The House of Representatives will vote Dec. 9 on a one-week extension of the continuing budget resolution (CR) which is set to run out on Dec. 11 – avoiding an imminent Federal government shutdown for a lack of funding. […]
The House of Representatives has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2021 today. The bill passed with a veto-proof majority, undercutting President Trump threats on Twitter to veto the ‘must-pass’ legislation. […]
Following the 11th hour exclusion of his bill to codify the Federal Risk Assessment and Management Program (FedRAMP) into law from must-pass defense legislation, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said he’s interested in giving the measure another push after the 117th Congress begins in January 2021. […]
President-elect Joe Biden said today he will nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The nomination will be subject to Senate confirmation. Becerra is a former member of Congress and would become the first Latino to head HHS. […]
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is leading a bipartisan group of 49 members of Congress urging Senate and House leadership to include in end-of-year legislation language to make permanent Medicare telehealth expansions that were enacted earlier this year. […]
House Republicans have named Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee for the 117th Congress that begins in January 2021. She succeeds retiring Rep. Greg Walden, D-Ore., and will become the first woman to hold a leadership role on the committee, which has a high profile on a variety of tech issues. […]
Cybersecurity leaders in Washington are rejoicing as the proposed 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes the creation of a Senate-confirmed National Cyber Director for the executive branch, among a host of other security provisions. However, while both Senate and House leadership have signed off on the bill, its future remains uncertain as President Trump has threatened via Twitter to veto the legislation. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is launching an inspector general (IG) investigation into Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) warrantless tracking of phones after an inquiry from Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. […]
Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Armed Services Committee said today they have reached agreement on provisions of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). […]
The chairs of 23 House committees and subcommittees sent a letter to Federal agency heads on Nov. 25 inquiring about the extent to which Trump administration political appointees may have “burrowed” into more permanent employment with the government through conversion of their jobs into civil service positions. […]
A bill introduced in the Senate Nov. 18 by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio would charge the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with reporting to Congress on the impact of the Chinese government’s influence in setting global standards for emerging technologies. […]
House and Senate leaders have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to provide multiple briefings to members of Congress on how the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is going about implementing President Trump’s controversial executive order to create a new “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions. […]
House Democratic committee leaders didn’t get the briefing they wanted on Monday from General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily Murphy on why she has not yet made a judgement that Joe Biden is the apparent winner of the 2020 presidential election, so they pressed for a briefing session on Tuesday. […]
Few things seem to unite Republicans and Democrats these days, but President Trump’s abrupt firing of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs seems to be one of the issues bucking that trend. President Trump fired Krebs via his Twitter account on Tuesday evening, prompting a mix of outrage and disapproval from members of Congress […]
The House on Nov. 17 approved by voice vote a bill that would provide $750 million of Federal funding grants to support the deployment of Open Radio Access Network (RAN) 5G wireless networks in the U.S. […]
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. […]