New legislation introduced by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., aims to tighten up oversight of Federal agency performance goals, and publish more public data to help track how agencies are performing against stated goals. […]
The Senate held a series of votes May 4 to instruct its 26 conferees on the direction the chamber wants them to take in negotiations on the USICA/COMPETES semiconductor, innovation, and competition legislation working its way through Congress. […]
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said during an Axios virtual event today that she is confident her bipartisan cryptocurrency legislation with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., will allow members of Congress to find “common ground” and a better understanding of digital assets. […]
A bipartisan bill introduced in the House this week aims to increase oversight and regulatory clarity of the growing cryptocurrency market, and provide the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with oversight authority of the market. […]
House and Senate negotiators are slated to begin their formal conferencing process this week to hammer out a final version of legislation that would deliver billions of Federal funding to innovation-directed programs and jump-start United States semiconductor production, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said April 25. […]
New legislation filed by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., on April 20 would create additional legal protections for metadata generated by customers of online service providers and stored in cloud-based systems, in addition to the content of the electronic communications that they generate. […]
As the IRS faces a backlog of about 23.5 million tax returns and pieces of correspondence stretching back to the 2020 tax season, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee called on the agency Thursday to modernize its IT systems and invest in scanning technology to improve efficiency. […]
A new report from the United States Postal Service (USPS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is calling on the agency to improve its online identity verification controls after finding the number of fraudulent change of addresses (COAs) has increased by 167 percent. […]
Leaders of the House Oversight and Reform Committee are launching an investigation into identity verification contractor ID.me, citing concerns about the efficacy, security, and privacy of its facial recognition technology that is used by millions of Americans seeking access to government services. […]
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), found that water surveillance technology has allowed public health officials to detect community-level disease outbreaks and even identify COVID-19 outbreaks one to two weeks sooner than clinical testing. However, GAO found a lack of national coordination and standardized methods leads to challenges with wider adoption of the tech. […]
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., wrote a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) urging it to address an issue with its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program that requires a double-entry process for pharmacists to prescribe medication to veterans. […]
Shortly before heading out of town for a two-week home-district work period, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress named a whopping 87 members to a conference committee that will work out differences between the House and Senate versions of a competition and innovation bill that includes $52 billion in semiconductor funding, funding for a new tech directorate at the National Science Foundation, and big boosts in Federal research and development funding. […]
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform on April 6 approved legislation that would open a new pipeline for computer equipment from the Federal government to students and veterans. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee on April 6 voted to approve the Access for Veterans to Records Act that aims to cut down the backlog of veterans’ records requests at the National Personnel Records Center, which is housed in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). […]
In an effort to better protect critical infrastructure, House representatives and Federal cybersecurity officials spoke today about how to most effectively identify the nation’s most systemically important critical infrastructure. […]
The House voted on April 5 to approve legislation that would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revamp and improve their memorandum of understanding (MOU) on spectrum coordination. […]
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., today introduced legislation that would allocate $60 million to addressing the backlog of requests for records at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved several legislative measures during a mark-up session on March 30 that would kickstart satellite sector cybersecurity efforts, aim to boost Federal agency healthcare security, and improve government contracting processes. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved legislation on March 30 that would jumpstart IT modernization efforts for Federal agencies – but at the same time rejected an amendment to the bill that would help pay for that effort. […]
Two key Biden administration nominations to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) failed to win approval today from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as the committee deadlocked with 7-7 votes on both nominations. […]
President Biden’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 proposed budget includes a proposed increase in Federal spending on research and development (R&D) to $86 billion, up from the estimated $79.7 billion from FY2022. […]
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said this week that “the time is now” to start proposing legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies, as digital assets only continue to grow in popularity in the United States. […]
Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, have introduced legislation to identify and address potential conflicts of interest within the Federal contracting community. […]
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, this week urged Congress to move toward final passage of legislation that would provide $52 billion of funding to reinvigorate the U.S. semiconductor industry and aid the domestic automotive industry. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) would refill its coffers for cyber investments with $11.2 billion in funding for cyberspace activities under the White House’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2023 – which proposes to hike DoD’s cybersecurity-related funding by nearly $1 billion from the prior-year request. […]
A pair of Senate votes late on March 28 has cleared the way for a House-Senate conference committee to work out remaining differences on semiconductor and innovation legislation that will combine the House-passed America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength (COMPETES) Act and Senate-approved United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). […]
A new piece of legislation introduced in the Senate aims to update guidance for how Federal agencies go about providing specialized or technical services to state and local governments (SLGs). The bill would update existing guidance which was put in place in 1969. […]
Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., are working together on a bipartisan bill that would provide clarity on the United States’ regulation of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, the pair announced March 24 at an event organized by Politico. […]
Bipartisan members of the House of Representatives have introduced legislation that would reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI), which is the U.S. Secret Service’s Federally-funded training hub for digital evidence and cybercrime investigations. […]
Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced a bill on March 23 that aims to reduce the Federal government’s reliance on outdated and obsolete information technologies (IT) by requiring agency officials to inventory their “legacy” IT systems and come up with plans to modernize systems. […]