Friday federal headlines – March 18, 2016

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive.

• Congress is joining a federal agency in calling for deeper reforms to a service that affects hundreds of thousands of federal employees every day. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), while praising Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld, said entrenched Metrorail managers should be dismissed. He said they let safety problems with cables go on too long. The Federal Transit Administration took on safety oversight of Metro last October. It’s issued several directives. (WTOP)

• The Postal Service is delivering mail to Cuba for the first time since the Cold War.  The first batch left the United States Wednesday. Among the cards and letters: A note from President Barack Obama to one 76-year-old Cuban national in anticipation of his visit this weekend. (White House)

• House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) called for Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy’s resignation on Thursday. He said the EPA delayed an update to the Safe Drinking Act. The agency may have bigger problems on its hands. A USA Today investigation found problematic lead levels over the past four years in the water of schools and daycare centers in 42 states. One school in Maine with lead levels 41 times higher than the EPA limit. (USA Today)

• A group of senators back a bill to give federal employees their largest pay raise in six years. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduced the bill. It calls for a 5.3 percent pay raise. The House version was introduced in February by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). President Obama proposed a 1.6 percent pay raise for 2017. Federal union leaders and others said that’s not enough to cover years of 0 or 1 percent raises. (Federal News Radio)

• Deputy federal chief information officer Lisa Schlosser will be the new acting CIO at the Office of Personnel Management. It’s a short-term assignment. She’ll also serve as a senior adviser. Homeland Security Deputy CIO Margie Graves will fill Schlosser’s roll at the Office of Management and Budget in the interim. Schlosser is expected to work on improving the agency’s IT systems and the federal hiring process for IT executives. The Former OPM CIO Donna Seymour resigned in February under pressure from Congress over the data breach that impacted 22 million current and former federal employees. (Federal News Radio)

• The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is taking a closer look at how the Transportation Security Administration is moving its employees between workplaces. TSA’s Office of Human Capital put the brakes on the agency’s pending requests to involuntarily relocate employees. All Directed Reassignments currently in process will be halted, reviewed, and possibly returned to the program office for further action. (Federal News Radio)

• The Homeland Security Department has met a key legislative goal to share cyber threat data with the private sector. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson certified this capability yesterday at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center. DHS had 90 days since the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, became law to get this automated threat sharing capability up and running. Johnson said he’s pushed DHS to do more to protect federal and private sector networks from cyber attacks since he became Secretary in 2013. (Federal News Radio)

• About 90 percent of agencies say they’ll meet the Dec. 31 deadline to manage all temporary and permanent email electronically. But the National Archives and Records Administration is putting out a new tool to help agencies measure how well they’re meeting those requirements in the next few weeks. About 80 percent of agencies said they’re teaching their career executives about records management to prepare for the upcoming presidential transition. (Federal News Radio)

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.