Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said today that he introduced legislation – the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Reform Act – which would codify the FedRAMP program in Federal law and address what the congressman said are shortcomings of the program, including the slow pace of implementing standardized practices and realizing efficiencies in the certification process. […]
The White House called on the Senate to appropriate FY2019 funding for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), although it did not suggest a specific funding level in a statement of administration policy issued by the Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday approved the Securing the Homeland Security Supply Chain Act (HR 6430), which would authorize the Homeland Security Secretary to take a variety of actions to curb supply chain risk including actions to exclude certain contractors in order to address “urgent national security interest.” […]
Congress, in its conference report for the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019 released earlier this week, is demanding more transparency from the Pentagon regarding the agency’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee today voted to recommend two bills, the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act and the Department of Homeland Security Chief Data Officer Authorization Act, aimed at strengthening and solidifying IT operations of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and to guard against evolving cybersecurity threats. […]
After the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2019 cleared a major hurdle late yesterday with the release of a conference report that reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of the bills, techies across the Federal government are finding that IT modernization and innovation amendments for the Pentagon fared well in the legislation. […]
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2019 took a big step toward passage with the release of the conference report late yesterday that unifies House and Senate NDAA legislation and places in sharp focus concerns about growing cyber and electronic warfare threats and ways that the United States should address them. […]
The House today approved by voice vote the ACCESS BROADBAND Act (HR 3994), which would direct the Department of Commerce (DoC) to establish an Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. […]
Support for S. 2593, the Secure Elections Act of 2018, is growing in the Senate as four more legislators signed on as cosponsors late last week. […]
House Democrats led by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., on Thursday introduced a suite of bills aimed at countering Russian interference in American elections, just moments after House Republicans voted down an amendment to provide $380 million in grants to improve state election security. […]
As the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2019 makes its way through the House-Senate conference process, Senate Republicans today agreed to drop their ban on China-based communications equipment maker ZTE in favor of the House’s more lenient version of that measure. […]
Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, introduced legislation today to codify into law the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program, in order “to advance and modernize” the program and ensure procedural policies for it. […]
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) on Tuesday approved two bills that would put procedures in place to swiftly terminate underperforming Federal employees, adding legislative fuel to the fire burning over Federal workforce rights further stoked by President Trump’s recent executive orders. […]
During today’s House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection hearing to discuss oversight of the Federal Trade Commission, Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said she was introducing legislation calling for a common definition of blockchain. […]
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) on Tuesday approved by voice vote a bill which would allow Federal agency heads to limit access to certain websites or deploy cybersecurity measures if they feel that it is necessary to secure their IT systems, but not before strong vocal dissent about the scope of the legislation. […]
Members of the House Energy and Commerce’s Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee expressed broad agreement today that the Federal government needs to do more to promote the availability of broadband service in underserved and unserved areas of the United States, but appeared to signal little in the way of any unified sentiment to coalesce around any of several existing bills that aim for that goal. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today approved by voice vote a measure that would direct Federal agencies to study Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and whether to regulate them, along with two others aimed at spurring further rollout of broadband services in mostly rural areas of the United States. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., today introduced legislation that would create a Federal Acquisition Security Council to oversee creation of a government-wide strategy to address supply IT chain security and mitigate supply chain security threats from IT equipment and service purchases. […]
The Senate this afternoon convened to discuss H.R. 5515, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA), which is headed for a vote later tonight and is expected to be approved. […]
The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), passed by Congress in December 2014, represented the first major legislative overhaul of Federal IT in nearly 20 years. Beginning in November 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two scorecards a year grading agencies’ performance under the law. Suffice to say, agencies haven’t always been making the GAO’s Honor Roll, with plenty of Cs and Ds to go around. However, many agencies have made significant improvements over the last 3 years. […]
Reps. Bill Foster, D-Ill., and Mark Takano, D-Calif., deserve a big thumbs up for introducing legislation on Thursday to reopen the Office of Technology Assessment–OTA. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will lead the charge in the Senate. […]
On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) online filing and payment portals went down for several hours. Tax Day, the biggest day of the year for IRS, and systems gave only cryptic messages with erroneous dates for “planned maintenance.” No doubt this wasn’t in the plan. […]
Eyes tend to glaze over at an Appropriations hearing. Seems Congress just pushed through the 2018 Omnibus spending bill, and the House is already back talking budgets for FY19. […]
Opening day for the Nationals might be a week away, but four Beltway insiders have already knocked one out of the park. The latest omnibus spending bill, which passed through the Senate early Friday morning, includes $100 million for the MGT Act’s centralized revolving capital fund. President Trump signed the MGT Act into law late last year as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. […]
The House subcommittees on Information Technology and Government Operations held a “State of Play” Federal IT Hearing Wednesday for the latest updates on ongoing modernization efforts, and the tone was resolute and unflinching. […]
Federal CIOs and industry execs gathered on the Hill Thursday evening to celebrate the passage of the Modernizing Government Technology–MGT–Act and map the path ahead. Judging by the standing-room-only crowd, seems government, industry, and the Hill are betting big on the legacy IT euthanasia program to break Federal IT’s failing status quo. […]