The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced Federal employees will need to wear a mask inside of Federal buildings once again, in light of new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggesting those who are fully vaccinated wear a mask indoors in areas of substantial or high transmission. […]
The White House released a National Security Memorandum (NSM) today containing a new set of actions aimed to strengthen cybersecurity efforts to protect United States critical infrastructure amid the growing number of cyber threats and cyberattacks. […]
The Biden Administration views the future of 5G telecommunications as a key national security issue and a “transformative” technology, Anne Neuberger said today. […]
What’s it take for a major Federal agency to get a better grade on the semiannual FITARA Scorecard issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee – or backslide from previously hard-won gains? […]
The largest Federal agencies as a group made some notable progress on a range of IT-related performance categories in the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s FITARA Scorecard version 12 released by the committee on July 28. […]
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. […]