Defense

  • This week, the Senate confirmed a new deputy secretary of Defense, four more prospective DoD officials underwent their confirmation hearings, and the White House settled on candidates for two more Pentagon political appointees. But 30 of the department's political jobs still have no nominees.

    July 20, 2017
  • Slowly but surely, the Trump Administration’s Pentagon team is continuing to take shape. The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Patrick Shanahan as deputy secretary of Defense, the White House nominated one more official to serve in a key undersecretary position, and four more Pentagon nominees went to Capitol Hill for their confirmation hearings. Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu updates Federal Drive with Tom Temin on where things stand.

    July 19, 2017
  • The Defense Department's Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit Experimental needs more money and DoD is coming to the rescue.

    July 18, 2017
  • The top two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are floating a proposal that would finally allow another round of military base closures several years from now. Here's how it would work.

    July 18, 2017
  • Steve Battista, group lead at MITRE, joins host John Gilroy on this week's Federal Tech Talk to discuss cybersecurity and a new set of services that allows for the sharing of information on cyber threats. July 18, 2017

    July 17, 2017
  • Defense Secretary Mattis is reviewing the chief innovation officer position after his predecessor moved full speed ahead on it.

    July 17, 2017
  • Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama is teaming with AT&T to use internet of things and smart city technologies to make the base run more smoothly. Federal News Radio’s Scott Maucione spoke with AT&T Air Force Client Executive Vice President Rocky Thurston and Maxwell’s 42nd Mission Support Group Commander Col. Don Lewis on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the updates.

    July 17, 2017
  • The Army's Office of Energy Initiatives is the service's central hub for managing the financing and planning for "utility scale" renewable and alternative energy projects. Michael McGhee, OEI's executive director, talks with Jared Serbu about some of the major projects in the pipeline, and the Army's desire to use the power they generate to make its bases energy-independent.

    July 14, 2017
  • A bill authorizing $696 billion in spending for the Defense Department, raising military pay by 2.4 percent for service members and creating a new branch of the military for space operations passed the House by a vote of 344–81. The bill authorizes enough funds to go head-to-head with sequestration as it makes a return in 2018 unless a budget deal is reached.

    July 14, 2017
  • Over the past five years, the Army has been busily building renewable power facilities on its bases in order to reach an overall goal of 1 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025. But now, the Army is putting more of an emphasis on using that energy to make its bases entirely self-sufficient from the public electric grid, so they can continue to function in the event of an outage. Michael McGhee, executive director of the Army Office of Energy Initiatives, talked with Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the technologies the Army’s pursuing to make that a reality.

    July 13, 2017
  • New legislative proposals from the Defense Department try to streamline the acquisition system, but do they compromise oversight?

    July 12, 2017
  • Richard Spencer and his favorite business theory sailed through a July 11 Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing.

    July 11, 2017
  • The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently saw one of its longtime employees off into retirement. Steve Lavie, had a long career working on a nuclear submarine in the Navy then at nuclear power plants on the East Coast and finally at the NRC. But when he enlisted in the Navy, he was just a few credits shy of receiving his college degree. His NRC colleagues saw to it that Lavie still had a chance to experience a college commencement, before his retirement this summer. Lavie tells his story to Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

    July 11, 2017
  • Representatives already submitted their amendments to the House Rules Committee for the bill and Federal News Radio compiled a list of the amendments you should watch when they get to the floor.

    July 10, 2017