President-Elect Joe Biden this week urged Congress to approve a COVID-19 stimulus bill similar to the HEROES Act approved by the House earlier this year, but didn’t get into further specifics about what he’d like to see in future relief legislation. […]
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., is joining the senior White House staff of the incoming Biden-Harris administration, putting an experienced legislative voice on cybersecurity and related Federal IT issues in President-Elect Biden’s inner circle. […]
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. […]
The new draft budget bills released by the Senate Committee on Appropriations on November 10 include multiple provisions across departments that will have implications for Federal IT and other modernization projects. […]
With most of the results from the 2020 Election now in, MeriTalk is taking a look at Fed IT leadership changes in both the House and Senate. While the majority of top leaders won their elections handily, a handful either lost or chose not to run for reelection, and for two leaders the race remains too close to call. […]
The draft appropriations bills released by the Senate Committee on Appropriations today would put a pay freeze in place for civilian Federal employees in fiscal year 2021 – falling below even the Trump administration’s one percent pay increase proposal – while providing a three percent pay raise for members of the military, which matches the number from the White House. […]
The Senate Committee on Appropriations has allocated $25 million of new funding for the Technology Modernization Fund – falling below the Trump administration’s budget request of $150 million – as part of the broader draft fiscal year 2021 Financial Services and General Government funding bill released today. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has launched a new training course for military first responders that aims to ensure that domestic violence is effectively recognized as a crime in cases that involve abuse, harassment, and stalking perpetrated through the use of technology. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., welcomed news reports today that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was ceasing efforts to pursue its proposed merger with the General Services Administration (GSA) – a Trump administration proposal that the congressmen has opposed since it was first floated in 2019. […]
A group of Democratic House members led by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., this week introduced the 21st Century Jobs Act which would give the Federal government a major role in research and development support for a host of emerging technologies. […]
A group of 31 House Democrats led by leadership of the House Oversight and Reform Committee asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in an October 28 letter to cease work on implementing President Trump’s executive order that would create a new “Schedule F” classification for policy-involved Federal employees, and make it easier to hire and fire them. […]
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. […]
Senior House Democrats have introduced legislation to reverse President Trump’s controversial executive order that would create a new “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions and make it easier to hire and fire them. […]
A group of Democratic senators wrote to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) to request that the IG investigate alleged warrantless domestic surveillance of phones by DHS’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) component. […]
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., whose northern Virginia congressional district is home to a multitude of Federal government employees, is working on legislation that would aim to overturn last week’s controversial White House executive order that would create a new classification of Federal employees in policy-making positions and make it easier to hire and fire them. […]
President Trump this week signed the US SAFE WEB Extension, which reauthorizes a 2007 law that permits the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action to protect U.S. consumers against cross-border fraud and deception using the internet. […]
A new bill introduced in the House this week would crimp the ability of the White House to curtail Internet access for U.S. citizens, and would put a short time limit on any service curtailment absent approval from Congress. The bipartisan bill offered by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., would limit the […]
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. […]
A group of five senators has sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) urging the agency not to follow through with a plan to expand its collection of biometric information. […]
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a congressionally-chartered group charged with delivering recommendations to improve U.S. cybersecurity, today issued its latest in a series of white papers on the subject – this time urging the U.S. to take steps to protect critical information and technology (ICT) supply chains from Chinese and other adversarial nations. […]
Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced a bill Oct. 16 to improve cybersecurity at K-12 schools. The Enhancing K-12 Cybersecurity Act would work to promote more access to security information, better track attack trends, and increase the number of cybersecurity experts in schools. […]
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. […]
Chairs of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Darren Soto, D-Fla., re-introduced legislation earlier this week to expand government use and the definition of blockchain, ensuring the use of the technology for electronic records and signatures. […]
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. […]
New bipartisan legislation is aimed at addressing transparency issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers (VAMC). […]
On Sept. 30, the House of Representatives approved by voice vote, the Chai Suthammanont Remembrance Act, which is legislation that aims to protect Federal employees from COVID-19. […]
Weeks after the Department of Defense (DoD) asked industry for information regarding how the department could “own and operate 5G networks for domestic operations,” several top Republican senators sent a letter to the White House this week urging the President to “remain on the free-market path” in the 5G wireless race. […]
The House on Sept. 30 approved the Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act, a bill introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would require the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services group to establish a Modernization Centers of Excellence (CoE) “to facilitate the adoption of modern technology by executive agencies.” […]
The House of Representative this week voted to approve a collection of bills that aim to improve cybersecurity in the energy sector, inform the use of emerging technologies, and establish R&D plans. […]