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• The Army is preparing leaders of the future to better understand and address climate change. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment is working with West Point to create a new Sustainable Infrastructure, Resilience and Climate Consortium. The academy will offer a new concentration of study that focuses on climate change. The collaboration will expand course development at West Point and include prominent leaders as speakers. Courses will cover the security implications of climate change, energy, water, resilience and sustainability as they impact the Army’s readiness and modernization efforts.

• The State Department has tapped a DoD executive to be its new chief information officer. Dr. Kelly Fletcher, the principal deputy CIO at the Defense Department, is moving to Foggy Bottom from the Pentagon. She will take over as the State Department CIO next week. Fletcher replaces Keith Jones, who left in June after about 18 months on the job. Fletcher has worked in DoD’s CIO office for the last year, first as the acting CIO and later as the principal deputy CIO. She is now the third State Department CIO not to have previous experience at the agency. Fletcher inherits an IT budget of $2.5 billion. (Federal News Network)

• Three agencies have won a total of $35 million from the Technology Modernization Fund Board to address long-standing cyber and transformation challenges. HUD becomes the fourth agency to receive funding to implement GSA’s login.gov services. OPM received its second award from the TMF. This one is for a $6 million update to the front and back ends that run its website. And the Army received a loan of $15.5 million to improve the cybersecurity of its operational technology at its organic industrial bases, which manufacture equipment, vehicles and ammunition. Since 2018, the TMF Board has made a total of 32 awards worth more than $530 million. (Federal News Network)

• The Office of Personnel Management is trying to make it easier for feds to get their COVID-19 booster shots. Federal employees will get up to four hours of administrative leave to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot. The leave covers the time it takes to travel to the vaccination site, receive the dose and then return to work. Agencies are also required to offer leave to employees accompanying a family member to get their vaccine doses. If employees have an adverse reaction to the vaccine, they can take two additional days off to recover.

• A recent survey indicates women remain underrepresented in some federal leadership positions across the government, comprising about 39% of workers in the Senior Executive Service, and about 27% of employees in Congress. The survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service also finds that women in federal leadership roles more-often-than-men underrate themselves on performance metrics.

• A whistleblower said hundreds of FBI employees left the agency without a final ruling in misconduct investigations. The Justice Department found 665 FBI employees under investigation for misconduct retired or left before a final determination in the case. That is according to documents obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who said many of the cases are regarding sexual misconduct. The documents revealed senior FBI employees faced lighter penalties than other employees for similar misconduct. The FBI said it can’t legally stop someone from resigning or retiring prior to the end of an investigation,  but is taking the matter seriously. (Federal News Network)

• The IRS is rounding up alleged tax cheats outside the U.S. through a new initiative. The agency’s criminal investigation team, working with other federal agencies and foreign partners, said it has located 79 criminal fugitives in Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Eight of them have been apprehended and now face criminal proceedings and sentencing. Mexico changed its tax laws in 2020 making tax evasion a felony offense that allows for extradition back to the U.S.

• The Transportation Security Administration is aiming to speed up technology adoption. The TSA will soon release an innovation doctrine to help drive its business processes and respond to emerging threats. TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency is also adopting open standards for its security screening systems. “We think that this will ensure that we’re future-proof to a large degree and that when we see a threat develop, we can rapidly put a technology solution in place using software upgrades to existing technology,” Pekoske said. he added that he wants to shorten the acquisition timeline for emerging technologies to as little as 60 days. (Federal News Network)

• House lawmakers have questions about a new program at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. In a letter to CISA Director Jen Easterly, Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee raisee questions about the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative. CISA established the JCDC last August to bring together cyber defenders across the public and private sectors. Lawmakers want to know how many CISA staffers work on the program, what kind of support CISA offers to JCDC partners, and the criteria for admitting new members.

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