The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved by voice vote today S.645, the Measuring the Economic Impact of Broadband Act, that would require the Secretary of Commerce to assess and analyze the impact of broadband service deployment and adoption on the United States economy. […]
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said yesterday at a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee she believes committee members are closing in on agreement on a bill that would pilot a predictive analytics program to improve screening tools for the child welfare system. […]
The Trump administration’s ambitious plan to overhaul numerous aspects of Federal civilian agencies received a decidedly mixed reception today at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as several committee members grilled the hearing’s sole witness–Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget–on a range of issues including how the reorganization plan would impact the Federal workforce. […]
Several members of Congress in a June 20 letter urged Google to “reconsider” its business relationship with China-based communications equipment maker Huawei, saying that the partnership between the two companies “could pose a serious risk to U.S. national security and American consumers” because of Huawei’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, which led U.S. intelligence agencies earlier this year to urge Americans not to use Huawei products and services. […]
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said at a hearing today that the Federal government’s focus going forward should be to “prevent and deter” interference with U.S. elections like that perpetrated by the Russian government in 2016, and to “harden” election infrastructure against future interference from Russia and other malicious parties. […]
Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., today introduced legislation that would create a Federal Acquisition Security Council to oversee creation of a government-wide strategy to address supply IT chain security and mitigate supply chain security threats from IT equipment and service purchases. […]
The Senate this afternoon convened to discuss H.R. 5515, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA), which is headed for a vote later tonight and is expected to be approved. […]
Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]
The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), passed by Congress in December 2014, represented the first major legislative overhaul of Federal IT in nearly 20 years. Beginning in November 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two scorecards a year grading agencies’ performance under the law. Suffice to say, agencies haven’t always been making the GAO’s Honor Roll, with plenty of Cs and Ds to go around. However, many agencies have made significant improvements over the last 3 years. […]
The Director of the Office of Personnel Management said this week that the Federal government should take cues from the private sector “gig economy” to leverage quick talent acquisition and short-term work, drawing forceful pushback from a government employees union. […]
Witnesses at a Senate Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet subcommittee hearing about mobile apps on Tuesday pressed senators for action on making more spectrum available for 5G and other services. […]
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen emphasized at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing this week the importance of shoring up United States cyber defenses, and said that effort would be helped by adequate funding and reorganization of a key DHS department. […]
Government and industry experts told members of the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology yesterday that blockchain technology pilots and trials are yielding promising results for supply chain and government operations applications. […]
Language in the House FY 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill calls for the Congressional Research Service to study what scientific and technology policy resources are available to members of Congress. The bill, which sailed through the House Appropriations Committee on May 8, marks another step in reviving the long-shuttered Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). […]
A bill introduced in the House on Thursday would create a series of minimum functionality and security requirements for all Federal government agency public-facing websites and digital services. […]
While members of Congress discussed the nationwide technical skills gap at a hearing on Wednesday, tech-industry advocates on Capitol Hill looked for ways to reduce the cybersecurity sector’s gender gap. […]
For the first time in more than eight years, the House Appropriations committee shuttered its doors when it discussed budget issues with top Pentagon brass late last month. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was in the hot seat during last week’s Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs hearing. […]
A gathering of crows is called a murder. A bunch of kangaroos is called a mob. And a gathering of IGs is–no, not a nuisance–it’s called CIGIE–the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. And, CIGIE’s annual Top Management and Performance Challenges–TPMC report–boiled down IG reports from 61 different agencies–and leads with IT and security management issues across the government. […]
Reps. Bill Foster, D-Ill., and Mark Takano, D-Calif., deserve a big thumbs up for introducing legislation on Thursday to reopen the Office of Technology Assessment–OTA. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will lead the charge in the Senate. […]
On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) online filing and payment portals went down for several hours. Tax Day, the biggest day of the year for IRS, and systems gave only cryptic messages with erroneous dates for “planned maintenance.” No doubt this wasn’t in the plan. […]
Eyes tend to glaze over at an Appropriations hearing. Seems Congress just pushed through the 2018 Omnibus spending bill, and the House is already back talking budgets for FY19. […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s marathon Congressional sessions in front of both the House and Senate have produced countless talking points and incendiary sound bites. […]
The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed by President Trump on Friday gives a sizable boost to the Department of Defense, including a respectable 2.4 percent pay raise for DoD personnel, and for now at least gets Pentagon leaders off the frustrating, and at times wasteful, treadmill of continuing resolutions. And, while the bill doesn’t get into specifics about critical efforts such as cyber operations and artificial intelligence, it does continue programs DoD has underway. […]
Opening day for the Nationals might be a week away, but four Beltway insiders have already knocked one out of the park. The latest omnibus spending bill, which passed through the Senate early Friday morning, includes $100 million for the MGT Act’s centralized revolving capital fund. President Trump signed the MGT Act into law late last year as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. […]
The House subcommittees on Information Technology and Government Operations held a “State of Play” Federal IT Hearing Wednesday for the latest updates on ongoing modernization efforts, and the tone was resolute and unflinching. […]
In times of emergency, state governors have regularly called in the National Guard, for reasons such as assisting the recovery after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or to suppress protests in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. If voting systems are under siege, should they do the same? […]
Federal CIOs and industry execs gathered on the Hill Thursday evening to celebrate the passage of the Modernizing Government Technology–MGT–Act and map the path ahead. Judging by the standing-room-only crowd, seems government, industry, and the Hill are betting big on the legacy IT euthanasia program to break Federal IT’s failing status quo. […]
What’s interesting and fun? Not enough. Join MeriTalk, Congressman Connolly, Maria Roat, CIO at the Small Business Administration, and a host of Federal CIOs, to raise a glass to celebrate the passage of MGT and talk about implementation plans. MeriTalk is hosting a reception on March 1, 5:30-8pm, in the Rayburn Building. […]
Artificial intelligence is sexy–no doubt about it. From self-driving cars to personal assistant technology that can anticipate your every need, the future of AI looks promising. However, the actual technology can be confusing. And rarely does the reality of AI match up to expectations created by Hollywood portrayals. […]