The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was established in 1863 as an independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The President, with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, appoints the Comptroller to head the agency for a five-year term. The Comptroller also is a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The OCC's primary mission is to charter, regulate, and supervise all national banks and federal savings associations. We also supervise the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the OCC has four district offices plus an office in London to supervise the international activities of national banks.

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is the cryptologic (code breaking) intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence and communications and to protecting U.S. government communications and information systems from foreign intelligence gathering organizations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. Created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 47 foreign countries.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent US Government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers. The United States has carried out intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis. After the US entered World War II in 1942, the task of gathering intelligence fell to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. After World War II, however, the OSS was abolished along with many other war agencies and its functions were transferred to the State and War Departments. It did not take long before President Truman recognized the need for a postwar, centralized intelligence organization. To make a fully functional intelligence office, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 establishing the CIA.

The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government whosed stated mission is providing technical assistance; helping people outside the United States to understand US culture; and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The program was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy as part of the "New Frontier" policies "to promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower." Since 1961, hundreds of thousands of American volunteers have joined the Peace Corps and have served in over 140 different countries.

The National Park Service (NPS) is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks and many of the national monuments for the American public. It is part of the United States Department of the Interior, and operates under direction of the Secretary of the Interior. It was created in 1916.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is the agency of the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands. The BLM's mission is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.

The United States Forest Service is the agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. In 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. In 1881, the office was expanded and renamed the Division of Forestry and in 1901, renamed the Bureau of Forestry. The Transfer Act of 1905 transferred the management of forest reserves from the General Land Office of the Interior Department to the Bureau of Forestry, now named the United States Forest Service. Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief Forester of the United States Forest Service in the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a bureau of the Department of the Interior established in 1939 by merging the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Biological Survey and the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Fisheries. The USFWS administers a series of national wildlife refuges and ensures compliance with federal laws protecting migratory birds, fish, and other wildlife. In the latter capacity, USFWS inspectors are present at U.S. ports of entry to enforce laws against smuggling of endangered and threatened species of wildlife.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) was begun in 1970 as an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment. Born in the wake of elevated concern about environmental pollution, the EPA was established to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection. Since its inception, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people. As psrt of its efforts the EPA operates two major research vessels, the 250-ton OSV Peter W. Anderson in the Atlantic and the 266-ton RV Lake Guardian on the Great Lakes, as well as a number of smaller research vessels and boats.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States. Not only is the DEA the lead agency for domestic enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, sharing concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it also has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations abroad.

The United States Border Patrol is a federal law enforcement agency within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is an agency in the Department of Homeland Security that enforces laws and regulations for the admission of foreign-born persons to the United States codified in the Immigration and Nationality Act. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has more sworn, armed law enforcement officers than any other agency in the U.S. federal government.

The Public Health Service Act of 1944 structured the United States Public Health Service (PHS) as the primary division of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), which later became the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The PHS comprises all Agency Divisions of Health and Human Services and the Commissioned Corps. The Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) oversees the PHS and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

As immigration increased dramatically in the late nineteenth century, the Federal Government took over the processing of immigrants from the states, beginning in 1891. The Marine Hospital Service was assigned the responsibility for the medical inspection of arriving immigrants at sites such as Ellis Island in New York. Because of the broadening responsibilities of the Service, its name was changed in 1902 to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, and again in 1912 to just the Public Health Service. As the century progressed, PHS commissioned officers served their country by controlling the spread of contagious diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever, conducting important biomedical research, regulating the food and drug supply, providing health care to underserved groups, supplying medical assistance in the aftermath of disasters, and in numerous other ways.

A reorganization in 1870 converted the loose network of locally controlled hospitals into a centrally controlled Marine Hospital Service, with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The position of Supervising Surgeon (later Surgeon General) was created to administer the Service, and John Maynard Woodworth was appointed as the first incumbent in 1871. The scope of activities of the Marine Hospital Service also began to expand well beyond the care of merchant seamen in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, beginning with the control of infectious disease. Over the next half a century, the Marine Hospital Service increasingly took over quarantine functions from state authorities.

The Surgeon General's office and staff are known as the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG). The Surgeon General reports to the Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), who may be a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), and who serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on public health and scientific issues. The Surgeon General is the overall head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a 6,000-member Commissioned Corps of the USPHS, a cadre of health professionals who are on call 24 hours a day, and can be dispatched by the Secretary of HHS or the Assistant Secretary for Health in the event of a public health emergency.

The agency was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI). Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. The mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners. As the governmental agency (part of the United States Department of Justice) it serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency (counterintelligence).

The history of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) can be traced to back the time of the "revenuers" and the Bureau of Prohibition, which was formed as a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1920, was made an independent agency within the Treasury Department in 1927, transferred to the Justice Department in 1930, and became, briefly, a division of the FBI in 1933.

When the Volstead Act was repealed in December 1933, the Unit was transferred from the Department of Justice back to the Department of the Treasury where it became the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Made famous by Special Agent Eliot Ness and "The Untouchables," a special team of invesitators working for the Prohibition Bureau while the Volstead Act was still in force, were transferred to the ATU. In 1942, responsibility for enforcing federal firearms laws was given to the ATU.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a federal law enforcement agency and subdivision of the United States Department of Justice. It is responsible for the administration of the federal prison system. The system also handles prisoners who committed acts considered felonies under the District of Columbia's law.

The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency under the direction of the United States Department of Justice. The U.S. Marshal Service is the second oldest federal law enforcement agency in the United States (second to the U.S. Customs Service) and was created in 1789. It assumed its current name in 1969.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of the land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American Tribes and Alaska Natives. The BIA’s responsibilities once included providing health care services, but in 1954, that function was transferred to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare where it has remained to this day as the Indian Health Service (IHS).

The United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), formerly known as the United States Reclamation Service, is an agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and/or operation of numerous diversion, delivery, and storage projects it built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation.

The National Geodetic Survey, was our Nation's first civilian scientific agency, and established by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 as the Survey of the Coast. Its mission was, and still is, to survey the U.S. coastline and create nautical charts of the coast to help increase maritime safety. As the nation grew westward surveys of the U.S. interior began. In 1878, the agency was given a new name, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, which it maintained until 1970.

The U.S. Geological Survey is a bureau of the Department of the Interior which, among other things, operates a small fleet of research vessels on both coasts and the Great Lakes. These ships conduct geophysical, limnological, biological, and mineralogical research.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focusing on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere. NOAA warns of dangerous weather, charts seas and skies, guides the use and protection of ocean and coastal resources, and conducts research to improve understanding and stewardship of the environment.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States with the primary mission of collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national security. NGA was formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and is part of the Department of Defense (DoD). In addition, NGA is a key component of the United States Intelligence Community.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 created the organization under the name "Federal Aviation Agency", and adopted its current name in 1966 when it became a part of the United States Department of Transportation.

The United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation that maintains the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) as a ready source of ships for use during national emergencies, and assists the NDRF in fulfilling its role as the nation's fourth arm of defense, logistically supporting the military when needed. It is also the parent of the U.S. Merchant Marine.

The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act in 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands.

The United States Customs Service was an agency of the United States government that collects import tariffs and performed other selected border security duties. In March of 2003, it was made part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, created in 1978 by two Executive Orders. The primary purpose of FEMA is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States or territories of the United States, that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities.

The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency and part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. Members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service had been part of the United States Department of the Treasury.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act. Its principal mission is the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of what regulators perceive to be harmfully anti-competitive business practices.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a United States government agency "that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering." Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. The NSF funds approximately 20% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States' colleges and universities.

The Smithsonian Institution, best known as the parent organization of the U.S. national museums on the Mall in Washington, is also a premier scientific research institution. It operates a number of maritime-related research centers, including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay. Each of these centers operates a number of small to medium-size research vessels.

The Tennessee Valley Authority was created in 1933 as a project to control the devastating seasonal floods of the Tennessee River and its tributaries and to generate hydroelectric power to meets the underdeveloped region's energy needs. Its navigational responsibilities include the maintenance of a nine-foot channel on the Tennessee River from Paducah, Kentucky, to Knoxville, Tennessee, as well as the operation of a sprawling network of locks and dams. It is also the principal electric power provider to most of Tennessee, large portions of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama, and smaller areas of Georgia and North Carolina.

The Library of Congress is the national library of the United States and research library of the United States Congress. It is one of the oldest federal institutions in the United States with its main branch located near the national mall in Washington, D.C. It is one of the largest library in the world.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits, evaluates, and investigatates the finaces of the United States government for the United States Congress and legislature.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government responsible for the United States civilian space program. Originally founded in 1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA replaced its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). However recent budget cuts have seriously hamptered NASA's stated mission to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research," and many major programs have been reduced or closed down completely, including the sucessful Space Shuttle program and moon exploration.