Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
Veterans Affairs

Reps. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., Nancy Mace, R-S.C., Susie Lee, D-Nev., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., have introduced legislation that aims to strengthen cybersecurity at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and better protect information technology systems and devices used at the agency. […]

Senate hearing Congressional-min

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved legislation on March 30 that would jumpstart IT modernization efforts for Federal agencies – but at the same time rejected an amendment to the bill that would help pay for that effort. […]

Capitol snow day winter-min

Two key Biden administration nominations to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) failed to win approval today from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as the committee deadlocked with 7-7 votes on both nominations. […]

The Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) published a request for comment today on the Federal Register to help inform a report on the effectiveness of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program (TRIP) and how to improve the cyber insurance market. […]

.gov website cybersecurity government

The General Services Administration (GSA) said today that joint work with the Air Force’s Kessel Run software organization on GSA’s cloud.gov platform has enabled the platform to host 100 million digital users per hour. […]

funding

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said this week that “the time is now” to start proposing legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies, as digital assets only continue to grow in popularity in the United States. […]

Labor

President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2023 is seeking $3.4 billion for the Labor Department (DoL) to help modernize unemployment insurance (UI) systems run by states and territories – many of which were overwhelmed with demand during the coronavirus pandemic. […]

cloud
White House

Leaders from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in a blog post today that the White House’s FY2023 budget request released on March 28 – if its provisions become law – will help to move forward the Federal workforce focus that is part of the President’s Management Agenda published last year.  […]

capitol washington dc senate house congress-min
IT
chips

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, this week urged Congress to move toward final passage of legislation that would provide $52 billion of funding to reinvigorate the U.S. semiconductor industry and aid the domestic automotive industry. […]

funding

The Department of Defense (DoD) would refill its coffers for cyber investments with $11.2 billion in funding for cyberspace activities under the White House’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2023 – which proposes to hike DoD’s cybersecurity-related funding by nearly $1 billion from the prior-year request. […]

A pair of Senate votes late on March 28 has cleared the way for a House-Senate conference committee to work out remaining differences on semiconductor and innovation legislation that will combine the House-passed America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength (COMPETES) Act and Senate-approved United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). […]

IRS

The IRS is planning to have employees return to their traditional offices in a phased telework approach, according to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), with the first phase of employee returns set for May. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is ready to authorize more than $313 million in funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for new broadband deployments in 19 states. […]

FCC
CISA

On December 13, 2020, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive that called for agencies to disconnect or turn off any SolarWinds Orion products by noon the following day, due to an exploit of Orion network monitoring software that posed a “grave risk” to agencies, critical infrastructure providers, and other private-sector organizations. […]

The White House released President Biden’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget request today, with a top-line number of $5.8 trillion and featuring proposals to spend $10.9 billion for civilian cybersecurity measures – marking an 11 percent increase in civilian agency cyber spending from reported FY2022 levels. […]

TMF

The Biden administration is asking for $300 million of additional money for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) in Fiscal Year 2023 – an amount that would backfill most of the $320 million that the fund has awarded to Federal agencies since it received its $1 billion infusion in the American Rescue Plan Act last year. […]

General Services Administration GSA
Federal money spending government

The U.S. Army has appointed Michael Sulmeyer as the service branch’s new principal cyber adviser, taking the helm from Terry Mitchell who was appointed to the position in September 2020. […]

Air Force

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is investing in its Cloud One platform to modernize and make applications more portable. However, according to an agency official, executing a migration program of this size is not without its challenges. […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced $68 million in funding for its latest round of Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) awards on March 23, as well as its third application window for ECF funding, which it says will likely be the last round before the program’s funding is exhausted. […]

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