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The Government Accountability Office is investigating the U.S. Coast Guard's administrative law system, as members of Congress move forward with plans to dismantle the system and hand its responsibilities to the National Transportation Safety Board. The GAO, Congress' investigative agency, confirmed it is exploring the system amid evidence that Coast Guard administrative law judges have been pressured by the agency's chief judge to rule in the Coast Guard's favor. In addition, two sources said investigators from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General have requested a host of Coast Guard records as part of a wide-ranging review of how the agency investigates and prosecutes cases.

A pair of congressional audits raise concerns about the ability of the Pentagon to meet its 2011 deadline for an ambitious nationwide base realignment that is expected to bring up to 60,000 defense jobs and 28,000 households to Maryland. One report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says the realignment could be hindered by lingering confusion about how many jobs would move where, by complicated moves such as those involving Aberdeen Proving Ground and by competition for funds within the Department of Defense.

Washington -- As Congress opened a monthlong showdown with President Bush over Iraq, Senate war critics yesterday demanded evidence that the security improvements claimed by the White House could be sustained once American forces hand off the task of maintaining order to Iraqi military units. Establishing a theme likely to be repeated during coming hearings, Democratic senators pressed the nation's senior legislative analyst for indications that security gains could last. But David M. Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, said it remained unclear whether Iraq's military and police could maintain the improvements brought about since an additional 28,500 U.S. troops were sent to Iraq this year.

The Department of Education, after months of criticism for its lax oversight of the federal student loan program, still has no system to detect and uncover misconduct by lenders and protect student borrowers, a government report said yesterday. The report, prepared by the General Accountability Office and released by congressional Democrats, found that the department "has no oversight tools" to see whether lenders are giving improper incentives to colleges to steer student borrowers their way and since 1989, the department has offered lenders no "comprehensive guidance" on what incentives might be forbidden.

Title insurance typically is a mandatory and large cost for most home purchasers and mortgage refinancers - often in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. But is it priced too high for what you actually get? Equally important: Do widespread referral relationships among real estate brokers, title agents and mortgage companies restrict price competition, create anti-consumer conflicts of interest, and discourage buyers from shopping for lower-cost title insurance and closing service options? The Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan watchdog agency of Congress, made an in-depth examination of the title industry over the past year and came up with some unsettling findings: "Multiple characteristics of current title insurance markets, as well as allegedly illegal activities by a number of those involved in the marketing of title insurance, suggest that normal competitive forces may not be working properly, raising questions about the prices consumers are paying."

As President Bush's tenure in the White House begins to wind down, political appointees looking to stick around have to hunt for a long-term job in the civil service. So-called "burrowing" - either for the benefits or the job satisfaction - happens under every administration. Often, it is done fairly. Someone wins a plum political appointment because of outstanding qualifications and then moves to a long-term position. But for a small number, positions are created with an appointee in mind, while veterans or more qualified applicants are passed over, according to a Government Accountability Office review of conversions from May 2001 to August 2005.

WASHINGTON --The Bush administration has no clear strategy to protect the privacy of patients as it promotes the use of electronic medical records throughout the nation's health care system, federal investigators say in a new report. In the report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the administration had a jumble of studies and vague policy statements but no overall strategy to ensure that privacy protections would be built into computer networks linking insurers, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.

This would be infuriating if it weren't such a sad, sorry story. The only way to keep the Army's ranks filled up, as David Wood of The Sun reports, is to let in young men and women who would only recently have been considered undesirable, if not actually ineligible. The number of soldiers who scored in the lowest category of the Armed Forces Qualification Test has increased more than sixfold since 2004. But even that may not suffice. A report just issued by the Government Accountability Office finds that cases of wrongdoing by military recruiters jumped by more than half between 2004 and 2005 - and there is a strong possibility that significantly more cases have gone unreported.

WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators said yesterday that the Medicare prescription drug plans generally provided incomplete and inaccurate information to callers who asked questions about the new benefit. The findings, from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, are significant because the premise of the new program is that consumers will make informed choices among dozens of competing plans. Investigators placed 900 calls to 10 of the largest companies that offer drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries.

WASHINGTON -- More than a year after the Food and Drug Administration announced that it had strengthened its drug safety system, the agency lacks a reliable way to keep track of emerging problems, congressional investigators concluded in a report to be released today. The Government Accountability Office found that a new Drug Safety Oversight Board and other FDA initiatives "are unlikely to address all the gaps" in the agency's system for monitoring the long-term safety of prescription drugs approved for market.