The House Homeland Security and Oversight and Reform committees held a joint public hearing today to discuss the Russia-based hack of government and private sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products. During the hearing, both the private sector witnesses and members of Congress called for better cybersecurity practices, legislation, and increased information sharing. […]

Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Gerry Connolly, D-Va., indicated today that his office is considering the March-April timeframe for a hearing on the most recent FITARA Scorecard that was issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee in late December 2020. […]

The House Rules Committee will take its turn with the American Rescue Act on Feb. 26 at 9:30 a.m., bringing the COVID-19 relief bill one step closer to a full House vote. […]

The Senate Budget Committee and the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee postponed scheduled Wednesday votes on the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). […]

Microsoft President Brad Smith – whose company is no stranger to high-profile Federal contract award protests – urged steps to reexamine the bid protest process during testimony at a Feb. 23 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on emerging technologies and national security. […]

Speaking today during an open hearing on the hacking of U.S. networks by foreign adversaries, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., questioned why the U.S. shouldn’t have mandatory cyberattack reporting systems in light of the recent Russia-backed hack of government and private sector networks via SolarWinds software products. […]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. EST on ways to “rebuild” the Federal workforce after four years of bruising under the Trump administration, including a late 2020 bid to establish a new classification for policy-related Federal positions. […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee met Feb. 11 to begin marking up the legislative language it will report to the House Budget Committee as part of the reconciliation process. Currently, there is $7.6 billion allocated by the committee to bolster the E-Rate program, as well as funding for COVID-19 testing and data management. […]

The road to better cybersecurity for government and the private sector looks like a long, uphill climb, with no concept of a finish line. […]

President Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Neera Tanden faced questions on cybersecurity, IT modernization, and supply chain during her confirmation hearing today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. […]

The Senate voted late Monday to confirm President Biden’s nomination of Denis McDonough as secretary to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The vote was 87-7. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 9 at 9:15 a.m. EST on President Biden’s nomination of Neera Tanden to become Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). […]

Though the legislative machinations may be tricky, the bottom line is that the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is headed to likely Senate approval early next week. […]

Nine Democratic senators are pressing the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the U.S. Courts for a briefing and information about exactly what data was compromised by the SolarWinds hack in a letter to the departments. […]

The Senate today voted to confirm President Biden’s pick for Secretary of the Department of Defense (DoD) Lloyd Austin. […]

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) annual assessment of acquisition programs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found 10 programs to have been in breach of either baseline cost or schedule at some point in 2020 and five were in breach as of September 2020. […]

Ret. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Defense Secretary, faced a barrage of cybersecurity questions during his Jan. 19 confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. […]

In a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), laid out his vision for the nation’s cybersecurity and promised to make it a priority if confirmed. […]

Senior House Republicans pointed today to the still-unfolding situation on Russian-backed hacking of government networks via SolarWinds software to call for passage of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the cybersecurity elements that the legislation features. […]

In a politically charged Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing today, former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Chris Krebs reassured the committee and the general public that the 2020 General Election was the most secure in U.S. history. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the completion of all IT initiatives for the implementation of the Forever GI Bill – also known as the Colmery Act – and the full deployment of associated software and systems, finishing the implementation of a policy initiative that initially put VA’s IT in the headlines for the wrong reasons. […]

New legislation being prepared by House leaders will aim to track the promulgation of any “midnight” regulations by the outgoing Trump administration with an eye to amending or eliminating any eleventh-hour rules that are not based on “evidence and research.” […]

House and Senate leaders have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to provide multiple briefings to members of Congress on how the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is going about implementing President Trump’s controversial executive order to create a new “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions. […]

The House on Nov. 17 approved by voice vote a bill that would provide $750 million of Federal funding grants to support the deployment of Open Radio Access Network (RAN) 5G wireless networks in the U.S. […]

The chairs of the House Judiciary and Oversight and Reform committees warned the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) against engaging in “midnight rulemakings” in the waning days of the Trump administration that don’t give Congress adequate time to review the new rules. […]

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a warning to the Trump administration late Thursday to leave in place senior leadership at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other national security agencies “to ensure the security and continuity of government operations” for the incoming administration of President-Elect Biden. […]

A bipartisan group of senators and representatives have introduced the Oversight.gov Authorization Act, which would formally authorize the establishment and maintenance of the Oversight.gov website. […]

Count Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., as a “no” vote at this point on at least one aspect of the Defense Department’s (DoD) request for information (RFI) issued last month that solicits public input on a range of issues involving the Pentagon’s plans to deploy 5G wireless services. […]

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee want the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report on how the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is handling cybersecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, they said in an October 9 letter. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said today that the $1 billion funding increase for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) included in the slimmed down HEROES Act pandemic relief legislation is probably not big enough to spur Federal agencies to undertake widespread IT modernization, but agreed that winning approval for the huge funding increase would be a good first step. […]