CBP lays out goals for Air and Marine Operations

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

In today’s Top Federal Headlines, Custom and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations has published Vision 2025, which explains where the unit is headed and what new techniques they are using.

• Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations has released a publication to show what direction it’s headed. Vision 2025 lays out AMO’s role in protecting the homeland and how it’s dealing with new threats to the border. The publication also provides how AMO will gauge its effectiveness in the years to come. (Customs and Border Protection)

• Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are concerned with how the Office of Personnel Management is notifying cyber breach victims who will need to re-enroll in ID protection services at the end of the month. They’re worried the transition may cause confusion and want to know how OPM plans to notify everyone. (House Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• Former Navy Surgeon General Michael Cowan thinks Congress may be meddling too much in military health care. Cowan said the Defense Health Agency is making tremendous progress on bettering health care for military families and new proposed fees from Congress would only shift the burden of TRICARE costs to service members and their families. (Federal News Radio)

• The Veterans Affairs Department has turned to a cloud broker to help improve how it delivers services to vets. VA awarded a four-year, $73 million contract to CSRA of Falls Church to help it manage cloud computing. VA uses several cloud providers plus its own data centers. CSRA will act as a broker among them. The idea is to find the best place from which to deliver each of VA’s online health benefits and other services. (CSRA)

• The Air Force tries to streamline IT procurement by connecting vendors directly with end users. CIO Lt. Gen. Bill Bender said the standard procurement system doesn’t work for items like network monitoring software. He said he’s working to convince the contracting workforce to try a different way to meet users’ requirements. (Federal News Radio)

• A milestone for the U.S. Air Force: Enlisted personnel flying their first solo missions. Since the Air Force became a separate military service in 1947, only officers have been allowed to fly aircraft. But two enlisted personnel flew solo on trainer planes in Pueblo, Colorado last week. They’re the first trainees in a program to let enlisted airmen fly unmanned aircraft in order to relieve the strain on the service’s overworked drone force. But according to Air Force policy, even drone pilots need to learn to fly traditional airplanes. The two pilots and 10 of their colleagues still face months of additional training before the Air Force decides whether to expand the program. (Federal News Radio)

• Vet are getting some help from the Agriculture Department. Not soldiers, though — veterinarians. USDA awarded over $4 million to 48 of them to help repay their student loans, in return for serving in areas where there are shortages. The recipients committed to practicing at least three years in a designated area. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

• The Homeland Security Department will put out a new research study on mobile security by the end of the year. The study reviews major threats, defenses and gaps in the mobile space plus ideas for agencies to boost mobile security in the future. The DHS Science and Technology Directorate said the study should be out Dec. 16.

• The White House has chosen the next group for its leadership development program. A senior executive in the research and development office at NASA Langley and a director of the Army’s common operating environment for systems are among the 15 GS-15s who make up the second class of the White House Leadership Development Fellows. The administration recently named the new up-in-coming leaders. The fellows serve a one-year rotation to work on high visibility, cross-agency projects. Their goal is to build their skills, create governmentwide collaboration networks and learn best practices on their way to becoming enterprise leaders. (The White House)

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