• The Department of Homeland Security is one step closer to a new headquarters for its cybersecurity agency. DHS and the General Services Administration tapped Clark Construction to build a new home for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It’ll cost about half a billion dollars to construct the building. It’s the first project to move forward at the DHS Saint Elizabeths Campus under the most recent master plan. The DHS campus is the largest federal construction project since the Pentagon, and has been in the works for more than a decade.
  (GSA awards construction contract for CISA headquarters on the St. Elizabeths West Campus - General Services Administration)
• Bill Streilein, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s first chief technology officer, is leaving federal service to return back to academia. Streilein played a pivotal role in getting the chief technology office within CDAO off the ground. In his role, Streilein was responsible for guiding and overseeing the development and implementation of data, analytics and artificial intelligence initiatives across the Defense Department. He also played a key part in guiding the DoD’s approach to generative AI. Streilein will return back to MIT Lincoln Labs at the end of the summer.
  (First CDAO chief technology officer to exit Pentagon - LinkedIn)
• Unreimbursed moving expenses include temporary lodging, rental vehicles, as well as utility and security deposits. Military families say the reimbursement processes are difficult to navigate — about 70% of respondents file reimbursement claims once they reach their duty stations. About 43% of military families report waiting for up to two months to get their money back after filing a claim. Service members and their families also struggle to find housing due to long waiting lists, which makes families rely on temporary lodging for up to two months.
  (PCS moves leave military families with out-of pocket expenses - Federal News Network)
• The Government Accountability Office denied the protest of ICF over GSA's decision to award the task order for the operation, maintenance and modernization of its ASSIST platform to General Dynamics-IT. GAO found ICF, the incumbent vendor, failed to win any of its five arguments for why it should've won the seven-year deal with a value of $309 million dollars. GSA, which awarded the contract to GD-IT in April, plans to modernize the ASSIST platform which is a GSA-owned business system that delivers a standardized, compliant, integrated and streamlined experience to the delivery and management of interagency assisted acquisitions.
  (Protest decision of GSA's contract for ASSIST - GAO)

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

• The Small Business Administration is kicking off its five-year review of small business size standards this summer. SBA said in its latest semi-regulatory agenda that it will release two notices of proposed rulemaking in the coming weeks to begin the process to adjust both the employee-and revenue-based size standards for small firms. The agency reviews these size standards every five years as required under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. SBA will determine industry-specific size standards for firms in more than a thousand industrial classifications under the 2017 North American Industry Classification System or NAICS [NAYKS] code. The new size standards are set to be in place for fiscal 2025.
  (SBA's semi-regulatory agenda - Federal Register)
• The Commerce Department is pouring more money into advanced U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Commerce last week announced a $1.6 billion-dollar deal with Texas Instruments. The agreement would bolster the company’s plan to build three new semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Texas and Utah. The funding is part of the 20-22 CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to spur more domestic semiconductor and electronics manufacturing.
  (Biden-Harris administration announces preliminary terms with Texas Instruments - Commerce Department)
• The FHFA said it will adopt least-privilege principles and make other cyber improvements following a critical inspector general report. The auditors relied on penetration testing and found many FHFA security controls were ineffective. The IG says it was able to gain unfettered access to the agency’s systems. FHFA agreed to implement the report’s 22 recommendations.
  (FHFA’s security controls were not effective to protect Its network and systems against internal threats - FHFA OIG)
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development is an extreme case. It plans to eliminate up to 60% of its total office space footprint by 20-38. The Energy Department expects to offload about 3 million square feet of space over the next three years. The Office of Management and Budget said this downsizing is possible with federal employees showing up to the office about 60% of their workdays. That hybrid schedule gives agencies an opportunity to reevaluate their office space needs, and shed excess leased and government-owned real estate that’s underutilized.
  (Agencies to shed ‘considerable’ amount of office space in coming years - Federal News Network )

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