Potential Budgetary Effects of Immediately Opening Most Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Leasing

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has analyzed a proposal to immediately open most federal lands to oil and gas leasing. Although some federally controlled lands are currently open to leasing, the proposal studies the effects of opening two categories of federal property currently closed to development: lands now statutorily prohibited such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and lands prohibited under current administrative policies such as sections of the Outer Continental Shelf. Read more at Potential Budgetary Effects of Immediately Opening Most Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Leasing.

Tidying Up: What Reorganization Can Do for Federal Agencies

Given that budget constraints are a reality, the Government Business Council underwritten by Deloitte has released a random-sample survey of 244 Federal managers from defense and civilian agencies about reorganization at the program or agency level. Tidying Up: What Reorganization Can Do for Federal Agencies indicates that Federal managers believe reorganization can be worthwhile, but that "the skills needed for reorganization are not readily available in many agencies." Consequences of past reorganization efforts were distracted employees and low morale especially from new employees fearing job loss. For successful reorganization, the report recommends the following:

• Have a vision
• Be transparent and inclusive
• Act with speed
• Monitor progress

Options for Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate Mechanism

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has analyzed three options for dealing with Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) mechanism under which Medicare's payment rates for physicians' services are scheduled to be reduced by 27 percent in 2013. The CBO has provided tables for showing increases or decreases in outlays for the period 2013-2022 for the cliff option (significant reduction in the first year after a specified update), the clawback option (additional spending for a few years to override reductions in payment rates but reductions to payment rates in subsequent years), and the replace or restructure option (replace the SGR with a one or two percent freeze in each year through 2022). For details see Medicare's Payments to Physicians: The Budgetary Impact of Alternative Policies Relative to CBO’s March 2012 Baseline.