Robin Carnahan, President Biden’s nominee for administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), sailed through a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing today while offering commitments to create a more user-friendly GSA and support digital infrastructure investments. […]
Federal and state government chief data officers (CDO) discussed agency strategies and best practices for data governance at a FedInsider digital roundtable event on June 9 against the backdrop of Federal Chief Data Officer Council efforts to establish government-wide best practices for the management, use, protection, and generation of data. […]
As Federal agencies work to implement the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract – which offers a governmentwide solution-based vehicle to address Federal agency IT telecommunications and infrastructure requirements – the Department of Labor (DOL) is proving to be among best-in-class agencies at those modernization efforts. […]
The White House today released the first fruits of a February executive order that has Federal agencies looking at ways to improve supply chain security in several key critical infrastructure areas. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded a 12-year $725 million contract to AT&T to modernize the agency’s IP-based data communication platform and drive mission outcomes. […]
Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a binding operational directive (BOD) requiring the Federal government to develop and publish vulnerability disclosure policies (VDP). CISA announced today it has chosen vendors for its VDP platform. […]
Cross-agency collaboration – which has been important to the larger Federal IT mission for years, and became even more so during coronavirus pandemic – is due for further acceleration as the next mechanism in how government works together, Federal officials said on June 7. […]
While legislation from 2018 sought to have the Social Security Administration (SSA) enter into agreements with states to share and match SSA and child welfare data, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey has found that some state child welfare agencies are identifing challenges to participating in these data exchanges. […]
Digital vaccine credentials can be used to certify that a person has been vaccinated or tested for COVID-19, but those tools come with challenges that can limit the use of the credentials including security and health data privacy concerns, the Federal government’s chief watchdog agency said. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a five-year, $674 million contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to support the growth of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Advana data analytics platform to improve decision making across the organization. […]
The Department of Labor (DOL) – and numerous state governments that the agency assists – struggled during the coronavirus pandemic to ramp up unemployment insurance (UI) programs to meet sharp increases in demand. Some of the principal culprits, according to DOL’s inspector general (IG), were legacy systems, insufficient staffing resources to manage increased unemployment claims, and unclear and untimely Employment and Training Administration (ETA) guidance. […]
The IRS is successfully using a new authority from Congress to streamline and expedite the hiring process for bonus-eligible IT hires, according to a report from the Treasury Inspector General to Tax Administration (TIGTA). […]
A senior official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today the Federal government’s process of modernizing its IT systems to achieve better cybersecurity may be a decades-long process. […]
President Biden’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 budget includes an estimated $58.439 billion in IT spending for Federal civilian agencies, and $500 million for the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), according to a budget breakdown the White House released today. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) strategic review of the VA’s Electronic Health Records (EHR) program has found that the agency underestimated program costs by between $1 billion and $2.6 billion. […]
Legislation to establish a Blockchain Center of Excellence (CoE) within the Department of Commerce was reintroduced in the House on May 25. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is working on a review about the Federal government’s security clearance operations that will both praise progress that the government has made over the past three years in reducing clearance application backlogs, and flag several continuing shortcomings that need fixing. […]
For government agencies and other organizations that face the daunting task of modernizing their IT systems to meet new and developing requirements, the greatest technical risk they face is maintaining the status quo. […]
In a Senate Appropriations Committee review of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget request today, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas emphasized the importance of building resilience among the nation’s cybersecurity and the cyber workforce. […]
President Biden announced today he plans to nominate Matt Olsen for Assistant Attorney General (AG) for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ). […]
Keith Nakasone, the General Service Administration’s (GSA) IT Category Deputy Assistant Commissioner, will step down from his post on June 1, GSA confirmed to MeriTalk. In his place, Cheryl Thornton-Cameron will step into his role in an acting capacity. […]
Dave Zvenyach, director of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services (TTS) organization, said today he is aiming for TTS to help Federal agencies speed technology development in several areas. But he explained that in some cases, TTS assistance also takes the form of less tech-flashy work such as preparing agencies for new deployments by working through governance and policy issues. […]
With more and more people putting their trust in cryptocurrencies, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is beginning to research how to crack and decrypt crypto wallets that have been subject to seizure and forfeiture, according to a May 20 request for information (RFI) posted to SAM.gov. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced today that it has completed the integration of beta.SAM.gov and SAM.gov. […]
Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., introduced a bill May 18 that aims to accelerate the advancement of supercomputing programs at the Department of Energy (DoE). […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded a $1.1 billion contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to assist the department with its Benefits Integration Platform (BIP) initiative. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has outlined 28 priority open recommendations for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in a new report, which include items involving information technology and timely COVID-19 data collection. […]
House Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Gerry Connolly, D-Va., is asking the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to proceed with caution as it decides when and to what degree to have Federal employees return to their traditional office workplaces. […]
In a short executive session today, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee advanced the nomination of Eric Lander to be the next director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). His nomination will now go to the full Senate for consideration. […]
New legislation introduced in the Senate today would authorize $100 million of Federal spending per year, for a period of seven years, to help state and local governments take quick action on fixing pressing IT problems. […]