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). […]
A group of tech trade groups is telling Congress that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) needs a larger budget next year to start putting in place long-term security improvements to meet the rising tide of sophisticated cyberattacks against government and industry. […]
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. […]
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-CA, announced May 20 that Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, will serve as House co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus – succeeding former Rep. Doug Collins in the spot. […]
The Defense Department (DoD) is working to foster innovation in the information technology space, and is due to report findings of an assessment of its research engineering workforce later this year, a DoD official told members of Congress today. […]
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. […]
The House Homeland Security Committee voted May 18 to advance five bills that would look to improve the nation’s cybersecurity in several areas, including protecting pipeline infrastructure, testing cybersecurity readiness, and improving state and local cybersecurity, among others. […]
The Endless Frontier bill championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and set for Senate floor debate over the next several days has grown by leaps and bounds this week with the addition of semiconductor manufacturing and cybersecurity components and has even gotten a new name – the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. […]
Senators expressed concern that the Department of Defense (DoD) is not doing enough to support small businesses in the defense industrial base (DIB) to implement or subsidize cybersecurity protocols, including the DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certificate (CMMC) at a May 18 Senate Subcommittee on Cybersecurity hearing. […]
An internal review of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program has been completed, according to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who said he understands that the DoD review will produce “significant” changes to the program. […]
Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., ranking member of the House Government Operations Subcommittee, urged the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in a May 18 letter to bring Federal employees back to their pre-pandemic workplaces quickly, or explain how the Biden administration will deal going forward with the billions of dollars it spends on currently underutilized facilities if Federal employees continue large-scale work from other locations. […]
The Senate late on May 17 voted to proceed with debate on the Endless Frontier Act, a bill introduced in April with broad bipartisan sponsorship that would pour $100 billion of Federal spending over five years into research and development spending on ten hot-button tech areas. […]
With the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack adding to the count of high-profile cyberattacks to make news in the past six months, members of Congress focused in on how the United States can deter such attacks, as well as how to attract talent to the cyber workforce, at a May 14 House Armed Services subcommittee hearing. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted on May 13 to approve and send to the House floor for consideration the Chai Suthammanont Remembrance Act (H.R. 978), which was reintroduced by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., in February and aims to give Federal workers more information about office-place safety plans. […]
Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing to discuss the disparities in broadband access and affordability across the country with Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., calling for government intervention to invest where the marketplace doesn’t support broadband. […]
In a move to modernize financial reporting to the government and enable AI capabilities across new data sets, Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., introduced a bill on May 4 that would make the information reported to Federal financial regulatory agencies electronically searchable. […]
Technology leaders in Congress and industry groups with a stake in Federal IT both applauded the Biden administration’s move today to relax Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) payback requirements in order to quickly put $1 billion of new funding to work to shore up agency cyber defenses and upgrade critical systems. The change in traditional TMF […]
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., reintroduced the Consumer Data Privacy and Security Act, which is intended to provide Federal standards and regulations for American businesses that collect, process, and use consumers’ personally identifiable data. […]
A bipartisan group of senators has reintroduced the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2021, which would expand coverage of telehealth services through Medicare and make permanent COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities. […]
A bipartisan group of senators has reintroduced the Rural STEM Education Act, which would provide Federal support for STEM training in rural schools and instruct the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide grants to support training for rural STEM teachers. […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the start of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program, which will allow eligible households to receive a monthly discount off broadband service costs from an approved provider as of May 12, 2021. […]
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation advanced a number of bipartisan bills out of committee in an executive session today including four with tech implications. Those bills are a telecommunications workforce bill, one on tech research, one that would map broadband connectivity and maternal health outcomes, and another to protect victims of domestic violence. […]
Members of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission are asking the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee to increase funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) by at least $400 million, with some of that funding intended to make sure that CISA’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program can quickly deploy security tools. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today approved the nomination of Kiran Ahuja to become the next director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). […]
President Biden’s American Families Plan announced today proposes providing two years of subsidized tuition and expansion of programs in high-demand fields— such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)— at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs). […]
Republicans in Congress on April 22 presented their own version of a framework to improve infrastructure in the United States. While it doesn’t look too much like President Biden’s much larger American Jobs Plan infrastructure proposal, for tech-related issues the key overlap appears to be funding for broadband infrastructure expansion. […]
Three Democratic senators today asked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to take a “flexible” approach in deploying $1 billion of new Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) money for Federal agencies to use to improve their IT systems, including adjusting or removing requirements for agencies to reimburse the TMF with savings generated from projects that get money from the fund. […]
Congress is about democracy – and congress understands that tech and innovation are changing everything – and that change holds peril and promise for all Americans and global democracy. […]
Federal Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) saved the government an estimated $53 billion through investigations in fiscal year 2020, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) reported in its annual report to Congress and the President. […]