Acquisition

  • The General Services Administration plans to have draft governmentwide policies for reusing and recycling used electronics by the end of this fiscal year. Kevin Kampschroer, deputy senior sustainability official for GSA, announced the agency's efforts at the release of the updated national strategy for sustainable electronics.

    August 04, 2014
  • For the first time in nearly a decade, the government earned an 'A' for meeting its small business contracting goals. That's 23 percent of contracting dollars across the government. NASA got the equivalent of an 'A+'. Nearly 30 percent of its contracts went to small and disadvantaged businesses. How did they do it? Glenn Delgado is associate administrator of NASA's Office of Small Business Programs. He told Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive that the commitment starts at the top.

    August 04, 2014
  • The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has just awarded one of the biggest multiple award contracts of any civilian agency. It selected 15 companies to participate in the five-year program that could run as high as $7 billion. Bloomberg Government Quantitative Analyst Duncan Amos is tracking developments closely. He joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss the new contract.

    August 04, 2014
  • USASpending.gov was supposed to be the go-to place for all federal spending. But after a couple of years of operation, it's only halfway there. The Government Accountability Office finds that agencies do a decent job of reporting contract spending. But when it comes to grants and awards, it's another story. Carol Cha is the director of information technology acquisition management issues at the GAO. She joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss the chief findings from her agency's audit.

    August 04, 2014
  • The Justice Department announced Friday that Hewlett-Packard Co. will pay $32.5 million due to allegations of overcharging the U.S. Postal Service.

    August 04, 2014
  • A Government Accountability Office probe of USASpending.gov, the government's awards website, found that while contracting information was generally correct, only 2-to-7 percent of awards listed on the site perfectly matched agency data. GAO recommended better record keeping policies be set by the Office of Management and Budget to avoid inconsistencies.

    August 04, 2014
  • For the first time since 2005, the government awarded at least 23 percent of all prime contracts to small businesses. The Small Business Administration reported Friday small firms received $83 billion out of a possible $355 billion in 2013.

    August 04, 2014
  • President Barack Obama signed an executive order Thursday creating yet another set of compliance requirements for more than 24,000 companies that work for the government. Vendors will have to certify they have not violated any of the 14 federal labor laws in order to win new contracts.

    August 01, 2014
  • The Army says the alternative and renewable energy industry should not look to the military as a giant source of investment capital for new technologies. But there are a few exceptions to that rule.

    August 01, 2014
  • Carolyn Watts Colvin, the nominee to be Social Security Administration commissioner, vowed to Senate lawmakers to soothe turbulent relations between the agency and its labor unions. Colvin also said she plans to tackle troubled IT systems that still run COBOL.

    August 01, 2014
  • Sonny Hashmi issued a memo requiring agency software developers to look at open source before they consider traditional commercial solutions.

    July 31, 2014
  • President Obama is renewing and expanding a policy that will let the government pay its contractors faster. Contractors will get to pay their subcontractors faster, too. The White House says QuickPay has generated more than a billion dollars for small businesses, freeing up their capital to invest and hire employees. For how this is playing out at the ground level, Tom Temin and Emily Kopp spoke with Necole Parker, principal and CEO of the Elocen Group, on the Federal Drive. She described how QuickPay has benefited her company.

    July 31, 2014
  • Service's latest strategy document sees a future in which it will need to be more flexible and adaptable, including in its acquisition and personnel policies and organizational structures.

    July 31, 2014
  • Sonny Hashmi, chief information officer at the General Services Administration, joins Federal News Radio for a free online chat to discuss everything from mobility to zero-based budgeting and collaboration, among other topics.

    July 31, 2014