Former Texas congressman indicted on fraud charges

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, former representative Steve Stockman and a director from his office are indicted of using charitable funds on his campaign and personal expenses.

• A former Texas congressman and a director from his office have been accused of stealing money from charities after an assistant pleaded guilty to his involvement. According to the Justice Department, former Rep. Stephen Stockman (R-Texas) and his office’s director of special projects Jason Posey used charitable donations Stockman solicited for to finance his campaign and personal expenses. (Department of Justice)

• Only 8 percent of federal employees said they’re fully confident in their agencies’ talent management systems. That’s according to a survey of more than 300 current federal employees from the Government Business Council and Management Concepts. But current and former human capital experts said budget cuts, an upcoming government reorganization, and attrition could mean change is coming. (Federal News Radio)

• Lots of federal employees will have to think differently as a result of two presidential actions. Contracting officers won’t have to focus on reports about contractor labor law violations. That’s because Congress has nullified, and President Trump agreed to void a sweeping rule imposed by the Obama administration in 2014. The other shoe dropped on the Obama-era clean power plan from the EPA. Climate change and social costs become smaller considerations in environmental rule-making. (White House)

• The Air Force made 54,000 hiring freeze exemptions between Jan. 23 and the end of March. The exceptions are for everything from childcare to cyber to depot maintenance. The Air Force said the hiring freeze has been a challenge and is putting more burden on airmen. (Federal News Radio)

• The Transportation Security Administration has a new partnership with the American Public University System. TSA picked APU to offer academic courses to as many as 20,000 TSA employees at 147 airports across the country. They’ll cut the time it takes to earn a TSA Certificate from 18 months to 11. TSA employees can enroll starting in September. (PRNewswire)

• The Department of Homeland Security told federal agencies to improve their cybersecurity. Congress first gave DHS the authority to order other agencies to make cybersecurity improvements in 2014, but that power has been used sparingly. The two latest binding operational directives were issued in the final months of the Obama administration. One ordered agencies to apply urgent security patches to widely-deployed Cisco network appliances that were highly vulnerable to a bug that could have let hackers take them over. A second put new procedures in place for agencies to report cyber incidents to DHS and OMB.

• Members of the House subcommittee on information technology want a status update on cybersecurity guidance for agencies. In a letter to OMB director Mick Mulvaney, the lawmakers ask whether the guidance for cybersecurity requirements for federal acquisition is in development. OMB had said it would release the guidance after the public feedback period ended in 2015. (House Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• Good and bad news for a key system at USPTO. The Commerce Department’s inspector general has found a host of cyber vulnerabilities in the Patent and Trademark Office’s networks. These range from cloud providers who didn’t meet governmentwide cyber standards under the FedRAMP program to more than 100 open and unauthorized ports and services. But five months after auditors finished their research, PTO IT executives report many of the problems have been fixed. For instance, PTO told the IG its cloud provider received authorization from FedRAMP. PTO said it does quarterly vulnerability scans of its cloud providers and has an auto-discovery tool to find all devices connected to its network. (Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General)

• A bill calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve passes through committee. MarketWatch reports the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approves the measure by voice vote. Similar legislation has been stalled in the past due to lack of support from Democrats in the Senate and the Obama administration, analysts said it has a better chance this time. (MarketWatch)

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