The FedRAMP Authorization Act sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., has been nearly four years in the making without crossing the goal line. But after the House approved the bill earlier this year, Rep. Connolly said today that the House is “working in lockstep” with Senate colleagues to hopefully pass the bill in 2021. […]

Without a secure, reliable, and trustworthy digital identity system for people, entities, and things, the increasingly digital new reality is vulnerable to attacks, threatening individual safety and national security. […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Tim Kaine, D-Va., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, reintroduced the Chai Suthammanont Remembrance Act on July 14, which requires government agencies to establish COVID-19 safety plans to protect Federal workers returning to the office. […]

Bicameral, bipartisan legislation introduced by four lawmakers this week aims to create international security standards with American allies for emerging technology research such as AI and quantum science. […]

Senate-approved legislation that would boost Federal funding for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing and provide the National Science Foundation (NSF) with another $52 billion over five years for research initiatives received strong endorsements from private sector witnesses at a July 15 Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing. […]

A House Appropriations subcommittee late Monday approved the just-released Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2022. […]

Republican members of Congress have written separate letters to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing concerns about the companies’ collection of data on students, among other issues. […]

The House Appropriations Committee agreed with the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) $4.8 billion IT systems budget request for Fiscal Year 2022, but cut $26 million from the VA’s request for funding for its electronic health records (EHR) project. […]

Reps. Bill Foster, D-Ill., John Katko, R-N.Y., Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., have introduced legislation that aims to modernize the United States’ digital identity infrastructure and protect Americans from having their personal information stolen. […]

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., have introduced a bill that would direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to study the risks and benefits of allowing private organizations to respond in kind to cyberattacks. […]

For once, the biggest problem with engineering effective IT modernization may not boil down to a lack of money to tackle the job. That conclusion was a top-line takeaway from Republicans, Democrats, and private sector experts at a hearing of the House Government Operations Subcommittee hearing today on how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed state and local governments’ antiquated IT systems, and what governments should do about it now that pandemic conditions are easing in many areas. […]

The House of Representatives on Monday evening passed by wide margins two potential and complementary alternatives to the Senate-approved United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA), both of which would funnel tens of billions of new research funding to Federal government agencies. […]

President Biden on June 26 pledged his support for a separate voting track in Congress for legislation containing a $1.2 trillion compromise infrastructure agreement that the White House reached last week with a bipartisan group of senators. […]

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., is calling on Inspectors General (IGs) from select agencies to assess the impact of telework agency missions, employee performance, and service during the pandemic. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today approved by voice vote the Biden administration’s nominees to lead the General Services Administration (GSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and to take the role of National Cyber Director. […]

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Angus King, I-Maine, introduced a bipartisan bill that aims to close the digital divide and promote “digital equity” utilizing $250 million in annual grants, according to a press release. […]

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., introduced a bill that, if passed, would commission a study on blockchain technology and digital currency, and another on how artificial intelligence (AI) can aid the Consumer Product Safety Commission. […]

A week after seeking information on ransom pay from two other ransomware victims, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent a June 10 letter to JBS Foods USA asking for information about its reported decision to pay an $11 million ransom, the committee announced. […]

After a Senate committee hearing yesterday, Colonial Pipeline’s president and CEO was back in front of Congress today, appearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security for a hearing about last month’s ransomware attack. There he expressed a need from private industry for the Federal government to pressure the hosts of these ransomware actors. […]

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent letters to ransomware victims Colonial Pipeline Company and CNA Financial Corporation to get more information on their respective decisions to pay ransoms, the committee announced today. […]

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and several chairs of the panel’s key subcommittees today asked inspectors general (IGs) from ten Federal agencies for assessments of any cybersecurity vulnerabilities that were created or worsened by the use of telework systems during the coronavirus pandemic, and whether any such vulnerabilities have been mitigated. […]

Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., reintroduced the K-12 Cybersecurity Act May 27 in an effort to strengthen the cybersecurity of school systems. This is the second time the two introduced the Act, having previously introduced similar legislation in 2019 in the last Congress. […]

Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced legislation on May 27 that would attempt to prevent the use of discriminatory online algorithms, and create a Federal inter-agency task force to investigate the use of algorithm-driven processes. […]

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. […]

President Biden’s FY2022 budget proposal published today envisions an eye-popping $6.01 trillion of Federal spending – up 36 percent from last year’s approved FY2021 budget – with a budget deficit of about $1.8 trillion. […]

The recent Colonial Pipeline hack has made more people aware of the threats that lurk in cyberspace, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, says it’s time for the government to develop a new relationship with the private sector on cybersecurity and take an all-of-society approach to protecting critical infrastructure. “The private sector has been very reluctant […]

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. […]

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. […]

A bill that would take action to block any future moves to assign Federal workers to newly created “excepted” service schedules was approved by the House Oversight and Reform Committee by voice vote on May 25 after some contentious debate. […]

The House Oversight and Reform Committee on May 25 approved by voice vote a bill introduced last month that would make sure that Federal agency CIOs – along with chief data, financial, and human capital officers – are involved in the process of how agency leaders form performance plans for their departments. […]