Monday federal headlines – June 8, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows each day. Our headlines are updated twice per day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — with the latest news affecting federal employees and contractors.

• Federal employees whose personal information may have been compromised in a cyber attack will receive notifications starting today. Emails or letters will arrive from the Office of Personnel Management. Look for emails from OPMCIO@CSID.com. Cyber experts advise feds to change their user names and passwords on online accounts and to be careful about broadcasting your whereabouts on social media. ABC News reports, officials are worried about loss of data from SF-86 forms, because they contain information about friends and co-workers. (Federal News Radio)
• The recent cyber attack against the Office of Personnel Management looks like part of a year-long coordinated effort to steal federal employee and contractors’ personal data. That’s according to a warning issued last month by the Homeland Security Department. It warned agencies about a series of nine cyber incidents starting in July 2014. It gave agencies 30 days to fix their most critical cyber vulnerabilities. The U.S Computer Emergency Readiness Team said the theft of bulk data about people demonstrates a high level of sophistication. Now the White House has ordered DHS to accelerate the installation of Einstein 3A software in the 52 largest agencies. The network intrusion software is to be in place by the end of 2016, two years ahead of its original schedule. (Federal News Radio)
• A watchdog found the Social Security Administration overpaid nearly half of the people receiving disability benefits over the last decade. The overpayments total $17 billion. Some payments went to people who earn too much money to qualify for benefits. Others went to those who are no longer disabled. The inspector general said payments also went to people who had died or were in prison. SSA insists it has a high accuracy rate for disability payments. In 2013, only 0.2 of payments were overpayments. (Federal News Radio)
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave itself low marks on its mission for overseeing automobile safety. The Wall Street Journal reports, an internal report said the agency failed in its oversight of General Motors and defective ignition switches that resulted in the deaths of 100 people. Its reports said the agency didn’t hold the company accountable for providing incomplete or wrong information about the switches. Mark Rosekind was confirmed as the director of NHTSA in December. He’s asked for an extra $89 million to hire more investigators. A group of three outside safety experts will monitor a series of reforms the agency plans to make so it can better respond to car defects. (NHTSA)
• The Veterans Affairs Department has a plan to finish its Denver hospital. Secretary Bob McDonald asked Congress for authority to move $150 million from VA’s existing budget to the construction project. VA also asked Congress to extend authorization for the project to more than $1.6 billion — a $775 million increase over the current authorization. The agency called its mistakes on the construction project “inexcusable.” It plans to expand its relationship with the Army Corps of Engineers, using the corps as the construction agent for several future medical facilities. (VA)
• The Senate passed a bill to change retirement benefits for federal law enforcement officers. The bill gets rid of a 10 percent penalty on withdrawals from the Thrift Savings Plan if an officer retires after age 50. The measure applies to law enforcement officers, firefighters and air traffic controllers who are all eligible to retire at age 50 with 20 years of service. The House passed the bill last month, but will have to pass it again with the Senate’s amendments. The American Federation of Government calls the bill “a huge victory.” (PR News Wire)
• The Postal Service can’t make higher postage prices permanent, according to an appeals court. The Postal Regulatory Commission allowed a 3-cent increase on first class mail to take effect last year, bringing prices to 49 cents. That was to help the Postal Service recover money lost during the recession. But the commission set a cap on how much revenue could be made through the rate hike. USPS will lift that hike this summer. (Federal News Radio)
• A robot from South Korea won first prize in a contest sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Robots built by teams in the United States won the second and third prizes. In all, 23 teams from around the world participated in the DARPA Robotics Challenges in Los Angeles. Some 10,000 spectators watched as robots performed tasks related to disaster response and recovery. Robots walked through rubble, turned valves, used tools to cut holes into walls and climbed stairs. The winning U.S. teams were from the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida and from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Its robot is known as CHIMP, for CMH Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform. (DoD)

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