Federal Drive with Tom Temin

The annual end-of-year buying rush might be a bit more pronounced than usual this year. Budget uncertainty is running higher than ever. One technique lots of agencies use near the end of a fiscal year is reverse auctions. Joe Jordan, former federal procurement policy executive and now CEO of FedBid, gives Federal Drive with Tom Temin a status update.

When Congress returns from its August recess next week, it faces a heavy agenda. The budget and the looming debt ceiling top the list of things to do. But will members get bogged down with items like the population of Statuary Hall with just a few days to go? For our September curtain opener, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Roll Call Senior Editor David Hawkings.

Allegations about Kaspersky Lab and its connections to the Russian government have brought the spotlight on the federal IT supply chain over the last couple of months. But the latest issue is really just part of a long-term effort to better secure the federal technology agencies are buying. In his weekly feature, the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller writes about how the federal supply chain risk management effort is coming together across several initiatives. He discusses it on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Over the course of 12 years, a group of security employees at the Navy's largest public shipyard amassed a stockpile of weapons and vehicles, ostensibly to protect the facility against terrorist attacks. But investigators said the entire enterprise amounted to an unauthorized police force, and wasted at least $21 million. Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu shares the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

In Defense terms, operating military bands doesn't take a major outlay of money or personnel. But they can be a visible sign of both military pride and waste. That's why the chairmen of both the House and Senate armed services committees wanted a look at how well they define and live up to their own missions. Andrew Von Ah, acting director of physical infrastructure issues at the Government Accountability Office, has more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Nuclear, aerospace, cyber and bio technology have given the U.S. an enduring advantage in national security. But the edge is going away. Greg Allen, a fellow in the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin that the next wave in national security superiority will come from something that's been talked about for decades but is only now coming into its own artificial intelligence.

Could a BRAC (base realignment and closure) be in the future for civilian agencies? It's unlikely, but not totally out of the question. While agencies' final reform plans are due to the Office of Management and Budget by September, they'll still need to address the details of their respective plans ahead of the fiscal 2019 budget and former agency executives have a few ideas. Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets more from Federal News Radio's Meredith Somers.

For the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the effort to restructure itself is no exercise in workforce reduction. HUD political appointees say they understand the real impact on morale moving senior executives or offering buyouts could have. David Eagles, chief operating officer of HUD, tells Executive Editor Jason Miller in an exclusive interview that the department has spent a lot of time trying to mitigate concerns around personnel changes.

Bringing federal agencies together to save money by sharing administrative services, that's a lot like herding cats. But somebody's gotta do it. Beth Angerman, executive director of the Unified Shared Services Management Office at the General Services Administration, took on the task with gusto, establishing a rigorous decision-making mechanism agencies can use when making the move to shared services. And she's a finalist in this year's Service to America Medals Program. She joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Floods do billions of dollars in damage and hardship every year. One way to mitigate flood damage and loss of life is earlier warnings. Now the Homeland Security Department's Science and Technology Directorate is working on technologies to enable earlier flood warnings than is now possible. Program Manager David Alexander shares the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Senior executives at the Interior Department say recent reassignments have demoralized the SES corps and agency leadership has done little to involve them in planning for a coming reorganization. Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko has more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin

It has a miniscule budget of $3 million. The Obama administration considered merging it with some other agency, and now the Trump administration is considering closing the State Department's Office of Global Criminal Justice. Supporters say the office symbolizes the U.S. commitment to human rights. Opponents say the whole operation is hypocritical because it overlooks abuses by allies. For analysis, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Ambassador Clint Williamson, now a law professor at Arizona State University.

When it comes to airborne missions, the military is not the only one doing dangerous work. The Forest Service uses planes in wildfire suppression. The specs for one such plane landed the agency in the thicket of a protest. But it stuck to its position for why it favored its original contractor over the protestor. Federal Drive with Tom Temin learns more about this case from procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo of Petrillo and Powell.

The National Archives Information Security Oversight Office released new data on the federal classification system. It showed agencies declassified about 47 percent of the pages it reviewed. What does this mean? In an interview with Federal News Radios Meredith Somers Oversight Office Director Mark Bradley talks declassification debates secrecy reform and what he'd like to see for the 2017 report on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

After just a few days on the job, the Armys new chief information officer has a stark diagnosis: The network the Army has is not the network it needs. But the effort to draw a precise map of the Army's IT future is still a work in progress. Federal News Radios Jared Serbu has more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.