• Air Force General David Allvin will become the next Air Force Chief of Staff, if confirmed by the Senate. He will replace Gen. CQ Brown, who is set to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Allvin currently serves as vice chief of staff for the Air Force and previously served as commander of NATO Air Training Command in Afghanistan.
  (President Biden announces nomination of Gen. David Allvin to serve as Air Force Chief of Staff - White House)
• Pressure is building on DoD to provide better answers for why it ended the MyTravel program. House Oversight and Accountability Committee lawmakers are giving Pentagon officials until Friday to provide details and documents on the MyTravel program. That's nearly two extra weeks since the initial deadline. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) specifically wants DoD to provide the unredacted justification and approval for the sole-source contract DoD awarded to SAP Concur in 2021. At a hearing yesterday, Mace and other committee members grew increasingly frustrated at DoD's lack of cooperation to explain why it abruptly cancelled the MyTravel program. Mace opened the door to a possible subpoena. "In fact, I think this failure to adopt this new travel system stems from the lack of management accountability within DoD," Mace said.
  (Hearing - House Oversight and Accountability Committee)
• Federal employees have a new tool when navigating online retirement accounts. Three new videos released by the Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday aim to address registration, accessing and linking accounts on Login.gov and resetting online retirement services accounts. OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said the goal is to make this transition for federal employees “as easy as possible.” OPM has increased efforts to make the retirement preparation process seamless. In May, OPM made a retirement quick guide, a three-page document aimed at providing regularly updated information including potential wait times for interim and first annuity payments. Last month, the agency, which serves 2.2 million federal employees, announced that pending retirement claims hit a six-year low, but remained above the goal of 13,000 pending claims.
  (‘As easy as possible’: OPM’s new tutorials aim to help retiring feds and improve customer experience - Federal News Network)
• The Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification effort takes a step forward. The Defense Department sent the CMMC rulemaking package to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs this week. It took DoD 18 months to develop the revised CMMC rules and coordinate them throughout the Pentagon. But it is hardly the end of the CMMC saga. OIRA has up to 90 days to review the contractor cybersecurity rules before DoD can publish a notice in the Federal Register. And even after a public comment period is complete, DoD officials have said they are not planning to include CMMC requirements in contracts until the fall of 2024.
  (FISMA reform bill moves forward in Senate, while CMMC goes to White House review - Federal News Network )

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

• Thousands more federal employees are eligible to get vision and dental benefits from the government's health insurance program. Both seasonal and temporary feds, as well as postal workers, will now be able to enroll themselves and their family members in the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP). The program, often coupled with the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, includes roughly 20 dental-plan options and 10 vision-plan options. Between postal employees, seasonal workers and other groups, the Office of Personnel Management's final rule this week extends FEDVIP coverage to nearly 200,000 personnel.
  (FEDVIP extension of eligibility to certain employees on temporary appointments and seasonal and intermittent schedules - Office of Personnel Management)
• Feds at the Justice Department are urging senior leadership not to increase employees' time spent in the office. The DoJ Gender Equality Network (DoJ GEN), in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, raised concerns about the department’s plan to propose a new policy increasing in-person work. The department's tentative plans come in response to the Office of Management and Budget's recent memo to agencies, which told them to start decreasing telework after the pandemic. Plenty of other agencies have already announced plans to bump up required days per week in the office, with many changes taking effect this fall.
  (Letter concerning increase to in-person work - Department of Justice Gender Equality Network)
• Public companies will have to comply with new cyber rules adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. The SEC rules require public companies to disclose to investors any material cybersecurity breaches within four days. Delays are permitted in the event of serious national security or public safety risks. The rules also require companies to disclose, on an annual basis, information regarding their cyber risk management, strategy and governance. The new rules are among the most sweeping cyber requirements ever imposed by the Wall Street regulator.
  (SEC adopts rules on cybersecurity risk Management, strategy, governance, and incident disclosure by public companies - SEC)
• President Joe Biden has tapped former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley as the next administrator of the Social Security Administration. Biden nominated O'Malley yesterday, citing his track record in improving the efficiency of government during his time as governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore. If confirmed, O'Malley would face a depleting trust fund, experts said, that will be unable to pay 100% of Social Security benefits to recipients in about 10 years, if no corrective action is taken.
  (Biden chooses former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley to lead the Social Security Administration - Federal News Network)
• The Justice Department proposed a new rule that will increase the accessibility of online public services for people with disabilities. The rule would establish accessibility and technical standards to web-based services for state and local governments. Such standards would help governments meet their obligations to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), by ensuring they provide equal access to services, programs and activities for people with disabilities. Examples of required standards include adding text descriptions of images, captions on videos and enabling navigation via keyboard instead of a mouse. The Biden-Harris administration announced the rule just before the 33rd anniversary of the ADA.
  ( Biden-⁠Harris Administration Works to Make it Easier for People with Disabilities to Access Public Services Online - White House)
• The departments of Defense and Commerce will work together to strengthen the semiconductor defense industrial base. The two agencies signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to increase information sharing and to coordinate on CHIPS Act incentive programs. The MOA will focus on investment priorities of the DoD and each military service, along with existing and planned investments to sustain mature and legacy chip capabilities. The MOA will facilitate collaboration on potential investment applications to ensure Commerce and the Pentagon make complementary decisions to maximize federal investments.
  (Department of Commerce and Department of Defense sign memorandum of agreement to strengthen defense industrial base - DoD)
• The Office of Management and Budget will soon establish a new governmentwide body to help bring more consistency to grants and other financial assistance programs. OMB's Deputy Controller Deirdre Harrison said the Council for Financial Assistance will help identify areas where agencies need to improve in how they deliver grants. The council also will help re-energize the implementation of the GREAT Act, which became law in December 2020. Harrison said OMB will also be releasing new guidance in the coming months with additional deadlines and requirements under this law, which aims to simplify the federal grant reporting process.
  (OMB update session - AGA conference)

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