed by policymakers as a way to prevent the incursion of communist influence and secure U S  base rights or other support in the anti-Soviet struggle  After the Cold War ended, the focus of foreign aid shifted from global anti-communism to disparate regional issues, such as Middle East peace initiatives, the transition to democracy of eastern Europe and republics of the former Soviet Union, and international illicit drug production and trafficking in the Andes  Without an overarching security rationale, foreign aid budgets decreased in the 1990s  However, since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, policymakers frequently have cast foreign assistance as a tool in U S  counterterrorism strategy, increasing aid to partner states in counterterrorism efforts and funding the substantial reconstruction programs in Afghanistan and Iraq  As noted, global development has been featured as a key element in U S  national security strategy in both Bush and Obama Administration policy statements  Commercial Interests  Foreign assistance has long been defended as a way to either promote U S  exports by creating new customers for U S  products or by improving the global economic environment in which U S  companies compete  Humanitarian Concerns  Humanitarian concerns drive both short-term assistance in response to crisis and disaster as well as long-term development assistance aimed at reducing poverty, hunger, and other forms of human suffering brought on by more systemic problems  Providing assistance for humanitarian reasons has generally been the aid rationale most broadly supported by the American public and policymakers alike  The objectives of aid generally fit within these rationales  Aid objectives include promoting economic growth and reducing poverty, improving governance, addressing population growth, expanding access to basic education and health care, protecting the environment, promoting stability in conflictive regions, protecting human rights, promoting trade, curbing weapons proliferation, strengthening allies, and addressing drug production and trafficking  The expectation has been that, by meeting these and other aid objectives, the United States will achieve its national security goals as well as ensure a positive global economic environment for American products, and demonstrate benevolent and respectable global leadership  Different types of foreign aid typically support different objectives  But there is also considerable overlap among categories of aid  Multilateral aid serves many of the same objectives as bilateral development assistance, although through different channels  Military assistance, economic security aid—including rule of law and police training—and development assistance programs may support the same U S  political objectives in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan  Military assistance and alternative development programs are integrated elements of American counternarcotics efforts in Latin America and elsewhere  Depending on how they are designed, individual assistance projects can also serve multiple purposes  A health project ostensibly directed at alleviating the effects of HIV/AIDS by feeding orphan children may also stimulate grassroots democracy and civil society through support of indigenous NGOs while additionally meeting U S  humanitarian objectives  Microcredit programs that support small business development may help develop local economies while at the same time enabling client entrepreneurs to provide food and education to their children  Water and sanitation improvements both mitigate health threats and stimulate economic growth by saving time previously devoted to water collection, raising school attendance for girls, and facilitating tourism, among other effects  In 2006, in an effort to rationalize the assistance program more clearly, the State Department developed a framework that organizes U S  foreign aid around five strategic objectives, each of which includes a number of program elements, also known as sectors  The five objectives are Peace and Security; Investing in People; Governing Justly and Democratically; Economic Growth; and Humanitarian Assistance  Generally, these objectives and their sectors do not correspond to any one particular budget account in appropriations bills  Annually, the Department of State and USAID develop their foreign operations budget request within this framework, allowing for an objective and program-oriented viewpoint for those who seek it  An effort by the State Department to obtain reporting from all departments and agencies of the U S  government on aid levels categorized by objective and sector is ongoing  USAID's Explorer website (explorer usaid gov) currently provides a more complete picture from all parts of the U S  government (see Table 1 )  The 2006 framework introduced by the Department of State organizes assistance by foreign policy strategic objective and sector  But there are many other ways to categorize foreign aid, one of which is to sort out and classify foreign aid accounts in the U S  budget according to the types of activities they are expected to support, using broad categories such as military, bilateral development, multilateral development, humanitarian assistance, political/strategic, and nonmilitary security activities (see Figure 1 )  This methodology reflects the organization of aid accounts within the SFOPS appropriations but can easily be applied to the international food aid title of the Agriculture appropriations as well as to the DOD and other government agency assistance programs with funding outside traditional foreign aid budget accounts  In FY2017, these many aid accounts provided $49 9 billion in obligated assistance  For FY2017, U S  government departments and agencies obligated about $16 2 billion in bilateral development assistance, or 33% of total foreign aid, primarily through the Development Assistance (DA) and Global Health (Global Health-USAID and Global Health-State) accounts and the administrative accounts that allow USAID to operate (Operating Expenses, Capital Investment Fund, and Office of the Inspector General)  Other bilateral development assistance accounts support the development efforts of distinct institutions, such as the Peace Corps, Inter-American Foundation (IAF), U S -African Development Foundation, Trade and Development Agency, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and National Endowment for Democracy (NED)  Development assistance programs aim to foster sustainable broad-based economic progress and social stability in developing countries  This aid is managed largely by USAID and is used for long-term projects in a wide range of areas  Many programs share the objective in the State Department framework of "promoting economic growth and prosperity " Agriculture programs focus on reducing poverty and hunger, trade-promotion opportunities for farmers, and sound environmental practices for sustainable agriculture  Private sector development programs include support for business associations and microfinance services  Programs for managing natural resources and protecting the global environment focus on conserving biological diversity; improving the management of land, water, and forests; encouraging clean and efficient energy production and use; and reducing the threat of global climate change  Programs supporting the objective of "governing justly and democratically" include support for promoting rule of law and human rights, good governance, political competition, and civil society  Programs with the objective of "investing in people" include support for basic, secondary, and higher education; improving government ability to provide social services; water and sanitation; and health care  By far the largest portion of bilateral development assistance is devoted to global health  These programs include treatment of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, maternal and child health, family planning and reproductive health programs, and strengthening the government health systems that provide care  Most funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis is directed through the State Department's Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator to other agencies, including USAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  The latter agency and the National Institutes for Health also conduct programs funded by Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) appropriations  In addition to providing emergency food aid in crisis situations, a portion (about 25% in FY2017) of the Food for Peace (FFP) Title II international food aid program (also referred to as P L  480, named after the 1954 law that authorized it)—funded under the Agriculture appropriations—provides nonemergency food commodities to private voluntary organizations (PVOs) or multilateral organizations, such as the World Food Program, for development-oriented purposes  FFP funds are also used to support the "farmer-to-farmer" program, which sends hundreds of U S  volunteers as technical advisors to train farm and food-related groups throughout the world  In addition, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, a program begun in 2002, provides commodities, technical assistance, and financing for school feeding and child nutrition programs  A share of U S  foreign assistance—4% in FY2017 ($2 1 billion)—is combined with contributions from other donor nations to finance multilateral development projects  Multilateral aid is funded largely through the International Organizations and Programs (IO&P) account and individual accounts for each of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and global environmental funds  For FY2017, the U S  government obligated $2 1 billion for development activities managed by international organizations and financial institutions, including contributions to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); and MDBs, such as the World Bank  The U S  share of donor contributions to each of the MDB concessional (subsidized) and nonconcessional (market rate) loan windows varies widely  For the largest MDB, the World Bank, the United States has contributed about 20 5% to the nonconcessional lending window (the International Development Associations [IDA]) and about 17 3% to the nonconcessional lending window (the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD])  In determining the U S  share of donor contributions to the various multilateral institutions, the U S  faces the challenge of finding the right balance between the benefits of burden sharing and the constraints of sharing control when determining multilateral priorities  For FY2017, obligations for humanitarian assistance programs amounted to $8 9 billion, 18% of total assistance  Unlike development assistance programs, which are often viewed as long-term efforts that may have the effect of preventing future crises from emerging, humanitarian assistance programs are devoted largely to the immediate alleviation of human suffering in emergencies, both natural and man-made, as well as problems resulting from conflict associated with failed or failing states  The largest portion of humanitarian assistance is managed through the International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account by USAID, which provides relief and rehabilitation efforts to victims of man-made and natural disasters, such as the economic and social dislocations caused by the 2014/2015 Ebola epidemic, and the ongoing crises in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, and Venezuela  A portion of IDA is used for food assistance through the Emergency Food Security Program  Additional humanitarian assistance goes to programs administered by the State Department and funded under the Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) and the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) accounts, aimed at addressing the needs of refugees and internally displaced persons  These accounts support a number of refugee relief organizations, including the U N  High Commission for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross  The Department of Defense provides disaster relief under the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Assistance (OHDACA) account of the DOD appropriations  (For further information on humanitarian programs, see CRS In Focus IF10568, Overview of the Global Humanitarian and Displacement Crisis , by Rhoda Margesson ) The bulk of FFP Title II Agriculture appropriations—$1 3 billion in obligations, about 75% of total Food for Peace Act in FY2017—are used by USAID, mostly to purchase U S  agricultural commodities, for emergency needs, supplementing both refugee and disaster programs  (For more information on food aid programs, see CRS Report R45422, U S  International Food Assistance: An Overview , by Alyssa R  Casey ) A few accounts promote special U S  political and strategic interests  Programs funded through the Economic Support Fund (ESF) account generally aim to promote political and economic stability, often through activities indistinguishable from those provided under regular development programs  However, ESF is also used for direct budget support to foreign governments and to support sovereign loan guarantees  For FY2017, USAID and the State Department obligated $4 8 billion, nearly 10% of total assistance, through this account  For many years, following the 1979 Camp David accords, most ESF funds went to support the Middle East Peace Process—in FY1997, for example, 87% of ESF went to Israel, Egypt, the West Bank and Jordan  Those proportions have declined significantly in recent decades  In FY2007, 22% of ESF funding went to these countries and, in FY2017, 25%  Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, ESF has largely supported countries of importance in the U S  global counterterrorism strategy  In FY2007, for example, activities is Afghanistan and Pakistan received 17% of ESF funding (25% in FY2017)  Over the years, other accounts have been established to meet specific political or security interests and then were dissolved once the need was met  One example is the Assistance to Eastern Europe and Central Asia (AEECA) account, established in FY2009 to combine two aid programs that met particular strategic political interests arising from the demise of the Soviet empire  The SEED (Support for East European Democracy Act of 1989) and the FREEDOM Support Act (Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Markets Support Act of 1992) programs were designed to help Central Europe and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union (FSA) achieve democratic systems and free market economies  With funding decreasing as countries in the region graduated from U S  assistance, Congress discontinued use of the AEECA account in the FY2013 appropriations  Increasing requests and appropriations for countries in the former Soviet Union threatened by Russia, however, led to its re-emergence in the FY2017 and succeeding SFOPS appropriations  In the recent past, several DOD-funded nontraditional aid programs directed at Afghanistan also supported development efforts  The Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund and the Business Task Force wound down as the U S  military presence in that country declined; the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) still exists  The latter two programs had earlier iterations as well in Iraq  Several U S  government agencies support programs to address global concerns that are considered threats to U S  security and well-being, such as terrorism, illicit narcotics, crime, and weapons proliferation  In the past two decades, policymakers have given greater weight to these programs  In FY2017, they amounted to $2 9 billion, 6% of total assistance Since the mid-1990s, three U S  agencies—State, DOD, and Energy—have provided funding, technical assistance, and equipment to counter the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons  Originally aimed at the former Soviet Union under the rubric cooperative threat reduction (CTR), these programs seek to ensure that these weapons are secured and their spread to rogue nations or terrorist groups prevented  In addition to nonproliferation efforts, the Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR) account, managed by the State Department, encompasses civilian anti-terrorism efforts such as detecting and dismantling terrorist financial networks, establishing watch-list systems at border controls, and building developing country anti-terrorism capacities  NADR also funds humanitarian demining programs  The State Department is the main implementer of counternarcotics programs  The State-managed International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account supports counternarcotics activities, most notably in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Peru, and Colombia  It also helps develop the judicial systems—assisting judges, lawyers, and legal institutions—of many developing countries, especially in Afghanistan  DOD and USAID also support counternarcotics activities, the former largely by providing training and equipment, the latter by offering alternative crop and employment programs  The United States provides military assistance to U S  friends and allies to help them acquire U S  military equipment and training  At $14 5 billion, military assistance accounted for about 29% of total U S  foreign aid in FY2017  The Department of State administers three programs, with corresponding appropriations accounts that are then implemented by DOD  Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is a grant program that enables governments to receive equipment and associated training from the U S  government or to access equipment directly through U S  commercial channels  Most FMF grants support the security needs of Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Iraq  The International Military Education and Training program (IMET) offers military training on a grant basis to foreign military officers and personnel  Peacekeeping funds (PKO) are used to support voluntary non-U N  peacekeeping operations as well as training for an African crisis response force  Since 2002, DOD appropriations have supported FMF-like programs, training and equipping security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq  These programs and the accounts that fund them are called the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) and, through FY2012, the Iraq Security Forces Fund (ISFF)  Beginning in FY2015, similar support was provided Iraq under the Iraq Train and Equip Fund  The DOD-funded programs in Afghanistan and Iraq accounted for more than half of total military assistance in FY2017  How and in what form assistance reaches an aid recipient can vary widely, depending on the type of aid program, the objective of the assistance, and the agency responsible for providing the aid  Federal agencies may implement foreign assistance programs using funds appropriated directly to them or funds transferred to them from another agency  For example, significant funding appropriated through State Department and Department of Agriculture accounts is used for programs implemented by USAID (see Figure 2 )  The funding data in this section reflect the agency that implemented the aid, not necessarily the agency to which funds were originally appropriated  For 50 years, USAID has implemented the bulk of the U S  bilateral economic development and humanitarian assistance  It directly implements the Development Assistance, International Disaster Assistance, and Transition Initiatives accounts, as well as a USAID-designated portion of the Global Health account  Jointly with the State Department, USAID co-manages ESF, AEECA, and Democracy Fund programs, which frequently support development activities as a means of promoting U S  political and strategic goals  Based on historical averages, according to USAID, the agency implements more than 90% of ESF, 70% of AEECA, 40% of the Democracy Fund, and about 60% of the Global HIV/AIDS funding appropriated to the State Department  USAID also implements all Food for Peace Act Title II food assistance funded through agriculture appropriations  USAID obligated an estimated $20 55 billion to implement foreign assistance programs and activities in FY2017  The agency's staff in 2018 totaled 9,747 , of which about 67% were working overseas, overseeing the implementation of hundreds of projects undertaken by thousands of private sector contractors, consultants, and nongovernmental organizations  DOD implements all SFOPS-funded military assistance programs—FMF, IMET, PKO, and PCCF—in conjunction with the policy guidance of the Department of State  The Defense Security Cooperation Agency is the primary DOD body responsible for these programs  DOD also carries out an array of state-building activities, funded through defense appropriations legislation, which are usually in the context of training exercises and military operations  These sorts of activities, once the exclusive jurisdiction of civilian aid agencies, include development assistance to Iraq and Afghanistan through the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, and the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund, and elsewhere through the Defense Health Program, counterdrug activities, and humanitarian and disaster relief  Training and equipping of Iraqi and Afghan police and military, though similar in nature to some traditional security assistance programs, has been funded and implemented primarily through DOD appropriations, though implementing the Iraq police training program was a State Department responsibility from 2012 until it was phased out in 2013  In FY2017, the Department of Defense implemented an estimated $14 50 billion in foreign assistance programs  The Department of State manages and co-manages a wide range of assistance programs  It is the lead U S  civilian agency on security and refugee related assistance, and has sole responsibility for implementing the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INCLE) and Nonproliferation, Antiterror, and Demining (NADR) accounts, the two Migration and Refugee accounts (MRA and ERMA), and the International Organizations and Programs (IO&P) account  State is also home to the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC), which manages the State Department's portion of Global Health funding in support of HIV/AIDS programs, though many of these funds are transferred to and implemented by USAID, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  In conjunction with USAID, the State Department manages the Economic Support Fund, AEECA assistance to the former communist states, and Democracy Fund accounts  For these accounts, the State Department largely sets the overall policy and direction of funds, while USAID implements the preponderance of programs  In addition, the State Department, through its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, has policy authority over the Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), and Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) accounts, and, while it was active, the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF)  These programs are implemented by the Department of Defense  Police training programs have traditionally been the responsibility of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) Office in the State Department, though programs in Iraq and Afghanistan were implemented and paid for by the Department of Defense for several years  State is also the organizational home to the Office of U S  Foreign Assistance Resources (formerly the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance), known as "F," which was created in 2006 to coordinate U S  foreign assistance programs  The office establishes standard program structures and definitions, as well as performance indicators, and collects and reports data on State Department and USAID aid programs  The State Department implemented about $7 66 billion in foreign assistance funding in FY2017, though it has policy authority over a much broader range of assistance funds  The U S  Department of Health and Human Services implements a range of global health programs through its various component institutions  As an implementing partner in the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), a large portion of HHS foreign assistance activity is related to HIV prevention and treatment, including technical support and preventing mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention participates in a broad range of global disease control activity, including rapid outbreak response, global research and surveillance, information technology assistance, and field epidemiology and laboratory training  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also conduct international health research that is reported as assistance  In FY2017, HHS institutions implemented $2 66 billion in foreign assistance activities  The Department of the Treasury's Under Secretary for International Affairs administers U S  contributions to and participation in the World Bank and other multilateral development institutions  In this case, the agency manages the distribution of funds to the institutions, but does not implement programs  Presidentially appointed U S  executive directors at each of the banks represent the United States' point of view  Treasury also deals with foreign debt reduction issues and programs, including U S  participation in the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, and manages a technical assistance program offering temporary financial advisors to countries implementing major economic reforms and combating terrorist finance activity  For FY2017, the Department of the Treasury managed foreign assistance valued at about $1 85 billion  Created in February 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) seeks to concentrate significantly higher amounts of U S  resources in a few low- and lower-middle-income countries that have demonstrated a strong commitment to political, economic, and social reforms relative to other developing countries  A significant feature of the MCC effort is that recipient countries formulate, propose, and implement mutually agreed multi-year U S -funded project plans known as compacts  Compacts in the 27 recipient countries selected to date have emphasized construction of infrastructure  The MCC is a U S  government corporation, headed by a chief executive officer who reports to a board of directors chaired by the Secretary of State  The Corporation maintains a relatively small staff of about 300  The MCC obligated about $1 01 billion in FY2017  A number of other government agencies play a role in implementing foreign aid programs  The Peace Corps, an autonomous agency with FY2017 obligations of $445 million, supports about 7,300 volunteers in 65 countries  Peace Corps volunteers work in a wide range of educational, health, and community development projects  The Trade and Development Agency (TDA), which obligated $58 million in FY2017, finances trade missions and feasibility studies for private sector projects likely to generate U S  exports  The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) provides political risk insurance to U S  companies investing in developing countries and finances projects through loans and guarantees  Its insurance activities have been self-sustaining, but credit reform rules require a relatively small appropriation to back up U S  guarantees and for administrative expenses  The Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act of 2018 (BUILD Act), signed into law in October 2018 ( P L  115-254 ), authorized consolidation of OPIC and USAID's Development Credit Authority into a new U S  International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC), which is expected to become operational in fall 2019  For FY2017, as for most prior years, OPIC receipts exceeded appropriations, resulting in a net gain to the Treasury  The Inter-American Foundation and the African Development Foundation, obligating $25

ground_truth: In February 2017, components of California's Oroville Dam failed, leading to the evacuation of nearly 200,000 nearby residents. FERC is the federal regulator of the Oroville Dam and over 2,500 other dams associated with nonfederal hydropower projects nationwide. FERC issues and renews licenses—which can last up to 50 years—to dam operators and promotes safe dam operation by conducting safety inspections and reviewing technical engineering studies, among other actions. GAO was asked to review FERC's approach to overseeing dam safety. This report examines: (1) how FERC collects information from its dam safety inspections and the extent of its analysis, and (2) how FERC evaluates engineering studies of dam performance to analyze safety, among other objectives. GAO analyzed documentation on a non-generalizable sample of 42 dams associated with projects relicensed from fiscal years 2014 through 2017, selected based on geography and hazard classifications, among other factors. GAO also reviewed FERC regulations and documents; and interviewed FERC staff associated with the selected projects and technical consultants, selected based on the frequency and timing of their reviews. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) staff generally followed established guidance in collecting safety information from dam inspections for the dams GAO reviewed, but FERC has not used this information to analyze dam safety portfolio-wide. For these 42 dams, GAO found that FERC staff generally followed guidance in collecting safety information during inspections of individual dams and key structures associated with those dams. (See figure.) However, FERC lacks standard procedures that specify how and where staff should record safety deficiencies identified. As a result, FERC staff use multiple systems to record inspection findings, thereby creating information that cannot be easily analyzed. Further, while FERC officials said inspections help oversee individual dam's safety, FERC has not analyzed this information to identify any safety risks across its portfolio. GAO's prior work has highlighted the importance of evaluating risks across a portfolio. FERC officials stated that they have not conducted portfolio-wide analyses because officials prioritize the individual dam inspections and response to urgent dam safety incidents. However, following the Oroville incident, a FERC-led initiative to examine dam structures comparable to those at Oroville identified 27 dam spillways with varying degrees of safety concerns, on which FERC officials stated they are working with dam licensees to address. A similar and proactive portfolio-wide approach, based on analysis of common inspection deficiencies across the portfolio of dams under FERC's authority, could help FERC identify safety risks prior to a safety incident. Guidelines recognize that each dam is unique and allow for flexibility and exemptions in its use. FERC staff use the studies to inform other components of their safety approach, including the analysis of dam failure scenarios and their review of safety to determine whether to renew a license. GAO recommends that FERC: (1) develop standard procedures for recording information collected as part of its inspections, and (2) use inspection information to assess safety risks across FERC's portfolio of dams. FERC agreed with GAO's recommendations.

prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 2.



Report 2: 8 million and $20 2 million, respectively, in FY2017, finance small-scale enterprise and grassroots self-help activities aimed at assisting poor people  Most U S  assistance is now provided as a grant (gift) rather than a loan, so as not to increase the heavy debt burden carried by many developing countries  However, the forms a grant may take are diverse  The most common type of U S  development aid is project-based assistance (77% in FY2017), in which aid is channeled through an implementing partner to complete a project  Aid is also provided in the form of core contribution to international organizations such as the United Nations, technical assistance, and direct budget support (cash transfer) to governments  A portion of aid money is also spent on administrative costs ( Figure 3 )  Within these categories, aid may take many forms, as described below  Although it is the exception rather than the rule, some countries receive aid in the form of a cash grant to the government  Dollars provided in this way support a government's balance-of-payments situation, enabling it to purchase more U S  goods, service its debt, or devote more domestic revenues to developmental or other purposes  Cash transfers have been made as a reward to countries that have supported the United States' counterterrorism operations (Turkey and Jordan in FY2004), to provide political and strategic support (both Egypt and Israel annually for decades after the 1979 Camp David Peace Accord), and in exchange for undertaking difficult political and economic reforms  Assistance may be provided in the form of food commodities, weapons systems, or equipment such as generators or computers  Food aid may be provided directly to meet humanitarian needs or to encourage attendance at a maternal/child health care program  Weapons supplied under the military assistance program may include training in their use  Equipment and commodities provided under development assistance are usually integrated with other forms of aid to meet objectives in a particular social or economic sector  For instance, textbooks have been provided in both Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a broader effort to reform the educational sector and train teachers  Computers may be offered in conjunction with training and expertise to fledgling microcredit institutions  Since PEPFAR was first authorized in 2004, antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) provided to individuals living with HIV/AIDS have been a significant component of commodity-based assistance  Although once a significant portion of U S  assistance programs, construction of economic infrastructure—roads, irrigation systems, electric power facilities, etc —was rarely provided after the 1970s  Because of the substantial expense of these projects, they were to be found only in large assistance programs, such as that for Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s, where the United States constructed major urban water and sanitation systems  The aid programs in Iraq and Afghanistan supported the building of schools, health clinics, roads, power plants, and irrigation systems  In Iraq alone, more than $10 billion went to economic infrastructure  Economic infrastructure is now also supported by U S  assistance in a wider range of developing countries through the Millennium Challenge Corporation  In this case, recipient countries design their own assistance programs, most of which, to date, include an infrastructure component  Transfer of knowledge and skills is a significant part of most assistance programs  The International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) provides training to officers of the military forces of allied and friendly nations  Tens of thousands of citizens of aid recipient countries receive short-term technical training or longer-term degree training annually under USAID programs  More than one-quarter of Peace Corps volunteers are English, math, and science teachers  Other aid programs provide law enforcement personnel with anti-narcotics or anti-terrorism training  Many assistance programs provide expert advice to government and private sector organizations  The Department of the Treasury, USAID, and U S -funded multilateral banks all place specialists in host government ministries to make recommendations on policy reforms in a wide variety of sectors  USAID has often placed experts in private sector business and civic organizations to help strengthen them in their formative years or while indigenous staff are being trained  While most of these experts are U S  nationals, in Russia, USAID funded the development of locally staffed political and economic think tanks to offer policy options to that government  USAID, the Inter-American Foundation, and the African Development Foundation often provide aid in the form of small grants directly to local organizations to foster economic and social development and to encourage civic engagement in their communities  Grants are sometimes provided to microcredit organizations, such village-level women's savings groups, which in turn provide loans to microentrepreneurs  Small grants may also address specific community needs  Recent IAF grants, for example, have supported organizations that help resettle Salvadoran migrants deported from the United States and youth programs in Central America aimed at gang prevention  Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the President may determine the terms and conditions under which most forms of assistance are provided  In general, the financial condition of a country—its ability to meet repayment obligations—has been an important criterion of the decision to provide a loan or grant  Some programs, such as humanitarian and disaster relief programs, were designed from the beginning to be entirely grant activities  During the past two decades, nearly all foreign aid—military as well as economic—has been provided in grant form  While loans represented 32% of total military and economic assistance between 1962 and 1988, this figure declined substantially beginning in the mid-1980s, until by FY2001, loans represented less than 1% of total aid appropriations  The de-emphasis on loan programs came largely in response to the debt problems of developing countries  Both Congress and the executive branch have generally supported the view that foreign aid should not add to the already existing debt burden carried by these countries  In the FY2019 budget request, the Trump Administration encouraged the use of loans over grants when providing military assistance (Foreign Military Financing), but Congress did not include language in support of that proposal in the enacted FY2019 appropriation ( P L  116-6 )  Although a small proportion of total current aid, there are significant USAID-managed programs that guarantee loans, meaning the U S  government agrees to pay a portion of the amount owed in the case of a default on a loan  A Development Credit Authority (DCA) loan guarantee, in which risk is shared with a private sector bank, can be used to increase access to finance in support of any development sector  The DCA is to be transferred from USAID in 2019 to the new IDFC, established by the BUILD Act of 2018 ( P L  115-254 ), to enhance U S  development finance capacity  Under the Israeli Loan Guarantee Program, the United States has guaranteed repayment of loans made by commercial sources to support the costs of immigrants settling in Israel from other countries and may issue guarantees to support economic recovery  USAID has also provided loan guarantees in recent years to improve the terms or amounts of financing from international capital markets for Ukraine and Jordan  In these cases, assistance funds representing a fraction of the guarantee amount are provided to cover possible default  Between 1946 and 2016, the United States loaned $112 7 billion in foreign economic and military aid to foreign governments, and while most foreign aid is now provided through grants, $9 18 billion in loans to foreign governments remained outstanding at the end of FY2016  For nearly three decades, Section 620q of the Foreign Assistance Act (the Brooke amendment) has prohibited new assistance to the government of any country that falls more than one year past due in servicing its debt obligations to the United States, though the President may waive application of this prohibition if he determines it is in the national interest  The United States has also forgiven debts owed by foreign governments and encouraged, with mixed success, other foreign aid donors and international financial institutions to do likewise  In some cases, the decision to forgive foreign aid debts has been based largely on economic grounds as another means to support development efforts by heavily indebted, but reform-minded, countries  The United States has been one of the strongest supporters of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI)  These initiatives, which began in the late 1990s, include participation of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other international financial institutions in a comprehensive debt workout framework for the world's poorest and most debt-strapped nations  The largest and most hotly debated debt forgiveness actions have been implemented for much broader foreign policy reasons with a more strategic purpose  Poland, during its transition from a communist system and centrally planned economy (1990—$2 46 billion); Egypt, for making peace with Israel and helping maintain the Arab coalition during the Persian Gulf War (1990—$7 billion); and Jordan, after signing a peace accord with Israel (1994—$700 million), are examples  Similarly, the United States forgave about $4 1 billion in outstanding Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi debt in November 2004 and helped negotiate an 80% reduction in Iraq's debt to creditor nations later that month  Most development and humanitarian assistance activities are not directly implemented by U S  government personnel but by private sector entities, such as individual personal service contractors, consulting firms, universities, private voluntary organizations (PVOs), or public international organizations (PIOs)  Generally speaking, U S  government foreign service and civil servants determine the direction and priorities of the aid program, allocate funds while keeping within legislative requirements, ensure that appropriate projects are in place to meet aid objectives, select implementers, and monitor the implementation of those projects for effectiveness and financial accountability  Both USAID and the State Department have promoted the use of public-private partnerships, in which private entities such as corporations and foundations are contributing partners, not paid implementers, in situations where business interests and development objectives coincide  In FY2017, the United States provided some form of bilateral foreign assistance to more than 150 countries  Aid is concentrated heavily in certain countries, reflecting the priorities and interests of United States foreign policy at the time  Table 2 identifies the top 15 recipients of U S  foreign assistance for FY1997, FY2007 and FY2017  As shown in the table above, there are both similarities and sharp differences among country aid recipients for the three periods  The most consistent thread connecting the top aid recipients over the past two decades has been continuing U S  strategic interests in the Middle East, with large programs maintained for Israel and Egypt and, for Iraq, following the 2003 invasion  Two key countries in the U S  counterterrorism strategy, Afghanistan and Pakistan, made their first appearances on the list in FY2002 and continued to be among the top recipients in FY2017  In FY1997, one sub-Saharan African country appeared among leading aid recipients; in FY2017, 7 of the 15 are sub-Saharan African  Many are focus countries under the PEPFAR initiative to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic; South Sudan receives support as a newly independent country with multiple humanitarian and development needs  In FY1997, three countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union made the list, as many from the region had for much of the 1990s, representing the effort to transform the former communist nations to democratic societies and market-oriented economies  None of those countries appear in the FY2017 list  In FY1997, four Latin American countries make the list; no countries from the region appear in FY2017  On a regional basis, the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region has received the largest share of U S  foreign assistance for many decades  Although economic aid to the region's top two recipients, Israel and Egypt, began to decline in the late 1990s, the dominant share of bilateral U S  assistance consumed by the MENA region was maintained in FY2005 by the war in Iraq  Despite the continued importance of the region, its share slipped substantially by FY2017 as the effort to train and equip Iraqi forces diminished  Since September 11, 2001, South and Central Asia has emerged as a significant target of U S  assistance, rising from a roughly 3% share 20 years ago to 16% in FY2007 and 15% in FY2017, largely because of aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan  Similarly, the share represented by African nations has increased from 10% and 19%, respectively, in FY1997 and FY2007, to 25% in FY2017, largely due to the HIV/AIDS initiative that funnels resources mostly to African countries and to a range of other efforts to address the region's development challenges  Meanwhile, the share of aid to Europe/Eurasia, which greatly surpassed that of Africa in FY1997, has declined significantly in the past decade, to about 4% in FY2017, with the graduation of many East European aid recipients and the termination of programs in Russia  The Ukraine was responsible for about one third of aid to that region in FY2017  East Asia/Pacific has remained at a low level during the past two decades, while Latin America's share has risen and fallen based on U S  interest in Colombia and a few Central American countries as aid has shifted to regions of more pressing strategic interest (see Figure 4 )  There are several methods commonly used for measuring the amount of federal spending on foreign assistance  Amounts can be expressed in terms of budget authority (funds appropriated by Congress), obligations (amounts contractually committed), outlays or disbursements (money actually spent)  Assistance levels are also sometimes measured as a percentage of the total federal budget, as a percentage of total discretionary budget authority (excluding mandatory and entitlement programs), or as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) (for an indication of the national wealth allocated to foreign aid)  By nearly all of these measures, foreign aid resources fell gradually on average over several decades since the historical high levels of the late 1940s and early 1950s ( Appendix A )  This downward trend was sporadically interrupted, largely due to major foreign policy initiatives such as the Alliance for Progress for Latin America beginning in 1961, the infusion of funds to implement the Camp David Middle East Peace Accords in 1979, and an increase in military assistance to Egypt, Turkey, Greece and others in the mid-1980s  The lowest point in U S  foreign aid spending since World War II came in 1997, when foreign assistance obligations fell to just above $20 billion (in 2017 dollar terms)  ( Figure 5 ) While foreign aid consistently represented just over 1% of U S  annual gross domestic product in the decade following World War II, it fell gradually to between 0 2% and 0 4% for most years in the past three decades  Foreign assistance spending has comprised, on average, around 3% of discretionary budget authority and just over 1% of total budget authority each year since 1977, though the percentages have sometimes varied considerably from year to year  Foreign aid dropped from 5% of discretionary budget authority in 1979 to 2 4% in 2001, before rising sharply in conjunction with U S  activities in Afghanistan and Iraq starting in 2003  As a portion of total budget authority, foreign assistance reached 2 5% in 1979, but has hovered below 1 5% since 1987  In 2017, foreign assistance was estimated to account for 4 1% of discretionary budget authority and 1 2% of total budget authority ( Figure 6 ; Appendix A )  As previously discussed, since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, foreign aid funding has been closely tied to U S  counterterrorism strategy, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan  Bush and Obama Administration global health initiatives, the creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and growth in counter-narcotics activities have driven funding increases as well  The Budget Control Act of 2011, and the drawdown of U S  military forces in Iraq, and to some degree Afghanistan, led to a notable dip in aid obligations in FY2013, but aid levels have risen again with efforts to address the crisis in Syria, counter-ISIL activities, and humanitarian aid  The use of the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO, discussed below) designation has enabled this growth despite the BCA limitations  Figure 7 shows how trends in foreign aid funding in recent decades can be attributed to specific foreign policy events and presidential initiatives  The Obama Administration's FY2012 international affairs budget proposed that the overseas contingency operations (OCO) designation, which had been applied since 2009 to war-related Defense appropriations, including to DOD assistance programs such as ISFF, ASFF and CERP, be extended to include "extraordinary, but temporary, costs of the Department of State and USAID in the front line states of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan " Congress not only adopted the OCO designation in the FY2012 SFOPS appropriations legislation, but expanded it to include funding for additional accounts and countries  In every fiscal year since, a portion of certain foreign assistance accounts—primarily ESF, FMF, IDA, MRA and INCLE—has been appropriated with the OCO designation  The OCO designation is significant because the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), which set annual caps on discretionary funding from FY2013 through FY2021, specified that funds designated as OCO do not count toward the discretionary spending limits established by the act  OCO designation makes it possible to prevent war-related funding from crowding out core international affairs activities within the budget allocation  The OCO approach is reminiscent of the use of supplemental international affairs appropriations for the first decade after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks  Congress appropriated significant emergency supplemental funds for foreign operations and Defense assistance programs every year from FY2002 through FY2010 for activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, which were not counted toward subcommittee budget allocations  Since the OCO designation was first applied to foreign operations in FY2012, supplemental appropriations for foreign aid have declined significantly  In the FY2019 and FY2020 budget requests, the Trump Administration did not request OCO funding within the international affairs budget, but did request OCO funding for the Department of Defense, including for DOD aid accounts  Congress used the OCO designation for both DOD and State/USAID accounts in the FY2019 appropriation, P L  116-6 , but a smaller portion of aid was designated as OCO compared to FY2018  It remains to be seen whether this is the beginning of a downward trend in OCO use for foreign aid  Congress historically sought to enhance the domestic benefits of foreign aid by requiring that most U S  foreign aid be used to procure U S  goods and services  The conditioning of aid on the procurement of goods and services from the donor-country is sometimes called "tied aid," and while quite common for much of the history of modern foreign assistance, has become increasingly disfavored in the international community  Studies have shown that tying aid increases the costs of goods and services by 15%-30% on average, and up to 40% for food aid, reducing the overall effectiveness of aid flows  The United States joined other donor nations in committing to reduce tied aid in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in March 2005, and the portion of tied aid from all donors fell from 70% of total bilateral development assistance in 1985 to an average of 12% in 2016  However, an estimated 32% of U S  bilateral development assistance was tied in 2016, the highest percentage among major donors, perhaps reflecting the perception of policymakers that maintaining public and political support for foreign aid programs requires ensuring direct economic benefit to the United States  About 67% of U S  foreign assistance funds in FY2017 were obligated to U S -based entities  A considerable amount of U S  foreign assistance funds remain in the United States, through domestic procurement or the use of U S  implementers, but the portion differs by program and is hard to identify with any accuracy  For some types of aid, the legislative requirements or program design make it relatively easy to determine how much aid is spent on U S  goods or services, while for others, this is more difficult to determine  USAID  Most USAID funding (Development Assistance, Global Health, Economic Support Fund) is implemented through contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements with implementing partners  While many implementing partner organizations are based in the United States and employ U S  citizens, there is little information available about what portion of the funds used for program implementation are used for goods and services provided by American firms  Procurement reform efforts initiated by USAID in 2010 have aimed to increase procurement and implementation by host country entities as a means to enhance country ownership, build local capacity, and improve sustainability of aid programs  Food assistance commodities, until recently, were purchased wholly in the United States, and generally required by law to be shipped by U S  carriers, suggesting that the vast majority of food aid expenditures are made in the United States  Starting in FY2009, a small portion of food assistance was authorized to be purchased locally and regionally to meet urgent food needs more quickly  Successive Administrations and several Members of Congress have proposed greater flexibility in the food aid program, potentially increasing aid efficiency but reducing the portion of funds flowing to U S  farmers and shippers  To date, these proposals have been largely unsuccessful  Foreign Military Financing , with the exception of certain assistance allocated to Israel, is used exclusively to procure U S  military equipment and training  Millennium Challenge Corporation  The MCC bases its procurement regulations on those established by the World Bank, which calls for an open and competitive process, with no preference given to donor country suppliers  Between FY2011 and FY2017, the MCC awarded roughly 15% of the value of compact contracts to U S  firms  Multilateral development aid  Multilateral aid funds are mixed with funds from other nations and the bulk of the program is financed with borrowed funds rather than direct government contributions  Information on the U S  share of procurement financed by MDBs is unavailable  In addition to the direct benefits derived from aid dollars used for American goods and services, many argue that the foreign aid program brings significant indirect financial benefits to the United States  For example, analysts maintain that provision of military equipment through the military assistance program and food commodities through the Food for Peace program helps to develop future, strictly commercial, markets for those products  More broadly, as countries develop economically, they are in a position to purchase more goods from abroad and the United States benefits as a trade partner  Since an increasing majority of global consumers are outside of the United States, some business leaders assert that establishing strong economic and trade ties in the developing world, using foreign assistance as a tool, is key to U S  economic and job growth  Since World War II, with the exception of several years between 1989 and 2001, during which Japan ranked first among aid donors, the United States has led the developed countries in net disbursements of economic aid, or "Official Development Assistance (ODA)" as defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC)  In 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, the United States disbursed $34 12 billion in ODA, or about 24% of the $144 71 billion in total net ODA disbursements by DAC donors that year  Germany ranked second at $24 16 billion, the United Kingdom followed at $18 59 billion, Japan ranked fourth at $11 85 billion, and France rounded out the top donors with $11 03 billion in 2017 (see Figure 8 )  While the top five donors have not varied for more than a decade, there have been shifts lower down the ranking  For example, Turkey has become a much more prominent ODA donor in recent years (ranked 6 th in 2017, with $9 08 billion in ODA, compared to 21 st in 2006), reflecting large amounts of humanitarian aid to assist Syrian refugees  Even as it leads in dollar amounts of aid flows to developing countries, the United States often ranks low when aid is calculated as a percentage of gross national income (GNI)  This calculation is often cited in the context of international donor forums, as a level of 0 7% GNI was established as a target for donors in the 2000 U N  Millennium Development Goals  In 2017, the United States ranked at the bottom among major donors at 0 18% of GNI, slightly lower than Portugal and Spain (0 18% and 0 19%, respectively)  The United Arab Emirates, which has significantly increased its reported ODA in recent years, ranked first among top donors at 1 03% of GNI, followed by Sweden at 1 02% and Luxembourg at 1 00%  There has also been an increase in ODA from non-DAC countries  Between 2000 and 2014, China spent $81 1 billion in ODA, more than tripling its ODA commitments during this period  While reported Chinese ODA is still relatively small compared to that of major donor countries, policymakers are paying increasing attention to growing Chinese investments in developing countries that do not meet the ODA definition  China has touted its "Belt and Road" initiative as an effort to boost development and connectivity across as many as 125 countries to create "strategic propellers" for its own development  However, China has provided little official aggregate information on the initiative, including on the number of projects, countries involved, the terms of financing, and metrics for success  Numerous congressional authorizing committees and appropriations subcommittees maintain responsibility for U S  foreign assistance  Several committees have responsibility for authorizing legislation establishing programs and policy and for conducting oversight of foreign aid programs  In the Senate, the Committee on Foreign Relations, and in the House, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, have primary jurisdiction over bilateral development assistance, political/strategic and other economic security assistance, military assistance, and international organizations  Food aid, primarily the responsibility of the Agriculture Committees in both bodies, is periodically shared with the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House  U S  contributions to multilateral development banks are within the jurisdiction of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Financial Services Committee  The large nontraditional aid programs funded by DOD, such as Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programs and the military aid programs in Afghanistan and Iraq, come under the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committees  Some global health assistance, such as research and other activities done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, may fall under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce and Senate HELP committees  Traditionally, most foreign aid appropriations fall under the jurisdiction of the SFOPS Subcommittees, with food assistance appropriated by the Agriculture Subcommittees  As noted earlier, however, certain military, global health, and other activities that have been reported as foreign aid have been appropriated through other subcommittees in recent years, including the Defense and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies subcommittees  (For current information on SFOPS Appropriations legislation, see CRS Report R45168, Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: FY2019 Budget and Appropriations , by Susan B  Epstein, Marian L  Lawson, and Cory R  Gill ) The most significant permanent foreign aid authorization laws are the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, covering most bilateral economic and security assistance programs (P L  87-195; 22 U S C  2151); the Arms Export Control Act (1976), authorizing military sales and financing (P L  90-629; 22 U S C  2751); the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 (P L  480), covering food aid (P L  83-480; 7 U S C  1691); and the Bretton Woods Agreement Act (1945), authorizing U S  participation in multilateral development banks (P L  79-171; 22 U S C  286)  In the past, Congress usually scheduled debates every two years on omnibus foreign aid legislation that amended these permanent authorization measures  Congress has not enacted into law a comprehensive foreign assistance authorization measure since 1985, although foreign aid authorizing bills have passed the House or Senate, or both, on numerous occasions  Foreign aid bills have frequently stalled at some point in the debate because of controversial issues, a tight legislative calendar, or executive-legislative foreign policy disputes  In contrast, DOD assistance is authorized in annual National Defense Authorization legislation  In lieu of approving a broad State Department/USAID authorization bill, Congress has on occasion authorized major foreign assistance initiatives for specific regions, countries, or aid sectors in stand-alone legislation or within an appropriation bill  Among these are the SEED Act of 1989 ( P L  101-179 ; 22 U S C  5401); the FREEDOM Support Act of 1992 ( P L  102-511 ; 22 U S C  5801); the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 ( P L  108-25 ; 22 U S C  7601); the Tom Lantos and Henry J  Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 ( P L  110-293 ); the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 (Division D, Title VI of P L  108-199 ); the Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act of 2009 ( P L  111-73 ; 22 U S C  8401); the Global Food Security Act of 2016 ( P L  114-195 ; 22 U S C  9306), and the BUILD Act ( P L  115-254 )  In the absence of regular enactment of foreign aid authorization bills, appropriation measures considered annually within the SFOPS spending bill have assumed greater significance for Congress in influencing U S  foreign aid policy  Not only do appropriations bills set spending levels each year for nearly every foreign assistance account, SFOPS appropriations also incorporate new policy initiatives that would otherwise be debated and enacted as part of authorizing legislation  Appendix A  Data Table Appendix B  Common Foreign Assistance Abbreviations
Report 2:  On March 23, 2018, the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services Act of 2018 (the "RAY BAUM'S Act" or "2018 Act") became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 ( P L  115-141 )  The 2018 Act requires the FCC to transfer all excess collections for FY2018 and prior years to the General Fund of the U S  Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction  The 2018 Act also requires the Commission to transfer any excess collections in FY2019 and in subsequent years to the General Fund of the U S  Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction  On October 1, 2018, the Commission transferred over $9 million in excess collections from FY2018 as well as approximately $112 million in excess collections from FY2017 and prior years to the General Fund of the U S  Treasury  For FY2020, the FCC has requested $335,660,000 in budget authority from regulatory fee offsetting collections  This is $3,950,000 less than the authorization level of $339,610,000 included in the 2018 FCC Reauthorization in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018  The FY2020 FCC request also represents a decrease of $3,340,000, or about 1 0%, from the FY2019 appropriated level of $339,000,000  The FCC requested $132,538,680 in budget authority for the spectrum auctions program  For FY2019, Congress appropriated a cap of $130,284,000 for the spectrum auctions program, which included additional funds to implement the requirements of the 2018 Act that mandated significant additional work for the FCC related to the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund  The Commission's FY2020 budget request of $132,538,680 for this program would be an increase of $2,254,680, or 1 7%, over the FY2019 appropriation  This level of funding is intended to enable the Commission to continue its efforts to: reimburse full power and Class A stations, multichannel video programming distributors, Low Power TV, TV translator, and FM stations for reasonable costs incurred as a result of the Commission's incentive auction; make more spectrum available for 5G; and educate consumers affected by the reorganization of broadcast television spectrum  To date, the Commission's spectrum auctions program has generated over $114 6 billion for government use; at the same time, the total cost of the auctions program has been less than $2 0 billion, or less than 1 7% of the total auctions' revenue  Through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 ( P L  115-141 ), the FCC was reauthorized for the first time since 1990 (FCC Authorization Act of 1990, P L  101-396 )  The FCC publishes four periodic reports for Congress  Strategic Plan  The Strategic Plan is the framework around which the FCC develops its yearly Performance Plan and Performance Budget  The FCC submitted its current four-year Strategic Plan for 2018-2022 in February 2018, in accordance with the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, P L  111-352   Performance Budget  The annual Performance Budget includes performance targets based on the FCC's strategic goals and objectives, and serves as the guide for implementing the Strategic Plan  The Performance Budget becomes part of the President's annual budget request  Agency Financial Report  The annual Agency Financial Report contains financial and other information, such as a financial discussion and analysis of the agency's status, financial statements, and audit reports  Annual Performance Report  At the end of the fiscal year, the FCC publishes an Annual Performance Report that compares the agency's actual performance with its targets  All of these reports are available on the FCC website, https://www fcc gov/about/strategic-plans-budget   One FCC-related hearing has been held in the 116 th Congress  On April 3, 2019, the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government held a hearing on the FY2020 FCC budget  The hearing addressed issues including 5G deployment, federal preemption of state and local tower siting requirements, merger reviews, robocalls, and net neutrality  No bills that would affect the operation of the FCC have been introduced in the 116 th Congress  The FCC operates under a public interest mandate first laid out in the 1927 Radio Act (P L  632, 69 th Congress), but how this mandate is applied depends on which of two regulatory philosophies is relied upon to interpret it  The first seeks to protect and benefit the public at large through regulation, while the second seeks to achieve the same goals through the promotion of market efficiency  Additionally, Congress granted the FCC wide latitude and flexibility to revise its interpretation of the public interest standard to reflect changing circumstances, and the agency has not defined it in more concrete terms  These circumstances, paired with changes in FCC leadership, have led to significant changes over time in how the FCC regulates the broadcast and telecommunications industries  This evolution can be illustrated in changes to the agency's strategic goals under former Chairman Tom Wheeler to current Chairman Ajit Pai, which, in turn, led to the repeal in 2017 of the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules and to changes in the agency's structure in 2019  The FCC's strategic goals are set forth in its quadrennial Strategic Plan  How these goals change from one plan to the next can illustrate how the priorities of the commission change over time, especially when there is a change in the political majority of the commission and therefore, the political party of the chairman  Table 1 outlines the strategic goals of Chairman Wheeler in the FY2015-FY2018 Strategic Plan compared to those of Chairman Pai in the FY2018-FY2022 Strategic Plan  Chairman Wheeler was a proponent of protecting and benefitting the public through regulation  His support of this regulatory philosophy can be seen in the language used in the strategic goals, such as the "rights of users" and the "responsibilities of network providers " Another example can be seen in the following language: "The FCC has a responsibility to promote the expansion of these networks and to ensure they have the incentive and the ability to compete fairly with one another in providing broadband services " On the other hand, Chairman Pai speaks about protecting and benefitting the public through the promotion of market incentives and efficiency  His support of this regulatory philosophy can be seen in the language used in the strategic goals, such as "reducing regulatory burdens" and ensuring that "regulations reflect the realities of the current marketplace, promote entrepreneurship, expand economic opportunity, and remove barriers to entry and investment " The use of this particular language may seem somewhat vague, but within the context of the net neutrality debate, discussed below, and the replacement of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis with the Office of Economics and Analytics, those words take on more specific meaning, each intending to support the policy agenda of the Chairman  Net neutrality is arguably the highest profile issue illustrating the two regulatory philosophies described above  Chairman Pai had long maintained that the FCC under Chairman Wheeler had overstepped its bounds, expressing confidence that the 2015 Wheeler-era net neutrality rules would be undone, calling them "unnecessary regulations that hold back investment and innovation " Although the net neutrality debate originated in 2005, the 2015 Open Internet Order, implemented under the leadership of Chairman Wheeler, and the 2017 Order overturning those rules, promulgated under Chairman Pai, are the most recent  These two orders can be used to illustrate the contrast between the regulatory philosophies of the two chairmen: Some policymakers contend that more proscriptive regulations, such as those contained in the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order (2015 Order), are necessary to protect the marketplace from potential abuses which could threaten the net neutrality concept  Others contend that existing laws and the current, less restrictive approach, contained in the FCC's 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order (2017 Order), provide a more suitable framework  Net neutrality continues to be a highly politicized issue, with most FCC action being approved along party lines  In January 2019, the FCC voted along party lines to eliminate the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis and replace it with a new Office of Economics and Analytics  The Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (OSP) was created in 2005, replacing the Office of Plans and Policy  OSP had been charged with "providing advice to the chairman, commissioners, bureaus, and offices; developing strategic plans; identifying the agency's policy objectives; and providing research, advice, and analysis of advanced, novel, and nontraditional communications issues " It had also been the home of the Chief Economist and Chief Technologist  The new Office of Economics and Analytics is "responsible for expanding and deepening the use of economic analysis into FCC policy making, for enhancing the development and use of auctions, and for implementing consistent and effective agency-wide data practices and policies " This new office reflects the goals in the current strategic plan: We will modernize and streamline the FCC's operations and programs to … reduce regulatory burdens…  A key priority [is to] … ensure that the FCC's actions and regulations reflect the realities of the current marketplace … and remove barriers to entry and investment  As the FCC continues to conduct its business into the future, the changing regulatory philosophies of the FCC chairmen may continue to drive how the FCC defines its long-term, strategic goals  This, in turn, may affect how the agency structures (and restructures) itself and how it decides regulatory questions, including a continued review of net neutrality  Congress may determine that the public interest standard should remain more static, rather than fluctuating dramatically depending on the regulatory philosophy of the chairman  No legislation on this topic has been introduced in Congress, signaling to some observers that it intends to continue allowing the FCC to define it  Table A-1   Senate and House hearings in the 115 th Congress regarding the operation of the FCC are detailed in Table A-2 and Table A-3 , respectively  Links to individual hearing pages are included in these tables 

ground_truth: Foreign assistance is the largest component of the international affairs budget and is viewed by many as an essential instrument of U.S. foreign policy. On the basis of national security, commercial, and humanitarian rationales, U.S. assistance flows through many federal agencies and supports myriad objectives. These include promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, improving governance, expanding access to health care and education, promoting stability in conflict regions, countering terrorism, promoting human rights, strengthening allies, and curbing illicit drug production and trafficking. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, foreign aid has increasingly been associated with national security policy. At the same time, many Americans and some Members of Congress view foreign aid as an expense that the United States cannot afford given current budget deficits. In FY2017, U.S. foreign assistance, defined broadly, totaled an estimated $49.87 billion, or 1.2% of total federal budget authority. About 44% of this assistance was for bilateral economic development programs, including political/strategic economic assistance; 35% for military aid and nonmilitary security assistance; 18% for humanitarian activities; and 4% to support the work of multilateral institutions. Assistance can take the form of cash transfers, equipment and commodities, infrastructure, or technical assistance, and, in recent decades, is provided almost exclusively on a grant rather than loan basis. Most U.S. aid is implemented by nongovernmental organizations rather than foreign governments. The United States is the largest foreign aid donor in the world, accounting for about 24% of total official development assistance from major donor governments in 2017 (the latest year for which these data are available). Key foreign assistance trends in the past decade include growth in development aid, particularly global health programs; increased security assistance directed toward U.S. allies in the anti-terrorism effort; and high levels of humanitarian assistance to address a range of crises. Adjusted for inflation, annual foreign assistance funding over the past decade was the highest it has been since the Marshall Plan in the years immediately following World War II. In FY2017, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt received the largest amounts of U.S. aid, reflecting long-standing aid commitments to Israel and Egypt, the strategic significance of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the strategic and humanitarian importance of Jordan as the crisis in neighboring Syria continues. The Near East region received 27% of aid allocated by country or region in FY2017, followed by Africa, at 25%, and South and Central Asia, at 15%. This was a significant shift from a decade prior, when Africa received 19% of aid and the Near East 34%, reflecting significant increases in HIV/AIDS-related programs concentrated in Africa between FY2007 and FY2017 and the drawdown of U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military assistance to Iraq began to decline starting in FY2011, but growing concern about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has reversed this trend. This report provides an overview of the U.S. foreign assistance program by answering frequently asked questions on the subject. It is intended to provide a broad view of foreign assistance over time, and will be updated periodically. For more current information on foreign aid funding levels, see CRS Report R45168, Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: FY2019 Budget and Appropriations, by Susan B. Epstein, Marian L. Lawson, and Cory R. Gill.