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• The deadline for the Army’s reserve components to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is this week. But tens of thousands of soldiers are still unvaccinated. Data obtained by the Associated Press says there are still 40,000 Army National Guard members who are unvaccinated. The Pentagon has previously said those soldiers won’t be allowed to participate in federal training exercises or deployments. At least 14,000 reserve component soldiers have flatly refused the vaccine. (Federal News Network)

• A former Army pilot admitted he sold aviation information to representatives of the Chinese government while working as a cleared defense contractor. Shapour Moinian pleaded guilty to federal charges that he acted as a representative of a foreign government and lied on national security background checks. The Justice Department says Moinian sold information about aircraft designed or manufactured in the United States. He faces up to 10 years in prison for acting as an agent of China, and up to five years for making false statements.

• Four people were arrested Thursday for allegedly participating in a health care fraud scheme that robbed Amtrak’s health care plan of at least $9 million. That’s according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. The defendants are accused of recruiting Amtrak employees to participate by offering cash kickbacks in exchange for the employees allowing the defendants to use their patient and insurance information. The defendants then allegedly used this information to fraudulently bill Amtrak’s health care plan. They were released on a $200,000 unsecured bond.

• A former registered nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs pleaded guilty to stealing or embezzling authentic COVID-19 vaccine cards from a VA hospital in Michigan. The Justice Department says she used lot numbers from the COVID vaccines the hospital received to make the cards seem legitimate. Prosecutors say she started selling the cards as early as May 2021, for up to $200 each. The VA inspector general’s office investigated the case, along with VA Police and the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

• Congress is getting a closer look at the cost of the Veterans Affairs Department’s new Electronic Health Record. President Joe Biden signs the VA Electronic Health Record Transparency Act into law. The legislation from Senate VA Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) requires the VA to submit quarterly reports to Congress about the cost of its ongoing EHR rollout. The first report is due to the House and Senate VA committees in 90 days. The VA recently pushed four of this year’s EHR go-live dates to next year, following a draft inspector general report claimed more than a 100 cases of patient harm at the site of the first EHR go-live.

• House appropriators advance a bill calling for more spending transparency, funding for federal interns and much more. In a vote of 31 to 22 along party lines, the House Appropriations Committee advances a spending bill for financial services and general government. The legislation includes $100 million for the Technology Modernization Fund and an additional 100 million for electric fleet vehicles at the General Services Administration. Another $70.9 million would go to the Office of Personnel Management. That’s out of a total of $29.8 billion under the bill an increase of $4.3 billion over the 2022 bill’s level.

• House appropriators also pass the Homeland Security Department’s funding bill. In a vote of 32 to 25, the House Appropriations Committee advances DHS’s spending bill for fiscal 2023. The bill would provide a total of $60.3 billion to the department. That’s a $2.7 billion dollar increase over the enacted funding level for 2022. The spending bill includes a new pay system for Transportation Security Administration employees that’s equivalent to similar federal jobs in other agencies. It also adds investments to enhance the department’s cybersecurity infrastructure.

• The State Department kicked off its Acq-X program. A central tenet of the State Department’s new strategic plan is to create a holistic acquisition experience, known as Acq-X. One of the first steps in that effort is to develop a single web-based, procurement forecasting application for industry. State issued a request for information detailing its modular plan for that forecasting tool that includes an award for a minimum viable product for up to $350,000. In the RFI, State is asking vendors for feedback on nine questions about the statement of objectives, the timeline for the MVP and an estimate of total cost to develop and support the forecasting too. Responses to the RFI are due by July 8.

• The Postal Service performs better during its peak mailing season this fiscal year compared to FY 2021. A partially redacted audit from the Government Accountability Office says the Postal Service increased service performance for the peak mailing season — from November to January — in fiscal 2022 by 12 percentage points for First-Class Mail, by 10 percentage points for Marketing Mail, and by 14 percentage points for Periodicals. Even though total mail volume process increased year over year, package volume decreased by 12%.

• The Labor Department is getting on the digital transformation office bandwagon. It is joining agencies like the FDA in hiring a director of digital transformation to lead its new office. This senior executive service position will oversee Labor’s effort around the executive order on customer experience and improving service delivery through technology. The director will lead the to modernize Labor’s citizen services and work across the government to improve the user experience. Labor is accepting applications for the director of digital transformation role through July 14.

• The Interior Department announced 65 programs to be part of the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to deliver drive more benefits of climate change mitigation efforts to disadvantaged communities. Justice40 is an environmental justice initiative introduced under last year’s Executive Order to Tackle the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, using federal procurement and other agency authorities. The Interior programs include existing efforts and new ones instigated by the president’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Examples include the Seeds for Success Program, Water-SMART and abandoned mine reclamation programs.

• The Justice Department is preparing to help agencies resolve any questions about their authority in providing reproductive care. DOJ tells agencies they may continue providing reproductive health services to the extent that it’s authorized under federal law. The Justice Department announcement comes after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday in a vote of 6-3. Attorney General Merrick Garland says he and DOJ are working to protect federal employees who provide reproductive services that are allowed under federal law.

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