As the number of cyberattacks impacting critical infrastructure continues to grow, members of Congress and representatives from the Department of Energy (DoE), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed that more needs to be done to protect the electric grid from a potentially “devastating” cyberattack. […]

The White House’s announcement today of a proposed rulemaking requiring the Federal government to boost its purchases of American-made goods does not appear to impact existing regulations for the purchase of commercial IT products, at least thus far. […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are seeking input on the implementation plan for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), according to a request for information (RFI) posted to the Federal register. […]

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology approved four technology and innovation-related bills by voice vote during a markup session on July 27. The committee’s vote sends these four bills to the House floor for further consideration. […]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is looking for a contractor to evaluate the EEOC’s Digital Process Transformation and Automation (DPTA), according to a request for quotation (RFQ) on SAM.gov. […]

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued new guidance on Friday evening to assist agencies in their office reentry plans and policies, offering answers to frequently asked questions surrounding telework and reentry personnel policies. […]

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a Joint Cyber Planning Office (JCPO), and an official from DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told Congress today the unit will soon launch the effort. […]

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today that the agency’s $2.1 billion cybersecurity budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 is “critical” to the agency’s mission of protecting the United States.  […]

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development earlier this month appointed Beth Niblock as the agency’s new CIO, succeeding David Chow, who left the agency in January. […]

The Access Board is looking for a contractor to help the agency move to a new electronic records management system and provide ongoing operation and maintenance, according to a request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov. […]

Amid a nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that all healthcare staff will be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The VA is the first Federal agency to mandate its personnel receive the vaccine, though other agencies have publicly encouraged their staff to be vaccinated. […]

A bipartisan group of House Oversight and Reform Committee leadership is urging the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to seek money from the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) to help deal with a backlog of about 500,000 records requests from veterans who need the information from NARA’s National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to receive benefits. […]

Alma Cole stepped down last week as Chief Information Security Officer at the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) component after more than four years on the job. […]

Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., has filed companion legislation in the House to a Senate bill introduced in June that would invest $30 billion in deferred maintenance projects and infrastructure improvements at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) network of National Labs. […]

The Department of Energy (DoE) has released an updated version of its Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2) with updates to address the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, DoE’s Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) unit announced July 21. […]

A State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that the agency lacks integrated financial management and procurement IT systems to support efficient contracting operations and a knowledge management strategy to efficiently store and retrieve essential information. […]

The Senate has confirmed Heidi Shyu, a former assistant secretary of the Army, to serve as the under secretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense (DoD). […]

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government Reform and Operations announced the witness list for the FITARA 12.0 hearing on July 28. Federal CIO Clare Martorana headlines the list of four witnesses, according to a release today by the committee. […]

New bicameral legislation was introduced July 22 by various members of the House and Senate that would provide $40 billion over five years to extend the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Emergency Connectivity Fund that was created under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. […]

The House of Representatives passed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Capabilities Enhancement Act on July 20, and the bill now has bipartisan companion legislation in the Senate. […]

A group of House lawmakers that has been studying Defense Department (DoD) supply chain concerns has given the Pentagon a list of high-level recommendations to address supply chain risks going forward. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) unveiled its outside the continental United States (OCONUS) cloud strategy last month, which strives to enable an all-domain advantage for international operations through cloud innovation. Officials from DoD and Rackspace Government Solutions stopped by MeriTalk’s Cloud Café July 15 to talk about OCONUS and the benefits and challenges to cloud modernization. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said on June 22 it completed its markup of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes a $1 billion increase in funds for programs developing AI, microelectronics, advanced materials, 5G, and biotechnology. […]

Dan McCune, the acting associate deputy assistant secretary of the Enterprise Program Management Office at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), talked about major themes in the agency’s IT modernization approach during a virtual webinar hosted by Federal News Network on July 21.  […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has named 18 firms it will work with on NCCoE’s Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture Project. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is considering an open-source registrar platform for the .gov domain, according to a new request for information (RFI) on SAM.gov. […]

While the announced framework for the bipartisan infrastructure plan agreed to last month includes $65 billion for broadband infrastructure deployment, Republican senators on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee are urging House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other negotiators to pull the broadband portion of legislation from the compromise agreement, and instead try to get it approved as a separate piece of legislation under normal rules. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee has scheduled a public hearing for July 28 at 2:00 p.m. EST for the release of the 12th edition of its FITARA Scorecard which rates major Federal agencies across a range of IT-related topics. […]

Guy Cavallo has been named permanent CIO at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – removing the “Acting” portion of the title that he assumed at the agency in March, according to an internal OPM communication today. […]

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not always protected Mobile Passport Control (MPC) applications from cybersecurity threats, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]