Fridays this summer we’re taking a look at the federal workers nominated for the annual Service to America medal, a prestigious career-achievement award. In today’s Sammies segment, Congress might be hyper partisan, but its investigative arm works hard to deliver facts that are thorough and impartial. From TARP to the Dodd-Frank law, Orice Williams Brown makes sure Congress gets the whole story on financial regulations.

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Medicare has a $44 billion problem: improper payments, many of them to fraudsters. Now, just like in the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is trying to predict the crime and stop it before it even happens.

Related Interview: Federal Drive Interviews — April 11, 2013 (Kay Daly)

President Barack Obama has nominated three judges to fill vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Legal scholars say it’s the most important court in the nation after the Supreme Court. Democrats say the judges are needed for the workload. Republicans say the White House is packing a court that’s ruled against it. Charles Tiefer, former deputy general counsel to the House and now a law professor at the University of Baltimore, explains why he thinks the judges are needed.

A Supreme Court ruling offers a lesson to any federal worker who puts insurance and benefits forms off for some other day. In Hillman v Maretta, the first and second wives of federal employee Warren Hillman each claimed they should get the money from their late husband’s insurance policy. The court sided with wife number one, even though that marriage ended decades ago. Why? Her name was on the beneficiary form. What does this mean for you?

Did your mother ever tell you: don’t waste food? If only she knew. Americans toss out 133 billion pounds or a third of the world’s food supply each year. Now the Agriculture Department and the EPA have launched the U.S. Food Waste Challenge. They are calling on everyone in the food supply chain to join the effort.