Federal Drive with Tom Temin

After a long stint as the deputy director of the Center for Information Technology at the NIH, Stacie Alboum is about to head to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. At the ACT-IAC emerging technology conference in Cambridge, Maryland earlier this week, I caught up with Alboum. The Federal Drive discussed what her new job will be all about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stalled Senate confirmations won’t stop the Veterans Affairs Department from consolidating its real estate. Federal employee unions are calling on senators not to advance the nominees to the Asset and Infrastructure Review, or AIR Commission. The commission is supposed to review VA’s recommendations to close some of its medical facilities and build others. But the VA says it can get somethings done without the commission. Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman has more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies looking to deploy 5G wireless technology have some new security guidance. The 5G Security Evaluation will help agencies think through the all-important “authority to operate” process. It was developed jointly by the Department of Defense and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. For more, Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday, spoke with the DoD 5G security program lead Dan Massey, and Vincent Sritapan, section chief of CISA’s cyber quality services management office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If the State Department stands for human rights and dignity around the world, then my next guest stands at the center of the State Department. For his career seeing to defend human rights and protect refugees, he's a finalist in this year's Service to America Medals Program. The deputy assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Scott Busby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Office of Special Counsel has had a busy season. It dealt with a landmark Hatch Act violation case that sent one federal employee home without pay for six months. And it found itself at the center of a federal employee lawsuit over the vaccine mandate. Here in studio with a review, Special Counsel Henry Kerner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Incoming presidents must make thousands of nominations to fill out their administrations. In the past two decades, national security nominations have taken longer and longer to make it through Senate confirmation. Some slots stay vacant for years. A new study by the Partnership for Public Service looks into why. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione talked with the organization’s Presidential Transition Center Director, Valerie Smith Boyd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you do recruiting and hiring for your agency, here's a tip. Focus more on what job candidates know how to do, and not so much where they learned it. The Office of Personnel Management is out with guidance on this very strategy. Joining the Federal Drive with more, Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying plans to close a lab in Houston after shuttering other facilities. The EPA at first planned to relocate staff to another facility 400 miles away in Ada, Oklahoma, no later than 2023. Now the agency is pushing those plans back to 2027, citing higher costs than planned to consolidate its footprint. The EPA closed other regional labs over the past few years including in California, Michigan and Nevada. For more on this update, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with the president of AFGE Local 1003 Justin Chen on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Energy Department has a backlog of nuclear waste clean up responsibilities, with material dating back to World War II. But continuing turnover in program leadership means things just aren't happening. For more, Government Accountability Office natural resources and environmental team Director Nathan Anderson spoke with the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Postal Service is probably the biggest public face for the government’s efforts to supply Americans with at-home COVID tests. But behind the scenes, it’s actually the Defense Department that’s doing a lot of the heavy lifting, specifically the Defense Logistics Agency. The agency’s DLA Distribution arm has been in charge of storing and moving those test kits to their final destinations, and tracking the supplies all the way through the process. To talk more about DoD’s role, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to four individuals from DLA Distribution: Commander Maj. Gen. Keith Reventlow, Deputy Commander Perry Knight, Col. Todd Walker, the director for current operations, and Steven Forster, a supply management specialist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fact that government spends more on services than it does on stuff isn’t exactly new. But even within that services portfolio, federal contracts are increasingly consolidated within a relative handful of market segments. According to a new analysis by Bloomberg Government, about a quarter of all federal contract spending goes toward just six categories. AI, Cloud Computing and operations and logistics lead the pack. Larry Allen is President of Allen Federal Business Partners. He joined the Federal Drive as he does often to discuss federal market trends Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Young, top-notch scientists have a shot at recognition from the National Science Foundation. Each year the NSF names an early-career scientist to its Alan T. Waterman award. This year it named three. For what the award is all about and why the foundation has it, Tom spoke to program manager Gayle Pugh Lev. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal contracting comes with more rules, regulations and contract clauses than probably any activity on earth. Now the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs wants to make one of them a bit easier. It's launched a portal for contractors and subs to certify their affirmative action programs. The Federal Drive got details from the OFCCP deputy director for policy, Maya Raghu, who talked about it with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Army’s digital transformation strategy was initially about getting the service to a unity of vision. Seven months later, it’s delivering new capabilities across cloud, data and network modernization. Raj Iyer is the Army’s chief information officer. At the ACT-IAC Emerging Technology and Innovation Conference in Cambridge, Maryland, Iyer tells executive editor Jason Miller about the Army’s progress to bring new technology capabilities to soldiers and civilians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The civilian and defense sides of the government have taken a big step together, to move the Defense Department's innovative, non-traditional contractors to the mainstream of federal contracting. It takes the form of a deal between the Defense Innovation Unit and the General Services Administration. The GSA is in the midst of moving about a dozen such companies from DIU's prototype roster to the GSA Multiple Award Schedules program. At the ACT-IAC emerging technology conference in Cambridge, Maryland, Federal News Network's Tom Temin got the details from the GSA's senior technology advisor, Sam Navarro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices