Federal Newscast

EPA’s chief financial officer is stepping down

In today's Federal Newscast, after just over a year into the job, Holly Greaves is leaving the EPA.

Eric White@FEDERALNEWSCAST

September 5, 2019 9:32 am

4 min read

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Holly Greaves, the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief financial officer, has stepped down just over a year into the job. Greaves worked as a senior manager for professional services network KPMG before serving as the CFO since last March. Wednesday marked her last day in the position. Deputy CFO David Bloom will serve as EPA’s acting CFO. Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, in an all-hands email, thanked Greaves for her role in maintaining a 19-year streak of clean audit opinions.

With Hurricane Dorian hitting the southeastern U.S., the Defense Department is relaxing its health care referral procedures in the area. Many of the area’s military treatment facilities are closed, so the Defense Health Agency said TRICARE beneficiaries who live in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida will be allowed to see providers in any location without a referral. The policy waiver is in place until Oct. 1. (TRICARE)

FEMA has deployed more than 4,000 federal first responders to assist residents of the Carolinas as they recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian. Acting Administrator Pete Gaynor said that doesn’t include more than 6,000 national guardsmen and FEMA’s partnerships with the Red Cross and other public sector power companies to restore electrical lines. (Federal Emergency Management Association)

Anne Neuberger, the new director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, laid out her three priorities as the new organization moves toward initial operating capability on Oct. 1. Speaking at the Billington Cybersecurity Conference, Neuberger said she is focused on unifying the organization, focusing on the hardest cybersecurity problems and enhancing collaboration across the public and private sectors. She said by concentrating on these areas, NSA will bring offensive and defense capabilities closer together, and share threat analyses and offer more tactical intelligence to partners.

The latest version of the Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification is out for public comment. DoD said the entire defense industrial base will need to get certified at one of the five levels of the new model, in order to continue doing business with the Pentagon. It’s part of an ongoing effort to level-set some 300,000 defense contractors with consistent cybersecurity standards, and eventually gain a better look at the DoD supply chain. DoD said the model will start to appear in contracting language next summer. (Department of Defense)

The Pentagon has released the list of military construction projects it will cut in order to fund sections of the president’s proposed border wall. The deferred projects are largely outside the continental U.S. Of the $3.6 billion total, $700 million comes out of planned construction in U.S. territories, and another $1.8 billion comes from projects on overseas bases. Pentagon officials are now asking Congress to add additional funding to the military construction budget to backfill the money taken away from those projects, but they acknowledge it’ll be an uphill battle. (Federal News Network)

The IRS’ procurement shop is looking at robotic process automation as a way to tackle more work with fewer employees. Harrison Smith, IRS’ deputy chief procurement officer, said his office has seen its fourth-quarter workload increase by 10% over the past five years. In the same period its procurement workforce decreased by 40%. The agency is testing a new way to experiment with RPA tools, called Pilot IRS, that allows the agency to quickly pull funding on project that don’t show results. (Federal News Network)

The Department of Veterans Affairs is partnering with the Labor Department and U.S. Interagency Council of Homelessness to expand a reintegration program for veterans. The agencies collectively awarded $48 million in grants to community organizations through the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program. Recent legislation expanded the program to include homeless veterans, recently incarcerated veterans or anyone eligible through the HUD-VASH voucher program. The reintegration program gives veterans job training, transportation, and professional training to help them find jobs. Labor and VA said they’re training employees and grantees on how to administer the program. (Department of Veterans Affairs)

The FBI and components of the Department of Homeland Security watch closely a legal development that could hinder their operations. A federal judge rules unconstitutional the government’s main terrorism watch list. U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga decided the Terrorist Screening Database fails to give people on it a fair chance to challenge their designation. The suit was brought on behalf of two dozen Americans who are Muslims and who suspect they are on the list. The FBI maintains the widely-used list. Nothing changes immediately because the judge hadn’t yet imposed remedies. (Associated Press)