We all saw the devastation from the wildfires in Maui. One federal agency that plays a big role in helping people get their lives back together is the Small Business Administration. SBA is currently in the process of giving out millions in Disaster Assistance loans for those impacted by the Maui wildfires. Federal Drive Executive Producer Eric White spoke to Francisco Sánchez Jr., the Associate Administrator in SBA's Office of Disaster Recovery & Resilience.
In today's Federal Newscast: Half of America's federal wildland firefighters say they will quit if their temporary pay raise is not made permanent. The State Department has measurably picked up the pace for issuing passports. And a high-ranking DoD official has been charged with facilitating a dog-fighting ring.
To the surprise of just about everybody, the Federal Government is fully functional this Monday, October 2, 2023. Some surprise last-minute votes in both the House and Senate on Saturday happened just in time to get a continuing resolution (CR)to the president’s desk – just hours before much of the government was set to run out of appropriations.
The National Archives doesn’t hang on to every document the government generates – only the 5% or so that are deemed to have “continuing value”. But that’s still billions of pages of text, plus all kinds of other media, from maps to electronic records. There’s a new official in charge of figuring out how to preserve and present those records to the public.
Every public institution needs an outside, independent look from time to time to make sure it's meeting its mission with integrity. But if you’re they biggest and most trusted government auditing organization in the country, who audits you? It turns out it is teams from other countries.
In today's Federal Newscast: The National Archives has issued a new guidance to ensure agencies properly manage federal records created on so-called collaboration platforms. The VA expands its burial benefits to families transporting veterans remains to state or tribal veterans' cemeteries. And the Interior Department will no longer buy or sell single-use plastic products.
A new contract awarded to Discseel® Technologies by the Veterans Affairs Department, tasks the company with training physicians to perform a new, non-surgical spine procedure - to all Department of Defense and V.A. hospitals in the United States and overseas. For more on what is called the Discseel procedure, Federal Drive Executive Producer spoke to its creator, Dr. Kevin Pauza, who is also Chief Medical Adviser and Director of Discseel® Technologies.
Recently, MITRE and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the Open-Sourced Extension of MITRE's Caldera platform, specifically for operational technology. This is meant to be utilized by security teams to run automated adversary emulation exercises that are specifically focused on threats to operational technology.